Rick Baker’s work on Coming to America

Blaine: Eddie Murphy had written the script for a movie called “Coming to America”, and he had his “Trading Places” director, John Landis, be in charge of bringing it to life. Landis had the idea of Eddie playing the Jewish character who hangs around the barbershop, and Eddie Murphy thought it was impossible. Eddie loves playing different characters, he would play all sorts of characters on “Saturday Night Live,” but transforming into someone who’s looks are completely different from your own felt like it couldn’t be done. John Landis believed it could be achieved and he knew the guy who could make it happen was makeup artist Rick Baker, his good friend of 15 years. Rick Baker was the one who helped bring John Landis’ vision of the werewolf to life for “An American Werewolf in London”, and Landis knew if Rick could do that then he could transform Eddie Murphy into a Jew. Rick Baker was best known for making monsters and creatures like werewolves, and Bigfoot. For “Coming to America”, Rick wasn’t transforming Eddie Murphy into a creature, but a different person.

Rick Baker did a test for the makeup, and he managed to pull it off. By the time he was finished, Eddie Murphy didn’t look like himself. Rick had transformed Eddie into someone else. The studio didn’t recognize Eddie Murphy when John Landis showed them the work Rick had done. Eddie Murphy really got into the character, and was having too good of a time with those prosthetics applied on him.

There was two other characters Eddie Murphy played in “Coming to America”, and the studio told John Landis that he wanted these characters to look like Eddie. Eddie Murphy would also play a barber character, and a singer. The work that was put into those characters wasn’t as impressive as the Jewish character. That was the only character in “Coming to America” where the actor was completely transformed. Rick Baker’s work on the Jewish character got him nominated for an Oscar, but he lost to “Beetlejuice.”

Eddie Murphy made Rick Baker his number 1 makeup artist. Every time Eddie Murphy was doing a job where he would have to wear makeup prosthetics, he would always recommend Rick Baker to do the job. The movies they did together after “Coming to America” were “The Nutty Professor,” “Life,” and “Norbit."