The Magic Behind Coming 2 America’s Appliance Makeups
By Michael Martin
In 1988, Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop, The Nutty Professor) starred in the comedy hit Coming to America, the tale of a young African prince, Akeem, who comes to Queens in America to find his true love. The original was directed by John Landis (Animal House, An American Werewolf in London) based on a story by Murphy. The film also starred Arsenio Hall (The Arsenio Hall Show) as Akeem’s friend Semmi, and James Earl Jones (the Star Wars films, The Lion King) as Akeem’s father, the king of Zamunda. On Akeem’s journey, he meets an array of characters that were portrayed by Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in full appliance makeups. In a classic barbershop scene, Eddie plays both a cantankerous barber and wisecracking elderly Jewish man. Hall was also disguised in makeup as one of the barbers along with a lecherous minister. Finally, Murphy portrayed a puffy-faced sexist lounge singer named Randy Watson. The amazing appliance makeups were created by Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London, Harry and the Hendersons, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) who was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the picture.
Jump To Section
- Mike Marino’s Makeup Effects Idols
- The Prepping Phase for Coming 2 America’s Makeups
- Creating Makeups for the Barber Shop Scene
- Sculpting Eddie Murphy’s “Saul” Makeup
- Making Up Reverend Brown
- Bringing Back Randy Watson
- Breaking Down the Look for Arsenio Hall’s “Baba”
- Photographing the Makeups in Coming 2 America
- Testing Makeups for the Coming to America Sequel
- Mike Marino’s Love for Makeup
- Coming 2 America: A Dream Come True for Mike Marino
- Coming 2 America Makeup Effects Team
(Makeup Artist Mike Marino.)
In the sequel, Coming 2 America, Murphy again stars as Akeem, this time as the king of Zamunda. Now married to his true love from Queens, with three daughters, he must return to America in search of the son he never knew he had. Many of the original cast members returned to play their characters and Eddie and Arsenio also reprised their Queens character roles in full makeup, this time with appliance makeups provided by Mike Marino and his East Coast-based Prosthetic Renaissance studio (Joker, Birdman). Mike talked with SWSCA about the daunting project.
Mike Marino’s Makeup Effects Idols
(A few of Mike Marino's makeup effects idols: Dick Smith, Rick Baker, and Stan Winston.)
Mike’s idols had always been makeup artists such as Dick Smith, Rick Baker, and Stan Winston. In fact, Marino’s mentor was renowned makeup artist Dick Smith (Little Big Man, Ghost Story, The Hunger). So when the Coming 2 America project came along, Mike told the producers that he didn’t want to do the show unless Rick Baker signed off on it. After meetings with Eddie’s assistant and personal makeup artist Vera Steimberg, there came a long email and a phone call from Rick Baker along with his blessing. Thus, Mike Marino took on the herculean task of matching the work of a legend.
The Prepping Phase for Coming 2 America’s Makeups
Mike Marino and Prosthetic Renaissance created six main characters for the Coming to America sequel. The studio conducted what Mike calls ‘crazy research’, collecting tons and tons of images of the original makeups, everything from frame grabs to behind-the-scene photos provided by Paramount. He then surrounded his sculpting area with the pictures. Looking at the makeups and how Rick Baker and his crew had brought them to life, Mike thought, “Oh my God. Now it makes sense.”
(The original sculpts for the Coming 2 America characters surrounded by reference images of Rick Baker's makeups from the first film. Image courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance.)
Creating Makeups for the Barber Shop Scene
(The hilarious barbershop quartet returns in Coming 2 America. Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)
(Arsenio Hall as Semmi and Eddie Murphy as Akeem in Coming 2 America. Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)
In Coming to America, young Akeem and Semmi find themselves in a barbershop filled with joking barbers and customers. There are Clarence and Morris, the barbers (played by Eddie and Arsenio), and the elderly Saul (again, performed by Eddie), along with Clint Smith as Sweets. The makeups and performances are nothing short of amazing. Many viewers at the time didn’t realize that the characters were actually the two comedians in makeup.
(Sculpture of Eddie Murphy as Clarence the barber. Image courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance.)
While the original makeups had been produced in foam latex, the new ones were made of silicone. One of Mike’s suggestions early on was that, instead of simply copying the original characters, the new ones should be made to look older. After all, they’ve been hanging out in that barbershop for thirty-plus years.
One of the other things that Marino realized when researching the original makeups was that Rick Baker had given each of the characters a slightly different signature skin tone to even further differentiate them from one another, creating, “that one little extra thing that makes Eddie and Arsenio different.” For the sequel, Mike and his team stuck to the original skin hues established by Baker.
(Eddie Murphy in the multi-piece silicone appliance makeup for Clarence. Images courtesy Paramount Pictures.)
For the Clarence character performed by Eddie, Mike and his team produced silicone appliances and teeth and, just as in the original film, Eddie wore no contact lenses.
(L-R: Bill Corso, Göran Lundström and Art Sakamoto transform Arsenio Hall into Morris. Image courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance.)
Göran Lundström and Bill Corso applied the second barbershop character Morris, played by Arsenio Hall. The makeup consisted of cheeks connected to a neck, a nose, a chin, an upper lip, a forehead, hairpieces, and a beard. Hall also sported a large set of prosthetic teeth. Art Sakamoto created all of the teeth for the project, duplicating each individual tooth based on the original ones.
(Arsenio Hall made up as Morris along with the original sculpture for his character. Images courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance/Paramount Pictures.)
Mike says Arsenio was really easy to work with, calling him “a great guy," and that making up the comedian was like having a comedy show in the chair every day while he glued pieces on one side and prosthetic makeup artist Göran Lundström applied the other.
Sculpting Eddie Murphy’s “Saul” Makeup
(Eddie Murphy as Saul in Coming 2 America. Image courtesy Paramount Pictures.)
Mike says Saul, the elderly Jewish man, “was to me the most important character” to work on.
For the original makeup, Rick Baker had created a vacuum-formed skull cap that fit over Eddie’s head to press down his two-inch-long hair. Now, Eddie’s head is shaved so that was not needed. Also, Mike points out that in the intervening years since 1988, Eddie’s face had slightly changed, become a little wider with age. Because of these reasons, Mike sculpted a thicker appliance with a wider forehead piece to compensate for the missing skull cap and match the original shape.
(Mike Marino working on the Saul sculpture. Image courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance.)
The artists at Prosthetic Renaissance didn’t want to just randomly sculpt wrinkles on the appliances, so they followed the original wrinkle patterns produced by Baker and incorporated them into the new makeups. To quote Mike, “it was really hard, really, really hard.”
(Eddie Murphy made up as the elderly Saul. Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)
When talking about how the original appliances would naturally wrinkle and fold when the performer moved their face, Mike again compliments Baker’s original makeups. “It was so smart how Rick designed them.” Marino shares that they went through multiple sculpts of chins and remade noses just to match the originals as closely as possible until they felt they had it right. Mike says that when pictures of the 1988 makeups are placed next to the new ones, you can see the actual progression as they have aged.
(From lifecasting Eddie Murphy to sculpture to prosthetic application, the character of Saul comes to life. Images courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance/Paramount Pictures.)
The Saul makeup application on Murphy took four to five hours and consisted of a forehead piece, back of the head, back of the neck, neck, cheeks, a chin, a nose, eyelids, and eye bags. The makeup also featured hand appliances, a wig, and eyebrows. The wig and hairpieces were made by Sylvia Nava and Diana Choi and the eyebrows were done by Choi with some additional styling by Göran Lundström.
Making Up Reverend Brown
(The original sculpture for Reverend Brown and Arsenio Hall in the Prosthetic Renaissance appliance make up. Images courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance/Paramount Pictures.)
The character of Reverend Brown, played by Arsenio Hall, was the first makeup produced by Mike and his studio for the show. For the makeup they sculpted a nose, cheeks, and a full neck appliance. They then added hairpieces and teeth. Mike applied the makeup alongside Göran Lundström.
Bringing Back Randy Watson
(Eddie Murphy as Randy Watson, lead singer of Sexual Chocolate, in all of his glory. Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)
Mike reveals that with Randy Watson, the lead singer of the band Sexual Chocolate, he was aiming for a kind of aging rock star, a sort of late Elvis look. “He kind of has a Rick James thing going on.” To transform Eddie into Randy, they again strove to create an aged likeness of Rick Baker's original makeup, complete with puffy cheeks. To top it off, they chose not to give the character a gray wig, reasoning that the narcissistic Randy would dye his hair black. As Randy, Murphy wore a fat suit which was covered by a jumpsuit costume. Mike adds that all of the characters are wearing some form of fat suit or belly and the Randy character was no exception.
(Great shot of Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in their makeups as Randy Watson and Reverend Brown. Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)
(Arsenio and Eddie watch themselves as Randy and Reverend Brown at the Royal Wedding. Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)
Breaking Down the Look for Arsenio Hall’s “Baba”
(Arsenio Hall as Baba. Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)
The first character makeup seen in the film is a new one played by Arsenio Hall: Baba, the court seer of Zamunda. Mike explains that Eddie’s idea for the new character was based on a witch doctor character he had seen in an old TV Mini-Series called Shaka Zulu. The extremely old Baba required a multi-piece appliance makeup that included a chin, ears, and extremely old hands. “It's a really elaborate makeup.” The makeup went through many revisions and Mike worked with his key artist Mike Fontaine through two major resculpts. Baba wore a stringy white wig made by Izzi Galindo, and contact lenses. They weren’t sure at first if the makeup was going to work but as soon as they saw Arsenio in the test makeup, they were like, “That looks really good.”
(Sculpture of the Baba character and Arsenio Hall in the new makeup. Images courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance/Paramount Pictures.)
Photographing the Makeups in Coming 2 America
In talking to SWSCA, Mike discussed something that is sometimes forgotten by makeup artists. With the new HD technologies, he stresses that it's more important than ever to work closely with both the director and director of photography. He says that on Coming 2 America, both Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow, Empire, Dolemite Is My Name) and DP Joe Williams (72 Hours, Empire) perfectly understood what was being dealt with concerning the makeups. The two were open to working on just a couple of characters a day rather than rushing through multiple makeups and stressing everyone out. He said they planned the schedule really well.
Most importantly, Mike stresses that if it doesn’t work in person, it won’t work on screen. “It has to look as real as you possibly can get it to look in person, every detail, every blood vessel, every edge, every way you make the appliance, everything has to look real in person.” The reason is, “The film cameras have even better lenses than our own eyeballs.” This attention to detail extends to the small things that are sometimes forgotten, little things like putting hair in the nose and ears. In the end, the Coming 2 America makeups required no digital augmentation. The director of photography used just a little bit of filtration when shooting them to match the look and feel of the lighting of the original film.
(The six characters played by Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall that Mike Marino and Prosthetic Renaissance created for Coming 2 America. Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)
Testing Makeups for the Coming to America Sequel
Mike emphasizes that testing makeups is critically important ahead of time, so that when you get to set, everything is ready. There may be a tweak here or there, you may need to adjust some tones, but most of your problems have been fixed in the testing phase. He says this is something he learned from his mentor, Dick Smith. Rick Baker and also Stan Winston, who were all known for insisting on extensive testing phases.
(A look at the staggering number of molds used to create the prosthetic makeups for Coming 2 America. Image courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance.)
Mike Marino’s Love for Makeup
Mike says he loves makeup. He explains that it is very versatile, “…because you can change lighting and change angles, something not always possible with CG.” In his opinion, Makeup is not going away and has a place at the creative table. “I think we are proving that it has the weight to stay around.” He adds that it's important not to look at the makeup as a product or a prop, but as a means to create characters, which he says, is a view similar to Stan Winston’s.
Coming 2 America: A Dream Come True for Mike Marino
For Mike Marino, Coming 2 America was a dream come true. Mike shares that once Eddie and Arsenio started having their makeups applied, their voices would change and they would start becoming those characters. Not only is Mike a Rick Baker freak, but he is also a huge Eddie Murphy fan. He remembers the very first time that he took a lifecast of Eddie, which was in fact the first time that he met Murphy, they were all listening to a classic Richard Pryor routine and it was like being at a comedy show. “It was so amazing. Just so strange and beautiful and kind of poetic in a way.”
(Mike Marino touching up the Saul makeup on Eddie Murphy. Image courtesy of Mike Marino/Prosthetic Renaissance.)
Mike Marino and Prosthetic Renaissance’s work will next be seen in the upcoming The Batman where they will be turning Colin Farrell (In Bruges, True Detective) into The Penguin. You can see Mike and his team’s fantastic appliance makeups right now in Coming 2 America which is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Follow Mike Marino and Prosthetic Renaissance on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prorenfx
Coming 2 America Makeup Effects Team
Character Makeup Designer
Mike Marino
Special Thanks to
Rick Baker
Special Character Makeup Artists
Mike Fontaine
Göran Lundström
William Corso
Additional Prosthetic Makeup Artists
Crystal Jurado
Rich Krusell
Character Wigs by
Diana Choi
Additional Wigmakers
Sylvia Nava
Desiree Carpenter
Character Dental Prosthetic Designer
Yoichi Art Sakamoto
Mike Marino’s Prosthetic Renaissance Effects Crew
Production Coordinator
Lisa Lustmann
Silicone Department Supervisor
Trent Taft
Mold Supervisors
Manny Lemus
Izzi Galindo
Moldmakers
Brian Van Dorn
Conor McCullagh
Shinya Hamano
Scotty Wallace
Olivia Legun
Christalla Philippou
Lauren Tirpak
Val Kole
Kelsey Waldmann
Madison Burger
Catrina Grieco
Tiffanylee Adorno
Lily Li
Ernest Fayose
Chris Conover
Billy Abeel
SPFX Lenses
Kevin Carter