"And then for something light and fluffy I would have to say Trading Places (laughing). Hilarious. Light, and fun, and hilarious, and a lot of laughs. I had to throw one comedy in there. I remember the first time I saw it — I don’t remember exactly where I was; I was young — I think the first time I saw Trading Places I was 15 years old, 16 years old, something like that. Eddie Murphy was just in his comedic prime; I think he came off Saturday Night Live not long before that. It’s absolutely a great premise and really funny, really enjoyable. I just loved it."

"Trading Places. Like most people, I don’t love the ending of the movie on the train with the gorilla costume, but I feel like even with that, it’s still a nearly perfect movie. What is it about that movie? Well, there’s a few things. For starters, when I was a kid, I watched Saturday Night Live from a very young age. I was obsessed with Eddie Murphy, and I don’t know why. He captured my imagination. I loved his energy, and he was always such an uninhibited performer on Saturday Night Live, and then later in his movies. I feel like Trading Places is a phenomenal performance by Eddie Murphy as he goes through this kind of metamorphosis, but also, it’s just an insanely funny movie. This image of Dan Aykroyd in a Santa suit, pulling a salmon steak out of his suit, which he’s hid, and he hid a salmon steak in his suit and stole it and ran out in the street, starts eating it, and he’s pulling his Santa beard hair out of the fish while he’s eating it because it’s all getting mashed… It’s genius. So, the physical comedy, the dialogue comedy is top-notch, but also, I think thematically it’s a piece of social satire that I’d love to see more of. I feel like it’s really what storytelling is at its best, where it’s kind of pointing out some social ills. In this case, it’s inequality, it’s corrupt influence, it’s corrupt power, it’s racial tension, racial disparity. It’s all baked into this hilarious comedy, and if you’re paying attention, you’re hopefully maybe learning a little something as well, or it’s just kind of seeping under the laughs, which is the best stuff. Dan Aykroyd’s character kind of… His performance is so great because it goes from really broad and silly to ultimately very humble and human, and it’s kind of like he and Eddie Murphy are playing these characters that have really great arcs that sort of crisscross right in the middle, right? It gets weirdly poignant, and as soon as it’s poignant, then Clarence Beeks will throw someone down on the pavement and just this explosion of physical comedy, and you’re laughing again."

"Coming to America. Duh. We [can] leave it at that. I’ll start with the “duh” connotation. It’s an awesome movie. I can’t exactly remember the first time I saw it. I think I was really, really young, when it came on television — I think when it came on HBO or something. I don’t know that I was old enough to see it in the theaters. I doubt it. When I did see it at home, it was when cable first came out. There was only so many movies that would get played over and over again. Thank God Coming to America was one of them. I can quote it from the beginning to the end to this day. It was Eddie Murphy in his prime. Arsenio at his most confident. It was just an awesome concept. Super duper rich African dudes coming to Queens, trying to live regular. While you got Mr. McDowell thinking that he’s the king of the hill and stuff like that. It was a really funny movie. So much character work. I really appreciated those dudes –especially in the end credits, seeing how many characters they really played. I already kinda knew. But it was an awesome surprise to find out that Eddie was the little old man in the barbershop and stuff like that."

"Coming to America. It kind of gave me the same feeling of pride and just feeling good about myself that Black Panther did, seeing this sort of regal, black royalty, excellence. Now, they had to hide it and disguise that in comedy which is so often in our culture and in the movie business for a long time. But there were so many lines that you can just quote and appearances from actors you didn’t even realize that were in it, like Cuba Gooding, Jr. to Jake Steinfeld. “The Queen to Be,” you know, there are so many lines. And the characters that Eddie Murphy played… They were caricatures, I guess, but it seemed like the performances were layered, actually. It was very much a comedy, but it wasn’t over the top. If they ever remade it, I would be opposed to it. That’s one of those movies that you have to leave alone."