Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 49. Keegan-Michael Key: Schmigadon't Think Twice

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

In 2015 Mike filmed “Don’t Think Twice” where Keegan-Michael Key played a guy who got cast on a fictional version of SNL. This year Keegan hosted the *actual* SNL in a delightful case of life imitating art imitating life. Today Keegan and Mike nerd out about live sketches vs. filmed Key and Peele sketches, the wisdom of Robert Deniro, and how Keegan seems to be able to do anything, including his most recent role in the new musical comedy series Schmigadoon! https://rfkhumanrights.org/

Hey, everybody. We are back with a new episode of Working It Out. I am your host, Mike Birbiglia, and I am working it out with different guests and creators each week. I got some big, exciting news. I'm on a tour. I'm going to Cape Cod Melody Tent, which is the place I first saw stand-up comedy as a teenager.

I'm going to be in New Haven and Philadelphia and Bloomington, Indiana and Chicago and just Denver. We just added a show in Milwaukee because so many people were reaching out about that. Austin, Texas, Boston, all of it's on Burbiggis.com, and you can join my mailing list because that's the best way to find out about this stuff. Also, the paperback of the new one book that I wrote with my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein, comes out on paperback on September 7th, and I'm doing one of my virtual shows that I very rarely do, but they were so, so fun. I'm doing it on September 10th for all of the purchasers of the paperback that week. If you get it at your local indie bookstore.

And so if you go to a local indie bookstore, tell them to message me from their bookstore account. Message me at Burbiggs on Instagram. And I'm going to try to get a lot of local bookstores involved. You know, it doesn't cost them anything. It's just to have a fun virtual show for all of our Working It Out friends. Today we have one of my favorite people, one of my favorite performers, and favorite collaborators of all time, Keegan-Michael Key. Keegan-Michael Key is part of the legendary sketch comedy duo Key & Peele. He is an Emmy Award-winning performer, actor. He was in my film, Don't Think Twice, which is now on Hulu.

And he is in a new series that I love. It's a musical series on Apple Plus called Schmigadoon. It's so funny. It's so joyous. It's with him and Cecily Strong. I can't say enough about it. We really get into it today. I've been waiting to do this one for a long time.

Enjoy my conversation. Keegan-Michael Key. So first of all, we have so much history, so there's a lot to unpack. A lot of fun stuff to unpack. However, what's funny is we actually met at the once ever and only NBC Comedy Awards. The American Comedy Awards. The American Comedy Awards. NBC. Key and Peele won for Best Direction in a Comedy Series, Peter Atencio.

Oh, good. That's right. And so I went up to you and Jordan and I i go i'm mike i love your show bye you know so my how annoying is that on a scale of one to ten just the just the blindsided by compliments and then the person leaves it's a straight hit and run you were just like a hit and run it was like yeah yeah i remember that, I remember that night. I remember that night because it was in, it wasn't in the battery.

We were like. It was something like that. It was one of those big. I keep saying like Hammersmith. It was Hammerstein Ballroom. Hammerstein Ballroom. That's where it was. And I remember Jordan and I did like,

we did an Obama Luther thing. We performed an Obama Luther thing. And I remember Jordan, Jordan performed admirably because he did not have his glasses and he did not have contacts. And he was struggling with the prompter, but nobody would have known. It was great. It was really, he did. Wow.

Wait, so he usually uses prompter and is sort of reading off of it. did those obama luther pieces always a prompter just so we could get through that part of the day quicker because every day on key and peel you're shooting two i think the number ended up being two to 2.3 scenes a day so that one you always knew oh one setup keegan's gonna run run around like a madman and we have a prompter so let's lock it and just get it done. So you can get that done like two hours or less so that you could go get into Egyptian Tutankhamen makeup or Roman gladiator or, you know, army commando and whatever, whatever the other scene was going to be. Yeah. That's amazing. So to bring people into this, this is,

of course, a very famous Obama translator sketch that was made famous on uh by you and your partner jordan on campiel and i believe i want to say you did it either at the white house correspondence i did like something you did it for obama i did it and the interesting thing is i did it with obama for obama no way obama that's what it was crazy is that i i and i said to jordan I was talking to one of Obama's, um, uh, speechwriters and he's the guy that wrote the, wrote the copy. And he was like, Hey, would you be, would you be interested in doing something where you play Luther at the correspondence dinner? And I'm like, a hundred percent, we've got time, please let's do it.

I want to do it. And so, um, but so he's like, well, let's think up an idea. And my first thought was to have dueling Obamas was to have Jordan here and, you know, have him do his thing while Obama was doing it. And then Jordan to his credit, humbling credit is that he was like, he goes, I don't think I should be in it. He said, I think it mucks up the works. And I went, how do you mean? He goes, I just feel like it's, I think his words were, it's almost like this is the first time in history that a character is coming to life from its actual conceit. Does that make sense? Like, he goes, why should I be there?

You're actually going to be Obama's anger translator for Obama. Like, let's try to keep it as simple as possible. And I was like, okay, whatever you say. And it was sublime. It's one of the greatest moments of my life. It's completely incredible. Of course, it's foreshadowing for Jordan leaving, being in front of the camera.

Right, exactly. I know. He's like, Keegan, maybe I won't be in this one. And I won't be on camera ever again, ever. Or within 600 miles of you. Or within 2,600 miles of you. I mean, and then, yeah, you're right. It's foreshadowed.

What do we know? And in three years' time, he became the black Stanley Kubrick. Oh, my gosh, I know. Unbelievable. I just think he's superb. He's just superb. I couldn't, I was very, very fortunate to have a partner like him for all those years, you know. With your screen chemistry with Jordan, you can just feel that you're friends. You can feel what friendship looks like in a frame.

It's literally, uh, Ian Roberts, one of the founders of the, you know, Upright Citizens Brigade, who was one of our executive producers. We were in an early meeting and we were jumping back and forth and discussing all these things with Comedy Central about what they wanted us to do during the interstitial part of the show. So they're like, OK, when we come back to you guys live on the stage on the home base, can you guys write material about being biracial and write material about how you're friends. And so we started to try to go in that direction. And Jordan was really good about having his antenna up. Like, here's how Keegan reacts to somebody when we're at a restaurant.

Here's how I react to somebody when we're at a restaurant. Now, fortunately for Comedy Central, there was a period of time where Jordan and I lived together. We lived together for about three months. And so we did have some anecdotes about each other's proclivities and all this wonderful stuff. But at the end, it was this chemistry that you were just speaking about. That's what people appreciated. That's what people liked is watching us make each other have a glint in our eye or fill the other one's heart with joy or love.

This blew my mind. When we were working on Don't Think Twice, you would have people come up to you on the street and sometimes they would say, you're the guy from YouTube. Yep. Yep. You're from the sketches on YouTube because they didn't make the connection that it's Comedy Central, that it's a TV series. They were viral YouTube videos from

Key & Peele that people thought you were just friends making videos. That's right. They made up their own narrative for it. I bumped into a girl on the streets of Portland, Oregon, and she was so proud that she had discovered us on YouTube.

She did discover you and Sharon. She did discover us on YouTube. But did discover your unfairness. She did discover us on YouTube. But she actually made up a narrative in her mind. She said, I used to watch you guys

on those YouTube videos before you had your show. Amazing. And I decided, best not, don't, don't, don't correct her.

Don't correct her. Let her have that. I love that. And I'm saying that, but I think I did correct her. But, but, but, because, because at that time, Comedy Central, they were like, what is going on?

I'm like, maybe we don't need to tinker with the narrative. Who cares? Who cares? Doesn't matter. Who cares? We're having fun. Yeah, the way that you speak of each other is so lovingly, and I admire it so much. It's like with the Obama translator sketch and with Key and Peele sketches,

which are so timeless. Like my feeling about that show is that not only is it funny, but it was funny when it came out and it's funny now. And there's so few things that you can say that for in comedy. And I wonder if that is based on anything

that you and Jordan decided as like the rules of the game in terms of creating. No, actually we didn't. That was, that ended up being, the rules of the game were a product of necessity as the mother of invention.

That's because when we knew that we were going to have a 13 week writing process because we really want as jordan would put it i want these scenes to be bulletproof i want us to be able to play around and have fun and improvise but i want them to be bulletproof so at the very least conceptually they should be bulletproof so that we can weave around inside of them have a little bit of space the first season, we barely improvised. I mean, that's all I know.

We barely improvised. Yeah, we were like, let's just try to nail this. And Jordan had a lot of confidence in himself, and he should have, because he was really coming into the height of his powers as a writer, as a sketch writer. Yeah. So when we realized we had 13 weeks of writing and then a month of pre-production before we ever got to the set, anything that we were going to say about the potential of presidential candidates or whatever the case is going to be, we knew would be stale and gone by the time we started shooting it.

And then another five weeks of editing. So it was just by necessity that we had to make as many evergreen scenes as we possibly could and then when we dabbled in politics it was always to attack a larger theme as opposed to rip from the headlines you know it was that so so that's that's the really that's the only way to answer that question is that we had not consciously thought about it before the show. We weren't thinking about it when we wrote the pilot. We started thinking about it afterwards. Once we got into the logistics of everything, we went, oh, man, we can't write a lot of topical stuff.

It's amazing because it's in direct contrast to you hosting SNL this spring, which was amazing also. And thank you, Mike, for being there. It was very, very, it was very special for you to be there. And I'm glad that you could, to have you there in my corner and cheering. Yeah, that it's, well, you were generous enough to invite me.

And it's, of course, this weird life imitating art. Of Don't Think Twice, im this weird life imitating art. Again. Of Don't Think Twice imitating life, imitating art, like, in a weird circle. I mean, I have to say, like, that was one of the best nights of my life. One of the best nights of your life? It was one of the best nights of my life because,

well, because, you know, you work on these movies for years. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Don't Think Twice, you know, it comes out, you know, five years ago, whatever it is, and people see it, and they have a good experience with it, or they don't, and that's it. But the people who make the movie, who wrote the movie, and directed the movie, they spent years on it. I mean, I know people who worked on movies for like nine, ten years

before the movie comes out. Jordan, get out. Get out was an eight-year process for him. And how long was Don't Think Twice of a process for you? It was at least three or four years of writing. And I'm even writing a movie right now that people don't know about

that I've been working on for at least three years. Sure, and that's high school. That's the entire high school life. That's high school. In more ways than one, it's high school. It's high school. In more ways than one, it's high school. It's petty. People call you a loser.

Right, exactly. You're being criticized constantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I say it's like one of my greatest nights in my life is like I grew up on SNL

like you probably did, you know, and I admired it so much and then I did improv, I did up on SNL, like you probably did, you know, and I admired it so much. And then I did improv, I did sketch as an adult and in college. And then I made this movie about how, essentially, life isn't always fair. And sort of one person, your character in the movie, becomes cast on Saturday Night Live. And then the rest of the friends, played by Chris Gethard and Tammy Sager... Kim Coochie and Gillian.

...become... Don't! And it's about what happens in friendships when that happens and people realize that life isn't fair. And so, for me to be with you for essentially, like, a fulfillment of a prophecy in some ways, weirdly...

Yeah! It was... I mean, of course it's not because you're a, you know, you're a sketch comedy icon. So of course you'd be on SNL. And that's why part of the reason I cast you in the first place was one of the key parts of casting that movie was that the person who gets cast on the Saturday Night Live type of show, we called Weekend Live,

had to be good enough to be cast on Saturday Night Live. Right, right. It was, for me, that was a deal breaker. You can't make the movie otherwise. Right, right. Interesting. I don't know if I've ever told you this. I wouldn't have told you this before we shot the movie in terms of being weirdly in your

head or whatever. But I would do readings of that script in my living room with friends. Right, right. Pizza. And like my friend, like, yeah, we'd have pizza and all this stuff and uh and my friend yorma tacone from lonely island who i've been friends with the same many years he goes uh you have to play jack which is keegan's part we became your part you have to play jack i go no no i'm not talented enough to play Jack. We need someone who could do it the same way that when you have someone play a concert pianist,

they need to be either a concert pianist or to be able to fake it so much. Right, right, right, right, right. That you believe it. Right. And I didn't know it was Jorma's idea that you play Jack. I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was, he was like, you can't. It was really funny. He pulled me aside privately after one of the readings and he goes, you can't give this part to somebody. You can't give it to somebody. It's too good.

It's too fun. Basically, he goes, no one's ever going to cast you in this part. Oh, is that his sentiment? Well, even like, yeah, being this sort of leading man and all this kind of stuff. And you've got to give it to yourself. Because as actors, you know, we always are from the position of like, well, if I can play it, then I should play it kind of thing. Right, right. Exactly, yeah.

It's interesting because you're a writer and creator and producer in your own right, and then you're also an actor. And so it must be hard for you sometimes, like you're in Schmigadoon as an actor. You know, you're in countless films and TV shows as an actor, playing House, which I love you in. Oh, it's a lot of fun. Oh, it's so good.

So much fun. And those are works where you have the script, and they want you to hit your mark, and they want you to sing the song, do the lines, etc. And how are you able to compartmentalize those two things or are you able to compartmentalize those two things? I am actually. There are times when the learning curve is gradual and there are times when the learning curve is sudden. So for Schmigadoon, like I just, the project that's out on Apple TV Plus

right now that I'm in, Schmigadoon, which you were a part of. Yeah, I was part of the readings. In the embryonic stages. What's interesting is I, that was a bit of a more gradual process because Cecily Strong and I, who are the leads, were both trained improvisers. And we would improvise during scenes quite often and usually at the end of scenes to the point where we actually gave ourselves a nickname.

We called ourselves the Button Twins because, you know, the button of a scene is the end of a scene. And Cinco Paul, the writer, who's an extremely accomplished writer and a very gifted man, would write a blow to a scene. He would write the end of a scene and like Cinco Paul the writer who's an extremely accomplished writer and a very gifted man um would write a blow to a scene he would write the end of the scene this is going to be the last joke and button and we're done and blackout we move to the next scene and inevitably you could see me incessantly walking off camera walk off camera and still be talking like like I'd say like that's your's your, um, okay. That's on you. I'm like, no, I know it's on me. She goes, no, I'm just making sure, you know, Oh, I'm well aware. Can we just leave? And we know all that's going to be cut, but we couldn't help ourselves. So it was a gradual process. So finally I said to Cinco, I'm here for you. I want to say your words

and, and it took a little bit adjustment. And then you have to kind of, like you said, it's compartmentalizing. It's shutting that door a little bit. So you can move over here and go, okay, what I call it is the Shakespeare door. So you're going to treat this script like it's Shakespeare. You honor the commas and the semicolons and the periods and all the words. And you imbue as much meaning as you can into the words that are there. That's the game you're playing on this project. On this project, you're just picking the flowers. On other projects, you're planting the seeds, you're tilling the soil, you're watering the seeds.

You know what I mean? So that's kind of how I do it. I call it in my brain, I say I call it, I just made up the term. I call it the Shakespeare door, which is you're going to treat this like Shakespeare or you're going to treat it as something that's malleable. Stepping away from my conversation with the great Keegan-Michael Key to send a shout out to the great Helix Mattresses. Oh, looks like somebody's going to be nominated for Segway of the Year. I do love Helix Mattresses.

As you know, I don't endorse things I don't like. It's because I'm a very stubborn, stubborn person, and I don't like getting on here and telling you something's great if it's not great. I'm telling you Helix mattresses are great. That's right. I'm selling mattresses. Go to helixsleep.com slash burbigs. Right now, Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our Working It Out listeners at helixsleep.com slash burbiggs. They were awarded number one best overall mattress pick of 2020 by GQ and Wired Magazine,

and they're going to be number one mattress in your house in 2021. And now back to the show. And now back to the show. So with SNL and Key & Peele, like, they're two sides of the same coin in the sense that they're both sketch comedy and genre. And one of them is we create a whole 70 minutes of live comedy in one week and the other is we are going to carefully uh film and write and craft edit this thing every down to the last moment and it's going to be absolute perfection and what do you like what do you enjoy more and why i actually enjoy i i think mike i can safely say that I enjoy them equally they really are it's apples and unicorns even though but they both live

in the same magical land of course but I think the energy the energy that I constantly crave that I was experiencing on Saturday Night Live is something that would happen

sporadically during Key & Peele. That was the thing is there were days. So in Key & Peele, for example, if there were scenes like the valets, the two valets who park the cars and they stand out in front of the expensive hotel and talk about movies and Liam Neeson's and Bruce Willey and all this stuff. Those were lock off those are what jordan and i uh uh coined we coined a term called peas in a pod scenes or yes lock off p and p's meaning it's gonna be that's so funny small size big size and then the two of us just screwing around for five minutes until peter says cut and when you say small size big says you're just meaning uh it's a basic a basic camera setup of a wide yep and a medium of the exact same shot and so you can do whatever you

want whatever we want run in out of the frame do somersaults in get super close and then every now and again in those sketches we'd say to peter oh i just think maybe in this one moment if we had a medium close-up it'd be great because i think we're going to get our faces really close to each other and then people go oh okay and we would do like one more little sneaky camera in the front that would get a close-up shot but but then there's also a lot of joy mike in scenes where all the comedy is happening on the cuts on the edits that's like schmigadoon is like that that that's very sonnenfeld is like i find the comedy technically technically and um um i love people who exist in that tradition

but again in regard to compartmentalizing you have to you have to be thinking long game when you're doing sketches like that because you have have to go, imagine a Mike Myers movie. You know that Mike Myers is always thinking forward to go, I know what it's going to look like ultimately when it's in the theater. And I think it's going to really make people laugh and crack up, but we have to do it precisely this way now to get it right in the edit. So when, when a viewer sees it, they'll crack up. up whereas with snl it's so seat of your pants it's so it's so frenetic and so high energy and and and and there's part of it is i like the fact that you really don't have a lot of time to question stuff it's it's like gut impulse gut

impulse gut impulse gut impulse and then you have and then next thing you know you're on stage i was amazed when i was because because i was in the audience for your snl hosting and you know we're all in masks and not we're in masks the people who work at rockefeller center are in i don't even know what you'd call it hazmat suits it's like that's it reminded me of the scene in et where they're in, like, it's like medical professionals and they're all in the suits. Yeah, yeah.

Yes! Yes, yes, yes. So the staff of the show is all in that stuff. We're in masks in the audience and you're just playing on stage and I have to say, like,

you know, he's an iconic figure in comedy, but seeing Lorne Michaels, who's been in the game for this many years. Yeah. In the middle of a global pandemic, just walking the floor, producing this show in real time. I was astonished. I was just like, my hat is off to that gentleman. I know.

He really is. He is. He just knows what he's doing it's funny i think people don't know because what what people he's had this part of his resume has been so long and has consumed so much of his life i'm sorry not consumed has been such a big part of his life that we forget he had he had a sketch show a two-man sketch show yeah in canada called lorn and heart he had a partner whose first name was h-a yeah in canada called born in heart he had a partner whose first name was h-a-r-t i think it's heart pomerance or something and the year before they

had their show they were both writers on um laughing wow which is i think amazing talk about iconic sketch shows they were both writers on Laugh-In, and apparently it just didn't fit their sensibilities. They went back home to Canada and had the Lauren and Hart show, which I like looking at these earlier pieces of Lauren's experience because he still does, he knows what's funny. There are times where he'll make a little comment, and you'll go, really?

And then you try it, and you go, oh, it worked, it worked. It worked. Well, that worked, it worked. It worked. Well, that worked, that worked. Yeah, no, that's the biggest thing. I talk to Bill Hader, I talk to, you know, Seth Meyers, is they go, the thing people don't realize about Lorne who are outside of the universe is that he's so funny. He is, yeah, he really is.

He's seen as so serious and this iconic, serious producer, but actually, like, he's a riot. And he even said, we were going through, we were shuffling through scenes up in his office, and he turned to me at one point in time, and he just said, so, Keegan, which one do we want to do? You want to do, we want to do Hollywood Squares, or are we going to do Muppets?

And I said, and he said, because we can go either way. We can go, you know, social commentary here. It's important for the time that we're living. Or really just kind of some silly, stupid shit. And to hear Lorne say the phrase silly, stupid shit. And I went, I really like the Muppet sketch, Lorne. And he goes, hey, look, listen, I'm all for silly, stupid shit. Oh, my God.

And then he ran over to the board and put it on the board. And you wouldn't expect to hear those words come out of that august mouth. You know what I mean? I love that sketch. I got a funny bunch of tweets from that sketch going, is Mike Birbiglia doing the Kermit voice? Did they really? Why would they ever think I'm doing the Kermit voice?

That's my cameo in the episode. I do the Kermit voice? That's my cameo in the episode? I do the Kermit voice? Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here. When I look at your work, it's like you do action movies, you do comedy movies. You're now in Schmigadoon the musical. It's like straight up, and we're friends. Like, I'm curious, like, what can you not do?

I don't think of you as not being able to do anything. Because I'm like, okay, action, comedy, drama, singing and dancing. Like, what else? What cannot you do? What cannot you do? What cannot you do? What cannot you do? Who speaks like this? What cannot?

Keegan, I'm asking you, what cannot you do? What cannot you do? What cannot you do? It's interesting. I have endeavors. Like, there are people who I watch, and I go, I don't want to be just like them but if i could find a way to tap into like organically and truthfully tap into the essence of like i don't want bill murray's career i don't want to be bill murray but there is such an ease that he brings to his work that I would love to bring to my work.

I want to, there's a quality about Bill Murray or Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks now more than when he was younger. When he was younger, he was kind of like a freight train. Sure. And I mean younger, younger. Bachelor. Bosom buddies.

Bosom buddies. Bachelor party. Money pit. And then it all started shifting a little bit when he did punchline right yeah and man with one red shoe there was this kind of energy that this great slapsticky energy that he had but he and bill murray um and brad pitt they all have this i am enough energy that i love yeah that i want to lean into more. This sense of like, I think Marlon Brando had it too. There's this kind of, there has to be, I believe, a supreme confidence within

yourself that makes you go, you know what? I am infinitely interesting. So I don't have to do anything. I can just say these lines and I'm interesting enough that people will watch me. Well, when I was shooting Sleepwalk with me and Carol Kane played my mom, she said, I'm going to give you a piece of advice

that Bill Murray gave me when we worked together years ago, which is, he said, Carol, you're just funny. You're just a funny person, and you don't need to do anything. He just said, is that what he said?

He gave her the De Niro. He gave her the De Niro. Don't, you know, don't, don't do any, don't do anything. I've never heard that as a De Niro. I didn't know that. That's, his big thing, I've heard him that as a De Niro. I didn't know that. That's his big thing. I've heard him say about a film

where there was a lot of natural talking. People were talking over each other. But he didn't enjoy the film. And the reason he didn't enjoy the film was because nobody's listening. Nobody's listening to each other. Oh. The most important thing,

the most important thing is you're listening they should be listening and that's what he's that's his big thing and you'll you'll watch him on reaction shots that's why very often you see deniro in the reaction shots because he's really genuinely listening it's amazing because i was watching someone put on tiktok the scene with you and gillian from don't think twice yeah where she's improvising and saying, I'm in the well. Yes. Just basically leave me in the well and you're both crying. It's very emotional.

But the thing you're describing about listening is so much what makes the scene work. Yes. I think also if you allow yourself to get – if you listen, you will start allowing yourself to get swept away by the given circumstances. Yeah. So I think there's a famous line from Billy Wilder where I think Jack Lemmon maybe told a story about how Billy Wilder would say, that was great. You know, great take. He would come in after the take and he would go, make less of it, you know. And then he'd do it again.

He'd come back, great take. Just make less of it. And then finally, Jack Lemmon says, says, Billy, I feel like I'm not even acting here. And of course he says, exactly. Exactly, right. I might be getting all the names wrong in this story. I might be literally getting every single person incorrect.

However, the sentiment of it is exactly. Right. No, yes, the sentiment is taken. Yes. I am absorbing it. You're the one that taught me from, remember when we were doing Don't Think Twice and you had mentioned something apocryphal about Brando,

that Brando used to just kind of like chat with the crew and just keep chatting with the crew. And they'd say action and he'd keep chatting with the crew and then he'd go from chatting with the crew right into the dialogue. So that there's, yeah. Because the thing is you feel like you're, it's like, I'm just listening to this person

and that's the same, I get that same feeling. I'm not doing anything. But you are, you're listening. It's seemingly contradictory advice, but even there's another famous line from inside the actor's studio that I always think of, which is Al Pacino. They go, what's the best piece of advice

you could give to a young actor? And he goes, know your lines. Know your lines. Know your lines. Know your lines. How dare you upstage me? How dare you upstage me on my own podcast, Keegan? I am sorry, Mike. I was too competitive.

You're going to get SNL. Now you're going to get SNL. I didn't even think once. Let alone Dr. Christmas. Oh, there we are. There we are. There it is. There it is. I'm going to step away from my conversation with Keegan-Michael Key

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So this is a segment we do on the show called the slow round. And one of the questions that we ask is, what's a piece of advice that someone has given to you along the way that you feel like you use all the time? Well, a new piece that's been very helpful for me that I'm working on every day is something I mentioned earlier, which is this sense that you are enough. You're enough.

You are enough. You are enough. And remembering that because otherwise you find yourself in a place where you're performing all the time for other people as opposed to just being the essence of who you are. And that's what really people want to connect with. They want to connect with you, with who you are at your essence as opposed to too much top hat and cane. They don't want to see the top hat, cane, spats, and taps. It's not what they're looking for. That's top hat, cane, spats, and Kane. They don't want to see the Top Hat, Kane, Spats, and Taps. It's not what they're looking for.

That's Top Hat, Kane, Spats, and Taps. One of the best musicals ever from the 1920s. That's a good turn of phrase. So another slow round question is, do you have a smell from childhood, a really bad smell, really good smell, that just sticks with you? Very good smell.

Rocky's, it's called Rocky's Spice Company at Eastern Market in Detroit. Oh, wow. And it's one of these places. It's been there for about 130 years. And you open the front door and it's a big oink, oink, oink, oink, oink. You know, you hear the little bell on the door. Oh, yeah, sure. And just wafting through the air is these gorgeous.

The smell that comes to me most is kind of like cloves and cinnamon mixed together. But then as you walk up and down the aisles of the store and also the creaky floor, but Rocky's Spice Company, oh, just comes to my mind. That's fascinating because to me, a spice seems like a mundane smell, but it must be so pungent that it sticks with you. So powerful because you're walking into, ostensibly, just an enormous room full of bins of spices. Yeah. And you wouldn't expect that. Pure spice.

Pure spice. Pure spice. Old spice. New spice. Fresh new spice fresh scent pro sport scent all of the spices so do you have a memory from childhood that ever is like sort of on a loop in your brain but it's not even a story. It's just something that hits you sometimes. I remember, there is, it's funny. There was, my neighbors, we had frozen some ice. We had like a little ice patch on their driveway. And we were just clowning around. We were kids.

And I remember spinning around. Remember Curly Howard from the Three Stooges? Oh. He'd fall down on his arm and he'd go, and he'd go in circles on his arm. And this ice patch, because you had no purchase, I was just spinning around. And I remember, it pops up in my head occasionally, because I remember it as a moment of pure joy. And as we get older, those moments, unless you really focus on them, can become

very fleeting. And I remember that as being a moment of pure joy, of just spinning around on that little ice patch and just going. And I don't know why that's a benchmark for me. It's funny that it's also

somehow connected to comedy. You know what I mean? It's connected to the Three Stooges. Yeah. Oh, that's right. That's right. It's funny that it's also somehow connected to comedy. You know what I mean? It's connected to the Three Stooges. Yeah. Oh, that's right. That's right. It's connected to the Three Stooges. It's also like when Judd Apatow was on the podcast,

we were talking about the mundane, like in your case, like spinning on ice or noticing the weather or noticing the leaves on the tree, noticing the weather or noticing the leaves on the tree, noticing the birds chirping. Like, it's so almost cliched of a thing to focus on, but actually therein lies being present. Therein lies comedy.

Therein lies, like, so much. Because I know, especially when we were doing Key & Peele and also when I was on MADtv, you know, like, we would come back from summer hiatus. On Key & Peele, we would come back from our winter break because we never had a hiatus. It was like a week, it was like 12 days and then you're right back into the writer's room. Oh, my gosh. Wow. I remember on those summer hiatuses during MADtv, it would be fascinating because when you knew you were about three weeks out from going back to set, your antenna goes up.

And your antenna starts to start, you know what I mean? That's very funny. Like your antenna starts, you go, oh, oh, you have to dust off the antenna because the antenna has to come out and start looking for scene ideas and clash of context all in the mundane. Yeah. And not that it was in easy in any way easy i'm sure it felt like an insurmountable task at times but when you wrote the new one um first of all i never told you this i love the title of the new one because it was one it was it was a way homer for me it yeah it was like it was like a it might have been a month and a half to

two month way homer for me because i saw you do that show twice and it was after both times i saw it that one day i just went oh oh my gosh it's the new baby and the new show which is also a baby the new one and it was so delicious that it hit me that way and the new one is also me and you're the new one you've been transformed to new consciousness the good thing is now is it i'm asking you the question on your podcast yeah that material is it easier to write when it's not mundane when it's a brand new hyper novel thing that's happening to you, that it is to mine something out of a relationship or goofing around with your brother in church. It's a great question.

I actually think I have an easier time writing about my childhood than I do about my present life. And it's because of you're living it with the people still. People ask me this all the time. They're like, how do I write? I want to be a writer. How do I write about these people who are driving me nuts in my life? And how do I make sure they don't kill me?

And it's hard. There's no way around that. If you're going to tell the truth about what's going on in your life, your perception is often like, these people are messing up a lot of stuff. Yeah, exactly. That's the thing. And I think the trick with if it's not too far in your past, if it's in your present, is to always be finding the criticism of yourself at the same time as you're perceiving criticisms of others and giving equal weight to those. Stepping away from my conversation with Keegan-Michael Key

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A lot of the show is about going to the YMCA after avoiding going to the YMCA since childhood because I went a lot as a kid. Right, right. And so I return to the YMCA. I go to that first desk. There's basically three desks at the YMCA. The first desk is just to say, are you sure you meant to walk into the YMCA. The first desk is just to say, are you sure you meant to walk into the YMCA? The goal of the YMCA is to shake you from the YMCA.

The second desk is, sorry, we missed that. Why are you here? And the third desk is swimming. And the third desk is just swimming, right. So that the first desk is just, you're here. Just so you know, just so you know, you're here. The second desk is, welcome. We wanted to make sure you knew you were here and this is where you wanted to be. You want to be at the YMCA, right? Is that where you wanted to be? You're like,

yes, I am at the YMCA. All right. Yeah. They don't even check your card at the first desk. It's just the two's like, how you doing, man? They want to make sure that you know you're not at Juice Generation. Juice Generation. And then there's Swimming Desk. And then maybe there's a universe where it's like there's a fourth desk. I don't even go to that desk. I don't even know what that desk is.

Right, exactly. I think, actually, I think there should be five desks. There should be a fifth desk, which lets you go through a portal to another dimension. You know what I mean? To the YMCA where there is no pool, they only have a gym with hockey, or whatever the case is. Or like, there's a fifth desk, that takes you to New York

Sports Club. Right. Exactly. You're like, it was right there the whole time? It's like a thousand pound desk with no drawers. Right. Exactly. You're like, it was right there the whole time. It's like, it's like a thousand pound desk with no drawers. Right, right. It's just, it's just literally Keegan. It's just a barrier between you and the YMCA. It doesn't do anything. It's like, no purpose, no purpose whatsoever. I love that. I love that. So then I go in and I meet with the head of the swimming department, Vanessa. And she says, where's your swim cap? And I said, oh, I've never worn a swim cap.

True story. She goes, it's mandatory unless you're completely bald. And I said, I don't like how you leaned on the word completely. I'm not even remotely bald. I have four distinct tufts of hair that form a voltron of hair that lies artfully atop my head. A voltron. And this is the one I added recently.

I go, by the way, I've had this hairline since I was 15. I think my hair was like, it's stressful around here. We might need to lay off some strands. I like lay off some strands. Lay off some strands. Lay off some strands. I love that off some strands. Lay off some strands. Lay off some strands. I love that. Oh, my God.

That's good. So Vanessa says, true story, she goes, you can borrow my extra. So then I put on Vanessa's extra swim cap, which is when I became convinced I might be a contestant on a prank show called Vanessa's Extra Swim Cap. Where Vanessa is tasked each week with convincing a different unsuspecting stranger to put on her swim cap. Swim cap. I love, I love, I love,

that's a joke I've never heard. Like, I love the strands thing. It's stressful. Thanks. It's stressful. Meaning like, it's stressful in this workplace. We're going to have to lay off some strands. So then I have,

so I put on the prank show swim cap, and Vanessa says, hop in the instructional lane and show me your stuff. Full disclosure, I have no stuff. I don't really know what I would show you. She said, whatever stroke you have. I thought, the closest thing I have to a stroke is having a stroke. I thought the closest thing I have to a stroke is having a stroke. So I hop in the instructional lane.

It looked like, Keegan, if you threw a blender into a pool. I'm just blending the water as I sink to the bottom. And it was almost like a shark attack with no shark. With no shark. Yeah, just screaming, thrashing, little blood a little a little blood it's funny because it's like this whole section of like talking about swimming yeah it's like it's three different metaphors to be clear it's you got the stroke you got the shark attack no shark and you got the blender and you got the shark attack, no shark, and you got the blender. And I did it on stage the other night.

I was like, they all work. They all work. Sometimes you can do three metaphors at the same time. I love a little blood, though. A little blood coming at the end. Because that's giving me great images. And then something that just occurred to me is instructional lame. It's so funny.

Why would you show her your stuff in the instructional lane yeah that's true shouldn't you show your her stuff in a regular lane right right if you're on the autobahn no right it's like i'm here for the instruction give me the instruction right exactly don't put me in the instructional lane yeah if i knew how to swim why would i swim in the instructional lane that's funny maybe i should yeah that's right there might be something there. Yeah. Yeah, there might be something of like, by virtue of your question of asking me to show me your stuff in the instructional lane, I'm offended that you're not guiding me through this process a little bit more. Exactly.

Right. Yeah. Exactly. It's like, why would you, it seems like this is the lane you should be helping me with. Yes. Oh, I love that. You know, something in that.

Yeah, because you have to treat that, you have to treat the mundane like it's DEF CON 5, right? That's what you have to do. You have to go, you have to obsess about it. It's a little Larry David, isn't it? You have to obsess about, like, why in the world would you call this the instructional lane? Why would you ask me to show you my swimming techniques in the lane where you're supposed to teach me swimming techniques?

You have to almost get outraged about it. So get outraged about the mundane. It's finding a story. What I'm doing sometimes, which I guess it's, i've been doing this more recently than i used to do is when i watch a show like your shows because you're you're you're such a an accomplished and deft monologist that that as you're coming to each new point i'm trying sometimes to guess what you're going to say or guess what the twist is going to be yeah seldom am i right and i'm and i'm delighted by that. Delighted by the fact that I'm seldom right. And then every now and again, you'll put one in there that might be a little easier to follow.

And then the viewer sits back on their laurels for a moment. And then you get me three more times. It's really fantastic. You craft these wonderful rollercoaster rides, comedic rollercoaster rides, and they're beautiful. I appreciate it. I mean, I think that's why, and I think people on the journey of this podcast understand this at this point. We're, you know, about 50 episodes in at this point. And so we're sort of beating the idea to death, this idea of like, stand-up comedians

work on the same piece of material, the same 30-second joke, the same five-minute story for literally years to achieve the exact thing that you're describing, which is that there's a surprise around every corner. Because I feel like if you go to a show, if you go to a comedy show and there isn't a surprise around every corner you go all right now i'm ahead of it exactly and it's the same thing in cinema and in plays and in theater where where a premise is set up and then you kind of go or somebody i learned from somebody years ago uh you have to fulfill your promises so in a mike Birbiglia show, there are some implicit promises and the implicit promises are at one point in time, you're going to go,

I know. That's one implicit promise. And one of the other implicit promises is that you're going to always be a step to two steps ahead of me. You can't be three steps

ahead of somebody. Yeah. Or they can't enjoy the joke because they're not catching up in time. You know what, you know what, Seth, how my my director seth and i describe it similar to what you're saying three one version of is saying three steps ahead another is people always say mike you do so many tangents in your show and i say it's true but my rule with seth and this is why i was asking

you about key and peel if there were any rules, our rule is we don't do a tangent on a tangent. Nice. That's good. Yes. That was a key. That is without having ever articulated it. That is a Key and Peel rule. A Key and Peel rule has always been not a tangent on a tangent. The other big rule that we discovered early, pretty early on was if you start the majority of your scenes at a one in the, in the basis of reality, start at a one, something that everybody gets. Yeah. You can end up at 423, but you can't jump to 423. Do you know what I mean? And you also don't start a sketch at 87. Don't start at 87. Go 1, 12, 36, 87, 143, 290, infinity, Googleplex. You earn the right to go nuts if you start in a place where everybody understands what's happening. It's so funny because that actually reminds me precisely, it reminds me precisely of a thing that Ian Roberts,

who wrote for Key and Peele and produced Key and Peele, taught me and others in an improv workshop in my 20s. And he basically said something similar to what you're saying, which is like, he's like, look, he goes, if there's a rat in your closet, you could just kill the rat. And then you don't have an improv scene. Right, right. Or you could devise a plan. How do we get rid of the rat? And what if we got dynamite?

And how would you rig the dynamite in the floor so that your landlord doesn't know it's happening? And then you're in a scene. Yeah, yeah. Mike Nichols said that drama is a general thing and comedy

is a specific thing. Yes. The reason that I thought of that is because of what Ian said. If you're just discussing suicide, that's dramatic. But if the person decides how they're going to do it logistically, there is a world where that can exist comedically.

So he says, the guy looks for the gun, he finally finds the gun, and then he realized, are you kidding me? I don't have have any bullets so then he's got to go and get in the car then drive to the store to get the bullets but they say here at the store you have a policy where you have to um do this to get the bullet you have to have an id to get the bullets well i can't can i just buy blanks can i just buy the blanks and and then you have a whole negotiation at the store about how to get the book. So once you get into the, again,

once you get into the mundanity of doing it, the comedy emerges. Yeah. It's really, it's fascinating because that's what Ian is saying is there's gotta be a plan. And then what's this? And is there gonna be lumber?

And where the hell do I even buy dynamite? And it's, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Even though the things can be dramatic elements can be dramatic story elements look look at look at one of i think one of the greatest things jordan's ever done for the world of comedy is write the slave auction sketch because it was a challenge for himself how do i make a subject subject matter like this funny

well the key first of all is you don't make the subject matter funny you make them the mundane within the subject matter funny it's a the mundane within the subject matter funny. It's a sketch about vanity more than it's a sketch about slavery. It's a sketch about if somebody – if you and somebody else were standing at Home Depot and one of the employees walked up and then went and asked the first guy what he needed instead of asking you, you would take umbrage. So the thing is whether you're being sold on the slave market, and I'm like, well, what's wrong with me? I'm strong. The fact that he found that angle is absolutely brilliant.

Well, yeah, it's almost like you take these wide-sweeping things, like the slave auction you're saying, and you go like, historically, we've read in history books about how this happens in a very broad, dramatic way that is gut-wrenching, but it's general. And what you and Jordan are saying is basically like, let's get into the specifics of this. What does this feel like? What's the silliness within this insane macro element? Right, that's exactly it. And I think that's a perfect,

I think that sketch is a great example of Mike's point. Yes. It's also a great example of Ian's point. You could just open the door and chuck a trap in there. Yes, that's right. Keith Johnstone would say that too. Keith Johnstone would be really big about that. Like there was a concept that he used called bridging where he didn't want anyone ever to bridge. Bridging was if you came up to a

creek, you appeared at a creek, the creek is about a foot long. You could literally just jump across the creek if you wanted to. But what a lot of young improvisers do is they're afraid to commit to the next moment. So they come to the creek, but then they decide to go back to the trailhead, get in their car, go by lumber, come back, get nails and hammers and build a bridge over the creek instead of just jumping over the creek because what's on the other side of the creek is unknown. They don't want to go to the unknown, you know? You know what's amazing? And we'll wrap up on this, but like what that reminds me of when we were in rehearsal and Liz Allen was teaching you and me improv.

I bring it up because Keith Johnstone wrote this book called Impro about improv. It was a classic improv text. You and I did this scene where either I was a dog or you were a dog. You were the dog and I was the owner. Okay. It's very sad and very dramatic because I was dying. Yeah. I was the dog who was dying and you were,

and this is the key thing about it and sort of what the macro takeaway from it is, I committed to being a dying dog and you committed to being a crying owner. Yep, yep. And we did not go for the jokes. We lived in the thing. And it's, I remember the scene to this day. Me too.

I remember that scene to this day. It to me is one of, it's one of the scenes where I did, I let the given circumstances take me where it wanted to go, as opposed to me wrestling the given circumstances back into a place of comfort. And because I remember you saying, it's going to be okay. It's okay for me to go as opposed to me wrestling the given circumstances back into a place of comfort and because i remember you saying it's gonna be okay it's okay for me to go yeah and oh my gosh and every time i tried to soothe you you stopped me because it gave you pain yeah i couldn't soothe

you through a physical act and yeah and it and it that resonated with me so much i'll never forget that scene i'll never forget that and it of course never forget that scene. And it, of course, echoes loosely the stuff with you and Gillian in the show in hindsight. Mm-hmm. In the film. You're right, Berbix. Because we're letting go of each other, and you and Gillian's character are letting go of each other.

Right, yeah. And there's nothing to be done. There was nothing to be done except that thing. done. There was nothing to be done except that thing. We're going to wrap up on the thing called Working It Out for a Cause, where I'm going to contribute to a nonprofit that you think is doing a good job right now. Yes. Well, here's something. There is a foundation called the L. and Keegan Michael Key Foundation. And what we do is right now we are writing individual hardship grants for people who have been hit hard by the pandemic. And people that are having medical issues and stuff because of the pandemic. And they're trying to get out from under those issues.

That's amazing. I'm going to contribute to them. And I will say, like, when I was working on voting stuff during the election, encouraging people to vote, I dropped you and the whole cast of our movie, a note about it, if anyone wants to be involved with this. And you were 10 steps ahead of me. You had made a video for your college and your high school and all this stuff. You and Al both are just extremely kind and socially conscious people.

I appreciate you as friends. I'm inspired by you as artists. And thanks for coming on the show. Thanks so much, Mike. This was nice. I mean, if this is the way we're going to hang out, I'll take it. We got to make that next movie soon. You got that right, buddy. Let's try to figure, let's try to figure that out.

Don't think, don't think thrice. Don't think thrice. I love it. That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. How about that Keegan-Michael Key? Just one of the most fascinating, smartest, analytical people I've ever encountered. I hope to work with him again many times in the future. You can follow him on Instagram, at Keegan-Michael Key, and watch Schmigadoon on Apple+.

It is a joyous comedy musical ride. Sounds like I'm a reviewer. It is a romp. It is a comedy romp. Our producers of Working It Out are myself, along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Birbiglia. Consulting producer Seth Barish. Sound mix by Kate Balinski. Associate producer Mabel Lewis.

Special thanks to Mike Insiglieri, Mike Berkowitz, as well as Marissa Hurwitz and Josh Upfall. Special thanks, as always, to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. They have new music out right now that you should check out. As always, a very special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein. As I said, our book, The New One, comes out on paperback in September. So support your local bookstore and join us for our virtual event.

As always, a special thanks to my daughter, Una, who created my radio fort. And thanks most of all for you who are listening and writing the little Apple podcast reviews, which is really the best way to tell your friends and even to tell your enemies. Because we're working it out in real time. It's happening right here. See you next time, everybody.