The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 94: Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele
Episode Date: April 26, 2016HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons talks to Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele about their new film, 'Keanu'; writing comedy sketches (20:00); the state of edgy improv (37:00); and impersonating Presi...dent Obama (53:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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And three other housecleaning things I want to mention before we get to Key & Peele.
First, the second episode of After the Throne starts streaming on HBO Now at midnight PT on Sunday night.
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We've also been posting additional Game of Thrones content and NBA playoffs content on our Facebook
page. Check that out. Facebook.com slash Ringer. Some good stuff on there. And third, last but not
least, we have a title and a date for my new HBO show. It's called Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons.
And it premieres June 22nd on HBO.
One more time.
Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons.
June 22nd, 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Because that's in the title, so it has to be Wednesday.
And it's going to be on HBO.
That is right after the NBA Finals ends and right before the NBA Draft.
So I think it's a pretty safe bet we'll be talking about the NBA in that first show.
Very, very excited.
There's been a lot of work and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears going into this thing.
We're excited to finally have something to show you and to officially really be part of HBO.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And now, without further ado,
Key and Peele, let's roll.
Yeah.
Clearing off for you.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Well, this is exciting.
All right.
Keegan-Michael Key.
How you doing?
Jordan Peele.
Hey, Bill.
How are you?
We're doing great, man.
Great to see you. Great to see you.
Great to see you.
Great to finally, yeah.
I spent last night, at least part of last night, in the bathtub watching your movie
on my iPad.
No.
Wow.
Does that make you feel-
This is weird, so I got out of the bathtub.
You got to get out of bed.
I was going to say, does that make you feel alive, though, watching it in the bathtub?
Yeah.
At any point in time, I could drop this in here and either electrocute myself or completely
ruin this expensive piece of equipment.
Either way.
Either way, no. There's a fear factor to it. That was good no it's it's i had no idea what to expect i
intentionally tried not to read anything oh and so you saw it green initially it was like keanu and
when i when i first heard about it i'm sure a lot of people told you guys this i was thinking like
keanu reeves like are they what's going on and And then it's like, now there's a cat.
I'm like, all right, I'm staying out.
I just want to be surprised, which is the right way to watch it.
We like to piggyback on the name of a bigger star.
Smart.
Stand on his shoulders, get everyone's attention,
then hit him with the kitten.
Then lastly, we say, and Key and Peele are in it as well.
Yeah, yeah.
Have you heard from Keanu Reeves about this? Has he said anything? Has he mentioned anything? We have, we say, and Key and Peele are in it as well. Yeah, yeah. Have you heard from Keanu Reeves about this?
Has he said anything?
Has he mentioned anything?
We have, we have.
We have.
What did he say?
Well, first, he loved the trailer.
He loved the trailer.
Yep, he loved the trailer.
And then he said, these guys are wacky.
These guys are wacky.
Yeah, so that's what he said.
He goes, these guys are very good, and they're totally wacky.
They're just whacked out.
And he kept on saying, which is not a word I would ever expect to hear come out of Keanu Reeves' mouth.
So I take it as a real compliment that he said we were wacky.
That was the word he used.
Debating how much we should say.
I don't want to spoil too much.
But I will say this movie was a tiny bit on John Wick's corner you know it's
somebody who's watched
John Wick maybe
I don't know
27 times
I think I've seen
John Wick maybe 26 times
is there a more rewatchable
it's just a lot of murders
it's a super rewatchable movie
anytime Lance Reddick
appears in the movie
I go
oh here we go
here's another Lance Reddick part
I don't know what it is
about that movie
but it's got super
rewatchability to it
yeah
but this movie was
no joke had nothing to do with John, but it's got super rewatchability to it. But this movie was no joke.
It had nothing to do with John Wick.
No.
You were like years ago.
We wrote the script.
When John Wick came out, I was like trying to get my lawyers involved.
I was like, who let my idea leak?
Somebody took the comedy out of my idea and made an awesome action movie out of it.
And they beat me to the punch.
But no, it turns out it's this happy accident.
And I kind of wish the movie was a parody off of that.
Because I feel like that's actually a cooler story.
I mean, it's about as early of a parody.
As you could possibly do.
I'm still digesting John Wick.
We'd be bending time
to make that parody yeah it was like a pre-cog parody he said it i love it but that's a pre-cog
so yeah this must be an insane like 10 days for you guys because i mean your show was so popular
but you know when your tv your cable youtube views all that stuff you can kind of
gauge all that stuff but when you put a movie out into the world it's just totally different it's
different process you're just being judged solely by rotten tomato scores and grosses and first
opening weekend all stuff that's pretty foreign i would guess right yeah there's a real weird
there's a not weird but a strange feeling of with show, I felt that for the most part, it was a big show, little business.
Because Comedy Central left us alone.
And with movies, it's definitely little show, big business.
That you get all the metrics and you get all the diagnostics and you're getting all these vital statistics.
And you kind of go, I don't really even know what to make of them
but the tour has been good but even on the tour you're in isolated cities i mean we've been in i
think six cities in 10 days and um and you're seeing the support but there's no possible way
for you to see millions of people at the same time and go oh that's all the fans that are going to
and then of those people who are going to go
pay for the ticket and all that kind of stuff.
It's a little overwhelming
in how different it is.
I think we kind of
feel like we already won in that
we got to make a movie we wanted
to make and we like this
movie. You get somebody to pay for your movie.
Somebody pay for our movie
and we love it.
And so, you know, there's an element of like if I think it'll do great,
but even if it takes people a while to find it, you know,
like and it becomes more of a cult hit or success.
I mean, either road I think is, is, uh, is a win. And, uh, but I think the,
the vibe we're getting is people are going to come out. Yeah. And I think you're going to be fine.
Yeah. I mean, I, and I hear what you're saying, Jordan, like if it's, if, if, if a few select
people and I've heard other artists say this, if a few select people who you respect deeply
find the work that you did beloved, that can be a big thing, you know, and you
can go wherever, however the success lies.
But from what we've experienced, I feel like it could be a great, this could work out to
be a great word of mouth project so that people go, oh, no, you've got to see it.
It's not what you think it is.
And then somebody else goes, oh, no, I saw it.
You'll never believe it.
It was this and I thought it was that and it was better.
That's, you know, that's your hope.
But if it happens organically, that would be nice to know.
I mean, what sucks, it sucks when you make something that you don't like.
And, you know, watching something like that is painful in success or failure.
Do you have an example?
Like, is there something that you look back now
and you're like, God.
You know, there's always a sketch
that didn't turn out right here or there.
I mean, this is our first movie,
so yeah, this is all new.
I meant more like some sketch you guys just,
oh, man, we blew that.
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to remember.
You literally, like, if a sketch, if you don't like a sketch,
you bury it in the deepest recesses of your mind.
Like me, like with a bad column or something.
Oh, sure.
Why did I write that?
Why was I pandering?
It doesn't even exist anymore.
Yeah.
But, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, sketch is so weird and tricky.
You can predict it to a certain point and then there's something that you felt easy to us that will take off enormously.
And something that feels extremely difficult that, you know, for whatever reason, it just won't resonate.
Right.
You can put your everything into it and say, we you know this was meticulous and it was
edited perfectly and everything went the way we wanted it to go and then it just yeah just duds
and you're going huh and then we've had sketches where on set bill we didn't know the ending of
the sketch we just kind of meandered and then the editor puts it together and it's like it was magic
and and you would never know.
Because when you're watching it as the viewer, you're going, that's brilliant.
Look at these choices they made.
And we're just going, oh, whew.
It's not a science.
There's craft, but it's not a science.
But for you guys, dude, with sketches, it's almost more fun for you guys.
If something doesn't work, you learn from it and you apply it to the next
thing and figure out and you're
taking chances you know your batting
average is going to be a thousand but with a movie you
can't do that right that's right
you actually have to get on base in the movie
exactly and then so that's striking the balance
of finding the finding
everything that you want personally to
be in the project and have
that somehow meet commerce.
It's a,
that's an art in and of itself.
Right.
And,
and,
um,
so you take three years,
you said,
is the three years because you didn't feel like you could get this movie
funded or you needed to reach a certain level of success and fame to get it
funded or it just took three years.
Uh,
it was the,
it was the second one.
Yeah.
We,
we wrote the script
and we wrote it
knowing we were going to write our
favorite movie
here. Our favorite movie that
doesn't exist. And we also knew
we had Key & Peele. At some point, there's
going to be, someone's going to
get hip to the idea
of Key & Peele should do a movie.
So we had a script.
We had our favorite script ready when New Line came around.
And then they loved it.
It all fell into place.
There was never a point where this was a real trial.
We had to put this up against the fire or go through any process.
We really found its home very organically.
So you start out with the idea
and then you have to write the movie.
Did you have two, three things?
You're like, all right, we're doing a movie.
Let's start with these three things.
We'll go from there.
I mean, the thing was,
and the script was penned by myself and this guy, Alex Rubens, who's a Key & Peele writer.
And very early on, we were like, OK, we know we want to make a movie, write a movie for Keegan and I.
You know, Keegan, Alex and I are huge fans of a type of action comedy we don't see made as much anymore.
It's the kind I grew up with, right?
It's like the midnight runs
in my top ten.
It's a little bit of a midnight run.
It's my top five.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A little bit of Pryor and Wilder.
Pryor and Wilder.
And these are the things
that we talk about.
So we knew we wanted to make
something that was very Key & Peele.
So we said, all right,
what if we put Key & Peele characters
very close to ourselves
in uh the the genre of a movie from the late 80s early 90s and your new jack cities uh you know
your speed yeah movies like that but movies that have that sensibility of you know if you think of
a movie like speed dennis Hopper in the most delicious way
is chewing up the scenery.
And you get laughs organically
from the way he's playing the character
and you might even be able to read
that script and there's not necessarily
laugh lines in it.
It's not a Mel Brooks film.
Or a movie like
The Last Boy Scout, which is commenting
on movies like that that have catchphrases in them.
Nobody got it.
Everyone was like too serious in 1990, 91.
Yeah, yeah.
The Last Boy Scout was a better movie than I think we realized when it happened.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Everyone's like, what is this?
It's a classic.
Because they were making that, they were winking in the best way.
But once again, the bullets are real.
And the violence is real.
And the people are really getting hurt.
It's not like, it's not like Stroker Ace.
It's not a Burt Reynolds movie where the punch is kind of like guys just recover and everyone's throwing each other around.
It's not that schlocky thing that happened in the late 70s.
It was a reaction to that late 70s to late 80s thing where you kind of said, let's make a movie. Like Bad Boys.
Bad Boys is a movie.
And tracking shots and jibs.
But it's still hysterical.
It's a great movie. And you're right. Speed is
now a comedy.
22 years later, Speed is now
a comedy.
48 Hours is an action movie.
Marty Brest happened
to cast this comedic genius named Eddie Murphy to play Reggie Hammond.
Who they almost fired.
Who they almost fired.
And that movie is, and Nick Nolte is hilarious in that movie.
Jack Cates.
Jack Cates.
But there's no jokes.
They're just hilarious.
And so there's this wonderful tonal balance between comedy and action.
That's my favorite movie of all time.
And every year, I feel a little more guilty about it because it's ridiculously racist.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought Jack Cates was funny.
And now I watch him like, Jesus.
He's like the jungle bunny.
Oh, these terrible words.
He's great in it, though.
I was flying on a plane because we've been flying so much recently.
And the other morning before I took a little snooze on the plane, I watched 16 Candles.
And something one of our writers had said a couple years ago, I'd forgotten what Colton had said.
It's very human.
It's just that there's certain things that have changed in the society.
The movie stands up.
The movie stands up as kind of a teenage romp or a teenage comedy. I do feel like 48 Hours is kind of a reaction to a little bit of the prior Wilder movies.
Merged with the cop movie.
And then 48 Hours ends up influencing 10 years of movies.
Absolutely.
Lethal Weapon is basically...
There are all these different movies that came out of that.
But what you guys did... one movie that brought back a little
of that and it's weird because there's four people in two but i thought the hangover had some of that
where it's like normal people just dressed in a situation where it just goes horribly wrong
without giving up too much of kiana that's basically the movie is it starts out normal
real people in a heightened situation yeah because Because I thought about 10 minutes in,
I'm like, is this going to be a parody
on people who love their pets too much?
Right.
Interesting.
I was like, oh, this is good.
This is a whole commentary just making fun
of all these crazy weirdos who talk to their dogs
and kiss their dogs on the mouth.
And in some ways it is.
It is.
We like to make, we like to make we like to
hit a bunch of
but you hit way more
my point is
at 10 minutes
I was like
and then I was like
oh
oh it's this
oh
yeah
but the other thing
that's interesting
in the movie
I think in the beginning
is that
Alex and Jordan
have infused so much
heart into the movie
it all hangs on Keanu.
And so you're watching a guy who's in a lot of distress and you're watching another guy
who's trying to work through something just like anybody, just like anybody.
And I think that stuff stays intact throughout the movie, which I don't know if I've said
this to you, but I just think it's done with Jordan so deftly,
how you guys have managed to just work it through so that the humanity never goes away.
Even when some of the behavior is weird or uncharacteristic of a person maybe you know,
the humanity never goes away from the story.
Ever, ever, ever.
And you hang it all, you hang it on this kitten.
And it's really, it's just really well done. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's like hang it on this kitten and it's really it's it's just really well done yeah
i mean yeah it's like it's crazy it turns out that the the hardest thing to do with with writing a
movie is keeping the uh the drive of the audience keeping the the the audience uh but believing
that the characters would do this thing, would put themselves through this, believing believing the motivation of the characters.
So, yeah, that was that was that was a tricky.
It's a tricky tightrope walk.
But you crack the nut, man.
All right.
That's cool.
Yeah, I feel it, too.
Yeah.
So as an actor, it was it was it was something you could play with relish you know how like when do you
get involved when they're working on the script and they're like slaving away in some office
somewhere do you come in like are they sending you segments are you just out and then you come
in late how does that work your partnership fascinates me well yeah we i mean i we were
working on other things i was acting in films and i would come you know I would leave during a hiatus and come back for work.
And then one day Jordan asked me, he said,
look, Alex and I have been working on this thing.
Like he said, it was spec.
It was just a project.
It was a project that they were working on together.
And he asked me, can we do this table read?
And so we did the table read.
And after that, it was, I mean, I guess I would say
it was relatively
Hands off
I have some
I have a deep deep deep respect
For his mind
And so I know when he needs
Something from me he comes to me
Otherwise he's
I mean especially him and Alex working together
They're like a power duo
They're like force multipliers to each other.
Like a nuclear reactor for ideas.
So I just knew if you, when it's time for, what do you call it?
The razzmatazz?
When it's time for the razzmatazz, then I'm going to call Keegan for whatever this thing I need here.
Because also, I come to every project, every project,
as a performer.
My degree is in performance and that's what
I've always studied.
I study performance
and work at performance
and see how an audience
is reacting to performance
or a viewer.
And so,
I feel like that's where
if Jordan feels
he needs that insight,
he'll come to me.
Now, in certain aspects,
like when we were when we're writing
the sketches some sketches would just flow from us organically yeah you know there's an idea and
we just start using all of our improv tools so you guys are all spitballing with writers somebody
throws out an idea you go and then do you guys go off together do you go off separately that when
you were writing that stuff how it happens all different ways yeah it's all all sketch specific sometimes a writer will have an idea and we'll say yes we love that go write
that um sometimes i'll have an idea or keegan will have an idea and we assign it to a writer
sometimes i'll just write it myself sometimes we'll write it together together it's it's all
over the place sometimes it's a group of people have to write a sketch together yeah um but it was very you know it's it's extreme it was
extremely collaborative there were many sketches that every everybody got their hands on in some
way yeah a bunch of different paths to the same place like all right so take i don't know black
ice so you guys like take me from the beginning of that to when it becomes ready to go.
Black Ice, I believe, was the brainchild of this guy, Rich Tallarico.
Okay.
Had the nugget for the idea, which was just the bit of the scene.
And then from that, I'm sure we told him to do it.
He submitted it.
And then we go through it.
We make notes.
We figure out what's wrong with it, what's right about it.
It gets put through a couple of drafts, and then we have the sketch.
And then always on set, there's going to be more adjustments made and improv yeah and we we would very often
take um packets of sketches a collection of sketches from different writers and sit down
and read the sketches which we think i think is very invaluable because once you feel it when you
read it it's um uh that gives you uh such a trevor trove a treasure trove of information as to go, oh, God, if I had never read it,
I would have never known that that word
or that phrase was awkward in the mouth
and that nobody would say that that way
or a character wouldn't say that that way.
Let me change that.
You can see as the people are reading the scripts
and assigning characters to other people
and you're interacting with each other,
you can see the writer furiously writing notes going, that's how it sounds oh i didn't think it would
sound that way did it always make sense which part each of you should play in the sketch or
were there times where you're like yeah like up to the very end you're like there's a couple that
got swapped at the very end really um yeah um but i think it was more, it would usually have more to do with something like balance than anything else.
Like maybe there's a character, maybe there's some kind of thing where it's like, well, I've played a woman twice this season, so I think we should be, that kind of thing.
Right, right.
But for the most part, it's pretty straightforward.
It's pretty, it just makes sense.
Yeah, especially the deeper we got into the seasons.
Because then, especially, you know, we don't do what, we have a different style of sketch than, say, the Nick Kroll show.
Which, where the Nick Kroll show, you would see there would be, there were probably about seven storylines and he would always visit two to three of those storylines per show and then also write individual sketches that were standalone.
With us, we had way less recurring characters through, I think, the entire body of our piece.
So maybe every three episodes you'd see recurring characters.
And so but we still had we still had a stable of recurring characters. And so, but we still had,
we still had a stable of those characters.
So that allowed us to know who was gonna be cast in those.
Or sometimes I think if we wrote a similar sketch,
we'd say, well this one we're gonna have Keegan do this
and Jordan have this.
And then every now and again we go, you know what,
why don't we make that sketch,
let's make that sketch for these characters that already exist.
So when it's a partnership like that, I mean, everybody's got an ego and you guys are always just, you know, can't peel, can't peel, can't peel.
At some point, do you start feeling like, I kind of want to be my own person a little bit while also having this thing when do you hit that point well you know I mean we we definitely have we have a world of projects that we want to
do outside of Key & Peele right but I think I mean I think part of the the secret of Key & Peele
is that where we and the writers we have this improvisation background.
And there's, you know, one of the things you work at hard in improvisation
is to lose the ego in the creative process.
It's built into the fabric of the process.
Yeah, yeah.
So, and, you know, throughout our careers, it's, you know,
any time you forego those those the feelings and that that the
the the the negative feelings and um sidestep the ego that was my idea no i said it first
if you get rid of that yeah if you get rid of that then it just uh it makes you can make
something much greater than any single person could make. It's just this.
You can bicker all you want about that was my idea or who had that line.
Hey, guess what?
Is the sketch funny?
That's all that matters.
All that matters is if the sketch is funny.
The team is called Key & Peele.
All the writers, the producers, the crew.
That's Key & Peele.
It's not this guy and that guy. we're winning like we're winning you know everybody's winning and yeah the ego plays
tricks on you uh if if you allow it you know because the ego will would have you
yeah compare yourself to somebody you know it's like if I were to compare myself to
Keegan
and how he's doing
ego wise
you could get so wrapped up
in that that
you could never get out of it
so I mean yeah you really
do have to
Jim Henson had this whole
philosophy about, look, it's, your ego has to be replaced with the ego of the show.
Yeah.
You know, we have to be, we'll all succeed if we make this thing gold, like he can say.
We had that at Grantland.
You had it at Grantland, yeah.
There was a selflessness, which is really hard to get to with writers, because writers because writers are precious about their work their dna is always going to be they it's their
bio and they want the credit and you know by especially by like year three we were able to get
multiple writers just to write we call them shoot arounds but you know get people to contribute to
oscars reactions and collaborate and got to a point where people just felt like if the site wins we win and
that's why with this new site we're building it's got to be the same philosophy like you all win if
the site's good you know the hence it's a hard place to get to yeah no it is it it is if uh it
it it it is if people won't buy in like you have to figure out there's another ingredient and the
ingredient is what makes you buy in and um i mean, I think the sports analogy, like the Jim Hintz analogy for me was Larry.
Oh, boy, his name just flew out of my head.
Who was the head coach of the Pistons when they won the last championship?
Larry Brown.
When Larry Brown got there, he had some relationships with those guys.
So everybody else bought in.
And when they went to the finals against the Lakers, it was, remember, it's five against two.
There's no way we're not going to win the championship.
It's five against two.
They're a mess over there.
We win because Shaq and Kobe have Achilles heels,
and they're their egos.
We're a team.
Every night, it's five against two.
And that's how they won that championship.
So for us, I think everybody understood,
it's almost like they're serving Key and Peele second,
and we were serving the god of improvisation first,
which is I'm a heel if I don't yes and the other people here.
If I'm holding on to what I think my idea is,
and I'm not open to anybody else's ideas,
and I'm not going to let go of the reins,
then you're, not to get too lofty but you're dishonoring del close you're dishonoring
uh uh viola spolin you're dishonoring uh the masters of improvisation who are very
sacred and important to us these people have passed away and gave us these traditions
so don't you know it's like you know don't hey make make an effort to do the best you can for
the great spirits you know it's like that you know, don't, Hey, make, make an effort to do the best you can for the great spirits.
You know, it's like that feeling.
And that was almost more important than key and peel.
It's what makes key and peel work.
There's a great book about the first five years of Saturday night life.
First 10 years, actually, that came out like, I think 30 years ago before people realized
that they shouldn't be that candid in the interviews.
I think it was Saturday.
I can't remember.
Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, I think, were the writers.
But a big chunk of it
is about those first couple years.
They had that same spirit, that same
camaraderie, but then Chevy Chase
took off.
And everybody's backs got up.
And Belushi went
crazy because he used to kill Chevy Chase for years
in the National Lampoon, all the different things they did.
He was the best.
Like when Belushi was on stage, you looked at Belushi.
And when Chevy Chase left,
that's when, at least for a little while,
they were able to become a team.
And then, of course, Belushi and Aykroyd took off
and then it happens again.
It's really hard in comedy
because eventually somebody's going to,
when you have an ensemble like that,
that's why I thought what you guys did was pretty rare.
It was five years of it.
What Jordan said too is true.
I mean, somebody, I don't know who this is.
It's an anonymous quote, but comparison is the thief of joy.
So we're not,
the other thing is recognizing what the dreams of the other people in your life are and yes-ending those dreams or supporting and booing up their dreams.
I'm very excited, extremely excited to see this horror movie that Jordan wrote, that he directed, that you produced it as well.
You're a producer on the movie.
It's such a passion for him.
And having spent so much time with him in my life and seeing the glint in his eye,
because he has an encyclopedic knowledge.
He's a connoisseur of horror as a genre
and the sub-genres therein.
He knows all of it.
The way Mike Tyson knows boxing lore,
this guy knows horror movies.
And to see that...
Don't do anything like mike tyson
to see those dreams to see that dream come true for him that's my joy it there's no joy in going
why didn't he cast me in the horror movie there's not a part for you in the horror movie keegan
yeah let he he supports your dreams right you support his dreams. What do I get from not supporting his dreams?
Like, what positive thing do I get?
What benefit do I get from that?
Quick aside.
Where are horror movies going?
Because horror movies always go up and down, up and down.
And, like, Halloween launches this whole five, six-year genre of the babysitters dying.
And then they go to the different.
And then Scream brought some stuff back. And then you have like the grizzly then you have the
blair witch era i mean there's all these different areas so where are we now um it's a good question
i i predict a good amount of uh sci-fi horror blend i think we're interesting special effects
yeah we're definitely we're at an era where i think people are really interested in science fiction and the ai and and uh uh you know the internet and where where's where is this all
headed because we you know it's been it's been crazy i mean the last 10 years have just been a
complete you know technological revolution in a very creepy way yeah yeah and it feels very like
we're headed to some or in this weird dystopia dystopia do you see unfriended i did i did see
unfriended it's on it's on cable uh unfriended it's good but it's basically they're just all
on like this google chat yeah but somebody that they had made fun of who killed themselves enters the chat and starts messing with them.
Oh, that's what it's about.
It's good.
It's pretty good, I gotta say.
Let me ask you two guys this
because I haven't seen it.
What is the appeal
or what do you think made the film
It Follows a good film?
Oh, interesting.
I mean...
Actually, I think you told me
that you had enjoyed it
you were captivated by it
I thought it was excellent
and you thought it was excellent too
and I've not yet seen it
and I wanted to know
because I'm not
horror really gets me
I get
my imagination gets a little too crazy
and so it's a little harder for me
but
he
knows enough to recommend
certain types of horror movies to me
like the Babadook
I loved
you loved the Babadook
but
but anyway I'm sorry,
I digressed from my own question.
It follows a really great,
in the spirit of the throwback,
it's doing this early 80s thing,
it's this John Carpenter thing.
That's why Halloween is in my pantheon,
so that's why I liked it.
It reminded me of modern Halloween.
Totally, the soundtrack.
Oh, interesting, okay.
It had the theme of like,
if you have sex with somebody in high school, you're gonna pay for it. Totally. The soundtrack. Interesting. Okay. Had the theme of like, if you have sex
with somebody in high school,
you're going to pay for it.
That was in there,
which is a horror movie staple.
Total horror movie staple.
Moral staple.
Yeah.
And it's beautifully shot too.
It is.
Okay.
It looks gorgeous.
And I heard it cost nothing.
Yeah, it cost nothing.
But one of the keys
with horror films,
the ones that I've worked is,
usually the ones
that are well done
have a better chance and it sounds stupid, but halloween's a really well done movie you watch
it's like the shots he does the way he uses shadows and lights there's a confidence yeah too
a knowledge that this it's when all the pieces are put together it's going to be very scary
and it's i mean because he's just he's stringing together images it's not it's not a
movie about revelation it's not a movie about um you know jump scares it's it's all this pace and
this creepy monster it's like it's it's uh it's one of those movies that sometimes i don't like
when directors or creative people give interviews because sometimes the mystery is better than the
action yes you read the john
carver it's like yeah i mean we initially thought it was going to be this and we were doing stuff on
the fight and you realize like he was just 20 20 days to make this movie about babysitters getting
murdered basically and probably stumbled into some of it it's and this is why we we love
improvisation is because i think it's such an important piece of anybody's creative process
to be able to adjust toward the end, especially, and be able to sacrifice things that you thought
were important and find new things. And so that's that with what we do as Key & Peele,
along with our director, Peter Atencio, who also did Keanu. It's like, that's
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All right, back to Cam Peel.
Where is improv in 2016 in the world of if you go one step over the line and you get the outrage culture maniacs after you and all that stuff,
you could get in a heap of shit.
Do you feel like people are more walking on eggshells a little bit now,
or do people not even think about it that are in and do what you do in regards to to
improv I mean the beauty is we can go anywhere and it'll be edited in in a in
a movie or something yeah but you could also be like on stage just fucking
around with somebody and yeah no no oh you're saying in an improv scene if
somebody comes and sees a show
and go
how dare you say that
yeah or anything
or even like some sketch
that you're trying to get
I mean your show's done now
but you're trying to get
these things
and it's up
and maybe you could've
spent one more day
thinking about
whether you should do this
and then it's out
in the world
and everyone lines up on you
we've been doing improv
for a long time
between the two of us
and I wouldn't say
that we're in a different era necessarily than when we started, which,
you know, because I agree with that.
I agree that we're not.
I agree that we're in the same era.
Good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, but, you know, there's a politically correctness.
The whole thing is you got to get the laugh.
If you don't get the laugh, any place you go can be put up to scrutiny. And, you know, you don't want to go blue or go with something that's upsetting or topical and not get the laugh.
Or otherwise, you fail.
If people laugh, they will figure out why it was okay that you told that joke.
Right.
And that you have to make, how shall I say it?
Like make assurances that what you're doing and the choices you're making, even in the, this is hard, but even in the moment on stage, the choices that you're making, you're not making out of fear.
So that very often you will see a comedian, whether they be a standup or making a choice out of lack.
And what I mean by that is I thought maybe i'd get some giggles or some love from an
audience that doesn't know me maybe they'll give me a little leeway yeah and then there's a lack
and so then you start saying you start doing like just delivering blue material for no reason
or offensive material because if i can get some reaction from them so you're making decisions
out of fear instead of instead of penetrating your partner psychically so that everything comes from them.
They're the entire well that you're pulling from.
Don't worry about the audience.
Mesmerize the audience by having this amazing connection with this person you're staying across from.
That will never change.
That hasn't changed since the 50s.
That hasn't changed since Viola Spolin wrote her book, Improvisation for the Theater.
But I think what happens is people make these adjustments on the fly
out of ego.
And that's when you get in trouble.
That's when you get in trouble.
In improv, yeah.
Absolutely.
Part of our job as comedians, you know,
when we talk about sketch movies, all of it,
is what our heroes, our comedy heroes did, which is, yeah, you push the line, but you value of comedy is helping people, you know, reconcile all the horrors
and the dark things about the human condition and humanity
in a fun way.
Yeah.
My friend Wesley Morris, who wrote for Graham for a long time,
he wrote a great piece about you guys last year.
Wrote an amazing piece about us.
It was really...
He's one of the best.
Kudos to Wesley.
Yeah.
He found things, in my opinion,
he found things about Negro Town
that I hadn't thought of.
And I went, oh my God, that's amazing.
You know, the man, he's so...
He's great.
Observational.
It's...
I know it was about us,
so it's hard for me to say,
but it was an outstandingly written piece.
It's so thoughtfully written.
So one of his themes was basically that the way you guys approached race
on that show was almost like the legacy of Chappelle's show,
like the torch had been passed to you.
So who has the torch now?
You know, that's a good question yeah there whoever
whoever uh wants it really i mean we we we don't we don't approach race very i mean we we do we do
the racial humor because our heroes did it our our black uh comedic heroes did it. Our black comedic heroes did it.
we look at,
from our specific perspective,
I think we look at
all the racial
material that hasn't been done yet
because it hasn't been seen through our eyes.
It hasn't been
explored.
It's a very personal thing
i guess there's a better way to phrase that question is there's just kind of a void
because there's especially look at this election right now yeah your show would have been uh
valuable not just funny but i think it would have been you would have had some really important
moments on it you know i i wonder how i wonder if one way to look at it is hopefully if because of the void there
may be a sense of yearning yeah from some young comedian and my hope or comedians or uh my hope
is that the comedians have some set of tools that allow them to comedically look at the situations we're dealing with
presently in a responsible way um you know what's filled the void a little bit and the only reason
i know this is because my kids love one of these shows and then i have a 10 year old and eight
year old but my kids love blackish and blackish and carmichael show yeah yeah absolutely they've
kind of brought back what we grew up with in the 80s,
the very special episode, but it's much more well done than that.
But Black-ish really goes a couple places.
Yeah, those are great shows.
It does, and it's thoughtful.
Both of those shows work.
No, that's a good point, Bill, yeah.
And I think that both of those guys,
Kenya and Gerard are being very brave,
and they're doing it in a bigger arena.
That's broadcast television.
Yeah, almost like a higher degree of difficulty in a way
because it's so hard to just be interesting on network TV.
Yeah, on network.
So many obstacles.
You have 40 executives.
I mean, how many people gave you guys notes by year four?
Did you even get notes?
We got barely any.
They just let you go, right?
Yeah.
They just let us go.
I think one weapon, it's not to uh weapon one tool yeah that you can use to is that
those those 40 executives look everybody wants to keep their job and everyone's trying to do the
best and they want the show to be good um but they're giving the notes and i think i've said
this before i said sometimes you can just,
you just show your holster.
Yeah.
Just show your holster.
So if Kenya and Anthony in the most discreet or the most positive way can just show their holster,
which is the way of saying, you know,
I'm not going to pull my race card.
Yeah.
I'm just going to make everyone aware that I have one.
And then let's work out what your,
what your concerns seem to be about this page of dialogue.
And I think that's what they're doing.
As opposed to there being any kind of outrage.
And for some reason, they're writing episodes so well that the executives have to go, this is good.
It's funny.
I mean, you know what I mean?
Let them do their thing.
And then when they get feedback for it, then now you can go because it's like, oh, people love that.
Okay, you guys should keep doing that.
But they have to actually see the results.
I mean, we had, and our guys, they were great.
I mean, they had things that they wanted to do.
I mean, really, wouldn't you say, Jordan, the big thing was they wanted us to have such a specific voice.
Yeah.
And we're like, we promise you that's exactly what will happen
and um and they and they pulled back a little bit and watched it and then the data came in
you know was it do you feel like you were fortunate because you you were able to get
some reps on mad tv which was still a network show but not kind of the same profile as your
own show with your own name on it right essential yeah i mean i mean i think the
the best thing about mad tv for me was was the learning i i got to do you know really kind of
really kind of got to figure out what uh what tv was about how to how to sell it on tv how to write
for tv um so yeah it was it was then, of course, that's where we started
working together. Keegan and I started working together.
So that, it was
a very, very
important... That was for Tudis.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
It was our
proving ground. And I was
very fortunate to have a front row seat
to watch his development.
Yeah. And watch him turn
into the right there and there are sketches and the other thing i really admire about jordan is
there were sketches that he wrote and put a lot of time and energy and thought into
that you know the powers that be at mad tv were not responding to but he's always striving to
be better so i don't think i can't think of a single sketch that you
wrote for mad TV that didn't go or wasn't made or produced that you
repeated at Key & Peele yeah he just moved on to the next step he's like that
was what that was that was part of my maturation process now I'm on this now
I'm on this and and and so it makes me excited to see like where's he gonna be
in ten years what happens to you guys if in like 2008
lauren michaels is like let's get those guys from from mad tv we'll get both of them we'll bring
them here and you're just on snl from 2008 on we'd host we'd love to host we'd love to host it yeah
had we but you're saying if we had been on the show i'm saying if he had hired you guys to be in the cast. Oh, back in 2008? Yeah.
I mean, we'd have a very different path.
Trajectory.
I'm not sure we'd be here talking with you right now. Yeah, we'd probably still be on the show.
Yeah.
They got them long contracts over there.
Or they get them long contracts.
The other weird thing is, yeah, you're're right we'd still be on the show um we even without you're right even without a uh renewal probably
but uh the the who knows in an alternate universe if we were on snl in 2008 about we may be we may
be the the next blues brothers right you know who knows Don't get us wrong. It's like we both got into comedy.
I think the goal was SNL.
Let's get on SNL.
Before we knew each other.
I was going to say,
that's everybody's goal.
I don't think that ever changes either.
No, no.
If there's 20-year-old kids now,
that's probably feeling the exact same way.
When you teach improv classes,
that's what you're always...
I just finished making this movie
and I'm just starting to do press for it. It's mike berbiglia movie called don't think twice and this is exactly
what it's about and like you said it's about chevy skyrocketed to to stardom and then what's the rest
of the group do and do they start feeding off of each other or eating each other you know and
that's the exact thing it's that you you're in this environment where you're all supposed to
be supporting each other and then someone gets plucked out of the environment and then you can't
do that comparison thing that jordan was talking about which was like so what are they saying
they're saying he's better than we are once that virus gets in there that's a problem the only time
it got so thrown out of whack it was actually like it hurt the show in some ways
was with Eddie Murphy
because he's the best cast member
they've ever had.
He was like the most
overqualified person
you ever could have put on that show.
I don't even know how
somebody else could have been
on that show with him.
The guy was like
he was a cross between
Michael Jordan and LeBron
and Barry Sanders.
It was like anything you'd ever put
into one person he had.
It's interesting that but if you look at people's paths that was his moment and LeBron and Barry Sanders. It was like everything you'd ever put into one person. And isn't it interesting
that if you look
at people's paths,
that was his moment
and his moment lasted
for a very long time.
But look who one
of the greatest
female comedic voices
of all time
is right now.
Buried on that show.
It's Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Yeah.
And buried on that show.
And she was like 20.
20 years old.
And remember,
she used to do sketches
all the time with the guy,
his name was Gary Kroger.
Yeah.
Remember Gary Kroger? It was her. It was those two and brad hall right and kazarensky yeah
all got pulled up from chicago and like just it's the worst time it's like oh yeah i've got my
surfboard i'm ready to hit the water snl and they're and then you didn't know there wasn't a
guy named eddie murphy he was the tsunami He was the tsunami that just, his talent just couldn't be denied.
It was ridiculous.
Incredible.
And also, you know, the timing was just perfect, too.
I mean, there was this, and, you know, when we talk about race, it's like, we need black voices out there because there's a lot of comedy that white voices can't can't do right
and so you know eddie murphy coming out and all of a sudden sort of making fun of culture making
fun of the culture of the the way that that generate the baby boomer generation grew up
you know with like you know there's a comedic take on on buckwheat you know it's like that's
the kind of thing that
was just stretched like a rubber band
and ready to pop off. And then here we go.
We got all of a sudden the best
stand-up comedic actor
comes along, gets the shot
and it's just murder.
Oh, I mean
just straight
Khmer Rouge.
I wrote a giant piece about him when Tower Heist was coming out.
It was supposed to be the Eddie comeback.
And I thought one of the reasons he succeeded was,
like when I was growing up, I'm a little older than you guys, I think.
I'm 46.
Oh, you're older than me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there was this whole run of television shows
with black families and black characters.
Yeah, the Norman Lear stuff.
By 81, it was over and like the only black people on tv were basically george jefferson
uh arnold and isaac the bartender and that was it yeah yeah and it was like the networks were like
here you go black america here are your three characters and then eddie shows up on snl and
it was like a tsunami and it was like like, he's not being denied everything.
Well,
the whole vibe of that show was so rugged and,
uh,
you know,
not ready for prime time.
So when,
by the time they got him,
it's like,
this is the,
this is the black guy.
He's not ready for prime time.
Watch out.
He's gonna,
but,
but he was so ready for,
but he was already ready.
And he was talking about the timing,
right?
You were,
you were so fortunate that he never got plucked
by a multicam.
That would have destroyed him.
That might have,
or actually,
he was so undeniably talented.
I don't think nothing
would have stopped him.
I can't imagine one thing
he wouldn't have.
No, yeah.
Although Best Defense stopped him.
That was, I guess,
the only one.
Best Defense,
that did stop him for a little bit.
He just did that for the money.
I don't blame him for that.
They cut him a nice big check.
Yeah, never in the same room with Dudley Moore.
Oh, that's right.
That's what the thing was.
Never in the same room.
They paid him late, right?
Just he shot all these different...
I never saw this one.
It's terrible.
It's a bad movie.
I think Eddie paid to destroy all the clips.
Did he really?
I think it's one of those.
I believe he did.
I believe any rich actor,
like if there's some bad movie they made,
I think they just buy it out.
They just buy it.
There's no side of it.
Clooney has a couple I think he just bought out. i wonder i i almost i challenge all three of us or anybody
in this room we should go online and see if there's a best defense clip like did he get them
all you think he just cleared one on youtube and then and that's when there's a clip from best
defense he was like a tank i went i paid i was, I don't care if there's Eddie's in it. And then you just became sad.
This is bad.
He came in trying to do Eddie's stuff.
It's hands down the worst movie he ever made.
It's terrible.
Ever made.
And that's saying something with that guy's career.
The 90s were rough.
The 90s were rough, but I think Best Defense was even worse than some of the other ones.
Did he ever reach out to you guys?
No.
No?
I don't think so.
Never met him? Never you guys? No No I don't think so Never met him
Never met him
No
Yeah I mean that'll be
That'll be a real
Humbling experience
To meet that guy
When did Obama reach out to you?
2012
He was here for
A Clooney fundraiser
And then
Cause he has a good sense of humor
I imagine he watched
The Luther thing
And was just like
I like these guys
Let's bring them in
Yeah Yep Oh yeah The photographer man Pete The White House photographer I imagine he watched the Luther thing and was just like, I like these guys. Let's bring them in.
Yep.
Oh, yeah.
The photographer, man, Pete, the White House photographer is the person who introduced the president to Obama Luther.
I remember he about tripped and fell down
trying to get over to us.
He was like, I'm the guy.
I'm the guy.
I'm the guy.
I showed it to him.
I showed it to him.
I showed it to him.
He was just losing his mind.
No, apparently they would play poker games
and pass around the the phone with uh you know our bits and but the yeah the fact
that he responded to the show i mean to us the coolest thing was that he sort of anointed luther
as saying something that rang true to him yeah which is kind of you know more than we could we
could have asked for bargain for never bargained for it.
We had no idea that was going to happen.
He was the first president that nobody knew had a parody for basically almost his entire first term.
People were like, what do we do with this?
I mean, look what we did.
What we did is he just does a dead-on perfect impersonation of him,
and then we had another surrogate character.
We had to have an alter ego.
How else were we going to do it?
Yeah, yeah.
The only other one who really, Pharaoh does a good impression of him.
But I thought The Rock, when The Rock did basically The Rock as Barack Obama,
that kind of tapped into how Obama can sound so lyrical sometimes when he talks
and almost like a preacher.
And The Rock did that.
And I thought that did a nice job of hitting something.
The Rock also has that kind of magic that magic yeah and they have a similar voice
there's yeah that's what i like about it i was like oh this is good but uh yeah i would i had uh
we were shooting test shows for the hbo show and obama's speechwriter was on john favreau
yeah he's a great guy and he was talking about how Obama would, you know, he's basically in this bubble.
He's got all these people around him that are just doing jobs for him.
Right, right.
Very deferential to him, obviously.
So the way he experiences real American life is through sports, through books, through TV shows.
And he ends up, you know, kind of gravitating toward, like, he plays golf with the PTI guys all the time.
Wilbon and Kornheiser.
With Wilbon and Kornheiser, right.
They're just buddies because he watches them on the treadmill and he feels like those are his people.
I did not know that.
He just reaches out to different people that resonate with him.
I can pretty much hang with anybody I want.
Right.
That's cool.
All right, I get this.
I get it.
This is the president, huh?
Yep.
Send Key and Peele over. Let's see. Let's talk to these guys. I get it. This is the president, huh? Send
Key and Peele over.
Let's talk to these guys.
That Hamilton show I love.
Let's bring those guys in.
Can we have Hamilton do
the show in the bedroom?
That'd be great.
I noticed he's in a commercial now
with Steph Curry, which was clearly Obama
just being like, I just want to just have Steph Curry.
I just want to hang out with him for an hour.
Right.
Right.
Can we come up with a commercial?
Because Curry went to the White House and went to the Rose Garden.
Yeah.
And they played horse.
Oh, yeah.
Which is crazy.
I think he just wanted to extend Curry's stay as long as he could.
As long as he could.
Let's do a commercial.
What about LeBron? What's going on with him? LeBron. Right long as he could. Let's do a commercial. What about LeBron?
What's going on with him?
LeBron, right, right.
Exactly, yeah.
I can tell you're kind of secretly a sports fan.
I love sports.
Because you were rattling off the 0-4 finals.
Yeah, I mean, and also just a Detroit sports fan.
But I've always loved sports because sports,
I've watched as a child.
You watch how the big thing is how it brings
sons and fathers together.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
You have this disparate relationship, especially if you're my age.
It's just fathers for the most part in general.
But my dad and I, it was his friends and them liking sports.
Literally, it's part of why I went to Penn State.
Because one of my dad's best friends loved Rosie Greer and Jack Lambert and Jack Hamm
and loved all those guys because he grew up in Pittsburgh.
So all of the stars were Penn State stars.
And then they went to the...
Like Franco.
For Franco to be at Penn State and go to the Steelers is an amazing thing.
So you saw the Ed Marinaro TV movie about the Penn State running back and his brother
who was... Remember that one? Which one? Ed Marinaro was there. John Penn State running back and his brother who was,
remember that one?
Which one?
Ed Marinaro was there.
John Capoletti was there.
Oh, Capoletti,
who won the Heisman Trophy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Capoletti.
And his brother was like the,
it was one of the original
tearjerker TV movies.
Before Brian's song.
Yeah, it was kind of like
the Brian's song ripoff.
Around the same Brian's song.
I'm ready for more of those.
Watching them connect in that way,
being a little boy,
and watching those two men
connect that way
was interesting and then and then i'd say well i'll watch the pittsburgh steelers even though
you know i've been a diehard detroit lions fan most of my life but it was because these men were
you were i was watching grown-ups get excited about something and that's the same thing with
this my son's generation is when i was a kid i just want to hang out with my dad and my dad
watched sports so i love sports because my dad because you did right now my son's generation is, when I was a kid, I just wanted to hang out with my dad, and my dad watched sports, so I loved sports because of my dad.
Because you did, right.
Now my son's like, I'm going to go on YouTube and watch the 25 best wrestling finish moves.
I'll see you guys in an hour.
But then he can also watch whatever he wants.
Yes.
It doesn't even have to be wrestling.
It can be anything he wants, and it's not to right and it's not with you he'll stumble
on you guys eventually right now he's still in uh he's at eight and ten he's eight so he's like
two years away from you guys right now he's in the hole like he's banged out every kimmel prank
you know because on youtube it's just like if you watch one of your any of your sketches like
the next three are on the right side you just go for three hours
so the Kimmel pranks it's just one after it goes one after another eight-year-old's just like if
you guys really want to make 700 million dollars you should just study all the beats of all the
Sandler movies right yeah it's like people who have to take a shit but can't find a toilet and
people getting attacked by a small dog and there's 20 beats. Like, that's your... That's your thing? Yeah, that's your $700 movie.
There's the science.
Just hit all the beats.
Did you...
The 10-year-old knows about us, though.
You used to be an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old?
No, the 8-year-old boy is two years away from knowing about you.
But do you also have a 10-year-old?
The 10-year-old girl...
Oh, I wouldn't see much...
Almost ready for a couple.
Gotcha, gotcha.
I would say.
If you were going to show her... Starting to get comedy. If she's say. If you were going to show her.
Starting to get comedy.
If she's getting comedy, you were going to show her a Key and Peele sketch in this time of her life.
Would you show her?
What would you show her?
Hats.
I think she'd get soul food.
She'd get soul food?
Okay.
I do.
Interesting.
Interesting. Okay. I should get the food? Okay. I do. Interesting. Interesting.
Okay.
She'd get the ones where people are playing off each other.
I don't know if black guys she would get.
Yeah.
She would get the Obama one.
The ones that are easier to understand because 10-year-olds still aren't that smart yet.
Well, you know, I think one of the things we love about how our show was received and how it worked is because it was a family thing.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of sons and daughters
and fathers and mothers that watch the show together
or show each other things.
Now, you know, for me,
I remember watching In Living Color with my mom.
And whenever something, you know, first of all,
you get a good, when she would laugh at something
I wouldn't get, I would get a little bit of an
education as to why that was funny um and then there were you know if something sort of crossed
the line or it's basically a great way to have a a family experience but also kind of educate
because a lot of things will warrant a conversation afterward. And it can be with this fun, not awkward tone
because we've broken the conversation open
with this silly scene.
Don't you feel like every funny person
had one funny family member from them
when they were like eight, seven, eight, nine years old?
Because for me, my dad's family would always be around,
opening presents for four hours. And my dad would always be around you know opening presents for
four hours and my dad would always make fun of the people like his brothers sisters i was like
someday i'm gonna make those jokes you know and you try it you're sick you would say that right
it's the little boy that it's playing eddie murphy at the beginning of raw
the cold open and raw and the one uncle's like
and you're,
and that,
that,
I mean,
getting that kind of feedback from an adult is magical.
Yeah.
It's magical.
You make the adults laugh.
You've made it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
You know what I won't be showing my kids?
Keanu.
We'll avoid that one.
We want to,
you know,
there might be a TNT heavily edited version that might be sustainable in like a year and a half.
You know, I mean, it's to each their own.
I'm okay with that because I like the idea of making a movie that is kind of like a kid's.
The kid gets to go download.
It's like they sneak in when the parents are asleep.
They're having a lunch.
That's like Amazon Women on when it was for me,
you know,
where it was like
you were just getting to see
something you weren't supposed to see.
You'll have a lot of people
who shouldn't be watching this.
Oh, no.
I have a feeling
that Keanu
is going to go the way of Deadpool.
Do you know how many
eight, nine,
and ten-year-old kids
have seen Deadpool?
Right.
Because their aunts and uncles
and their grandparents
are just going,
you know,
it's the superhero movie.
I saw the commercial.
Did some flips and a girl punched a guy across the...
We'll take Junior to that.
And I'm working with somebody right now,
and she's mortified because she let her mother take her son to the movie.
To Deadpool.
So she doesn't want her mother...
In the final analysis.
She wouldn't want her mother
or her son to see the movie.
And then a colleague of mine
and I said to her,
whatever you do,
don't see it.
Because if you feel bad now,
you're going to feel horrible.
And you're like,
oh my God, my mother.
She'll be more mortified
that her mother saw it
than her son
because her son doesn't know
some of that stuff.
But you don't have a sense of it.
I mean, Bill, we got a kitten on the poster.
There's going to be 10-year-olds seeing this movie.
And they're going to tell their friends to trick their parents into seeing the movie.
Well, you're going to get some pet people.
Because we have this crazy pet fanatic on the Ringer staff, Mallory.
I told her I saw Keanu.
She's like, how's the cat?
The cat doesn't die, right?
She didn't care. She just want to make sure the cat was cool
yeah we didn't we didn't have the the balls to kill a kitten in our first film
not even like you know that's our only spoiler there yeah the gun to the puppy's head we just we couldn't do that
well I thought it was really good I really liked it I really enjoyed it
thanks a lot that means a
lot reminded me of uh some of the movies I grew up with way back when like a modernized version
who was by the way last question then we gotta go the girl uh Tiffany Tiffany Haddish hi hi C
hi C yeah yeah so where'd she come from Tiffany Haddish she's a she's a stand-up she's on the
Carmichael show um she's just she's been grinding at it at stand up and developing
this really amazing act and she's uh because that was a hard part hard part oh yeah yeah she has to
be grounded but it has to be a little sexy but it has to be like totally street yeah there's a whole
bunch of elements to it i don't know if the movie works as well if that actor sucks in that part it
was key it was key and i mean she's of course you know she's she's sexy because she is such a badass in
the movie and it's like you know it's it's it's sort of like this there's this sort of role role
reversal with her and i and our romance where you know she's kind of the protector. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm the... You're the...
I'm the damsel of some sort.
The damsel, right, right.
That's the word.
She's also...
She's great and light and goofy in real life,
but she's also legit.
You feel it come through the camera.
I felt like a little star-making performance in that one.
Oh, no, no.
If your movie hits big,
I think there'll be a lot of stories in there.
She's gonna skyrocket.
She'll be on something.
I imagine really good things
are about to happen to her.
And the other big winner,
I think, is George Michael.
Yeah, George Michael.
Without giving too much away,
I think.
Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
George Michael.
I mean, did you have to,
you have to make sure
you could clear all that stuff
before you?
Oh, yeah, we did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, no, we had to.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Without giving anything away, he's featured. Yes, he is is he's an important part of the movie yes he is the
spirit animal of the movie yeah that's a great way of putting it yeah jordan yeah and of an animal
movie so that's that's an achievement i think it's a good move for him to have allowed you to
use all those you you never lose choices that you made you cannot lose when a person has a sense of humor about themselves.
This could very well
be George Michael's, this could be his
Tom Cruise Tropic Thunder moment.
You saw Tom
Cruise and you went, what?
He can do that too?
And then once he did that
movie, you go, and now I even like him a little
bit more. Because he
un-Hollywooded himself when he played that role.
And George Michael, this could be that kind of turn for him.
Good luck with the movie.
Thanks, Bill.
I really think it's going to do well.
I'm excited.
Thank you.
It's going to be fun to watch it go.
I'll be checking the Rotten Tomatoes scores for you.
All right.
And good luck with all your other stuff.
Thanks for coming here.
Appreciate it.
Our pleasure.
All right. Thanks to Key & Peele. Remember, for coming here. Appreciate it. Our pleasure. All right.
Thanks to Key & Peele.
Remember, Keanu opens on April 29th.
That's a Friday.
It's very good.
You should go see it.
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