Over a phone conversation earlier this week, Keegan-Michael Key admitted his career is in a period of “transition” since the end of Key & Peele. But whereas his cohort Jordan Peele has done his most significant post-show work behind the camera, Key’s thrown himself into acting—which, given the opportunity, he’ll talk about and analyze with the unbridled enthusiasm of a drama teacher.
And Key’s all over the place this summer, too: He returns as the handsome and dashing romantic lead in USA’s comedy Playing House, and in Nicholas Stoller ( Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors)and Francesca Delbanco’s Netflix series Friends from College, he contorts that appeal as Ethan, a writer who reunites with his Harvard pals—including the woman with whom he’s been having an affair—after moving to New York with his wife. And, by the way, if you happen to be in that city, you can catch him spouting iambic pentameter in the cast of the Public Theater’s Hamlet alongside Oscar Isaac.
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We talked to Key about staying active, what drew him to Friends from College, and tackling Shakespeare— and the Predator franchise.
VICE: You’re having a really busy summer. How did all of these projects come about?
Keegan-Michael Key: Friends from College was something that I rolled in [on] the tide of after Jordan and I had been in Nick’s Storks. It was wonderful for him to say, “I think Keegan would be a good idea to play Ethan.” Hamlet’s been in the works for quite some time, though. There was a confluence of events—which I’m not even necessarily aware of—in which the opening night of Hamlet would be July 13 and the debut of the Netflix show would be on July 14.
Doing Shakespeare—or, I should say, getting back to Shakespeare—is something that’s very important to me. Once Key & Peele was winding down, [I started] to look forward and think, “What’s the next thing going to be?” A very important person in my life said to me, “If you could do anything you wanted and there was no impediment, what would you want to do?” One of those things was Shakespeare.
How does Friends from College represent what you wanted to pursue after Key & Peele?
Part of the attraction was that there are lots of poignant and uncomfortable moments in the show that are sometimes being played for dramedy, and not necessarily just for zaniness or pure comedy. That was extremely attractive to me. Those difficult moments where a person has an opportunity to do the right or wrong thing—that’s really fun for an actor.
Also, it’s a nice challenge to play a character who is—I don’t know that he’s despicable, but certainly it’s a delicious struggle to watch him, because he feels bad but he doesn’t stop. I love playing that ambivalence. With sketch, you’re trying as hard as you can to embody a three-dimensional character—but sometimes, frankly, you don’t have the time because you’ve got to shoot three sketches that day. But Friends from College is ostensibly a four-hour movie, so you get to dive deeper into what motivates the character—what are their dreams, hopes, fears. You get to really dig in.
The first thing we learn about Ethan is that he’s cheating on his wife, who is played by one of the most likable people in the world: Cobie Smulders. That’s a hurdle for an actor to overcome.
I already thought Nick Stoller was brilliant, but it didn’t even occur to me how brilliant his casting was until I heard from four reporters: “How could you cheat on Cobie Smulders?” And I was like, “Oh right. That’s why he cast her.” You can’t lose when you cast a really pretty Canadian—they’re the nicest people in the world.
People I’ve talked to seem to think that, somehow, Keegan is trying everything he can to make Ethan a human rather than just a dastardly mustache-twirler—and a lot of that is in the writing, too. He’s torn, and his logic isn’t sound, but he’s doing what humans do: justifying our behavior. Part of why some people are uncomfortable with Ethan is because we all do it—actual real humans, not just cartoon on-the-screen humans.
There are some parts of Ethan that feel very rooted to comedy I’ve seen you do before.
I might’ve done something off-camera that inspired Nick. In the middle of a take, Nick said to me, “Do a funny voice, Keegan.” I’m an improviser, so I just started improvising some kind of voice, and I could hear him giggling in video village. Then we stopped filming so we could talk about which voice [Ethan] uses when, and we were like, “Alright, so I guess this is a part of Ethan’s character,” which I welcomed wholeheartedly.
A lot of Ethan’s behaviors are dramatized. Not only is he stuck in undesirable situations, but we also see what he does physically when he’s in those situations—and I love it. My favorite thing I used to say to myself, Jordan, and past students was, “I understand the theme you’re trying to get across. How do we dramatize it? How do we physicalize it?”
During Key & Peele, you were involved in all facets of creating the show. Did you want to primarily concentrate on acting afterwards?
Absolutely—it’s where the majority of my training is. I was trying to open up and work new muscles by being a producer, writer, and actor. I figured when I was done with Key & Peele, I could bring even more specificity to my work as an actor, and I wanted to try that out. I thought, “Let’s jump back into the big stuff. Let’s get back to Shakespeare.”
I never thought for a million years that Key & Peele was a thing that would happen in my life. If I went back in a time machine and told 24-year-old me what would happen to me in 20 years, I would’ve said, “Where’d you get that time machine? That’s amazing.” Then I would’ve said, “What? Sketch comedy? That’s not the plan. I’m going to do Shakespeare festivals around the country and be desperately poor the rest of my life.”
You’re doing a lot in the production of Hamlet—not just playing Horatio—that ties back to sketch as well.
[Director] Sam [Gold] understood that it behooves everyone involved [to realize that] the audience isn’t ready for a full transition. I hope this doesn’t sound obnoxious, but I don’t want an audience member going, “When’s he going to do something funny?” and then not pay attention to one of the greatest stories in Western civilization. I’m like, “Hey, you guys should be watching and experiencing the experience of Hamlet. Maybe let’s do that instead of going, ‘When is Keegan-Michael Key going to do something funny?’”
Sam safeguarded himself from that by giving me the green light to do the dumbshow. He said, “Give yourself two minutes to do whatever you want on that table.” And I looked at him and I arched an eyebrow and I said, “Whatever I want?” And he said, “It’s yours. It is your canvas.” Clearly, I could tell what Sam wanted was to put elements of what I’m known for in there.
You also have The Predator coming up. That must have been a completely different experience.
It was wonderful. I’m just going to come right out and say it: I want to be Jason Bourne and I want to do Shakespeare. If I had my druthers, money was no option, and I didn’t have any bad stories I was telling myself about why I couldn’t do it, that would be the dream. The reason I took The Predator was because Shane Black wrote and directed it. If it had been almost anybody else I probably wouldn’t have done it. There’s lots of witticisms and humor, but the bullets are real. It’s dangerous. I get to die in a super spectacular way. It was awesome. Spoiler alert: Humans die.
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