Things You Wouldnt Know About Keegan Michael Key
My Ten
Keegan-Michael Primal Reaches into the Past With 'Midnight Run' and 'Electric Ladyland'
The role player, who appears in the upcoming musical "The Prom," looks back on improv guides, Whoopi Goldberg'southward comedy and Diego Rivera's murals.
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The world may have turned upside-downwards this year, but the actor-producer Keegan-Michael Key has grounded himself in his piece of work, finding a refuge from the isolation and anxiety of the pandemic.
For a gregarious person like Key, who is used to collaborating with others on set in projects similar Netflix'south "Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journeying," Ryan Murphy's musical "The Prom," and fifty-fifty "Home Motion-picture show: The Princess Helpmate" on Quibi (R.I.P.), atmospheric condition this year accept forced him to work remotely every day.
"Information technology's been fascinating to accept merely finished work before the pandemic really hit u.s.," he said. "I was in a very, very communal experience, working on 'The Prom.' And then the stark dissimilarity of doing Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting and doing audio piece of work from your habitation."
Digging into the things that bring him joy has helped him keep his equilibrium, he says. In a contempo phone interview from Vancouver, where he's shooting a musical comedy for Apple TV+, Key walked through the 10 things he's found himself revisiting during his extra fourth dimension. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
1. " Every Frame a Painting "
At that place's a YouTube channel by a gentleman by the name of Tony Zhou, and information technology's well-nigh film critique. The channel is called Every Frame a Painting [cocreated past Taylor Ramos]. I merely absolutely honey it, and I call back it'south a tragedy that he stopped making them. Of the videos on the aqueduct, my two favorite videos would be How to Do Visual Comedy, which is pretty much an exploration of Edgar Wright and his piece of work. And and so in that location'due south one called How to Do Action Comedy, which is an unabridged episode about the art and craft of Jackie Chan.
I retrieve part of what draws me to all that stuff, to both of those, is the theatricality of them. And so, the stuff with Jackie Chan I detect then fascinating because he talks about how he locks off shots. He doesn't pan or track. He always lets the performer exercise the special effects in the photographic camera. So, seeing people really jump and bound and fall and be struck is so dynamic and exciting to experience. With Edgar Wright, it'due south the opposite. He uses a lot of artistry to show the passage of time, and a person moving from one place to another using cinematic techniques.
Simply every unmarried episode is an absolute gem. Sometimes if I'one thousand but sitting during the day and I'm existence contemplative or I have a break, I'll find myself gravitating toward Every Frame a Painting. And it'due south just something that gives me a lot of joy, and a lot of edification.
ii. "Impro" and "Impro for Storytellers" past Keith Johnstone
I had a director at the Second Metropolis who taught a technique about improvisation that he shared with us in a very figurative way.
He told us this quote, and I'm paraphrasing, about an improviser's chore is always to walk back, as if you're walking backward. A performer's e'er walking backward through space. As y'all keep walking backward, more than things come into your field of vision.
Oh, that'south a window, and that'southward a lamp that's now in the window. And I dorsum upwards, now I see the kitchen counter. You need to see all of those things to assist establish where you are.
He got that thought from Keith Johnstone. He wrote a couple of really amazing books chosen "Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre" and "Impro for Storytellers." And they were but perpetual manuals for me when I was performing as an improviser total-time and also teaching. And I just detect and so many fantastic things nigh narrative and how he looks at game play and how to open children'due south minds and have them experience life in a fearless fashion.
3. "Midnight Run"
Ane of my favorite movies of all time is "Midnight Run," with Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Dennis Farina. Martin Brest directed information technology. American activeness films at that time had quite a lot of humour in them. Simply the bullets were still real. And there was this sensibility that the danger was gritty and accurate, yet there was also a place for jokes. And that's fascinating to me.
If you picket "Midnight Run," it's the funniest I retrieve De Niro ever was in his career. Everything in the piece fits together. The narrative of the piece, and besides how he'southward reacting to Grodin. At that place was something very authentic about their buddy story, about the development of them meeting as two people.
4. Kehinde Wiley
I call back Kehinde Wiley is astonishing. Simply talk about an artist who actually effectively uses juxtaposition. And the way that he celebrates the Black experience through some other older experience. Legitimizing our very existence by saying, "Why couldn't nosotros accept been any dissimilar to men on horseback with all this frippery, and regaling themselves with sashes and capes and sabers?" His fine art, information technology'southward so dynamic and colorful and powerful and inspiring. I can't go to an art museum correct now, only I really enjoy his books so much.
5. The Detroit Industry Murals
I'm from Detroit, and there'due south a existent dearest of ballsy that I have. In the Detroit Institute of Arts, there's a room, and all the walls are filled with these murals that were painted by Diego Rivera in the '30s. And they're absolutely magnificent. It'southward but these great images of all the people of the world. And then beneath it, almost the development of industry, and it'southward fantastic. It's merely breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking.
6. " The Great Eastern " by Howard Rodman
I read a volume right on the edge of Covid. It's a piece of historical fiction chosen "The Great Eastern," and it's fantastic.
There was a civil engineer in the 19th century in England past the proper name Isambard Kingdom Brunel. And he helped build the tunnel underneath the Thames, and he did all this in the 1850s, 1860s. A transport called the Great Eastern suffered from an explosion. That's all historical fact. Merely Howard Rodman, the writer, what he did is you find out it was really a terrorist attack. A gentleman blew upwards the transport, and then kidnapped Brunel. And you find out, through the story, that the person who kidnapped him is Captain Nemo.
Information technology's great. It'southward been my favorite read of the year so far.
7. " Electrical Ladyland " by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
I'm an enormous Jimi Hendrix fan. I call up that "Electric Ladyland," which was his third album, is an absolute masterpiece. And something that if I ever really desire to get lost in a song, my favorite song on that album is a song called "1983 … (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)." And it'south like a whole big opus. And I dearest this song. It'southward ane of these great songs that has movements in information technology. I don't even know how he makes the sound, but these wonderful sounds of, like, sea bells. Like, foghorn-y sounds and sea gulls. He paints a seascape with sound, and makes bubbly sounds with the bass guitar and the guitar. And the whole song is well-nigh being someone who's submerging underneath water, because that'southward going to be a identify to be in the time to come.
8. East Asian Cinema
I'thou a large fan of kung fu and wuxia movie house. There was a pic that came out in 2002 called "Hero," which is a Zhang Yimou movie, with Jet Li, Tony Leung, and Zhang Ziyi. Only information technology'due south just one of the almost visually sumptuous things I've e'er seen in my life. Every character is represented by a color. And information technology reminds me a lot of Akira Kurosawa's "Ran." Which again, it'southward something that plays with different factions and dissimilar characters being explained by color, or influencing you, the viewer, by the color. It's some other one of these films that I could watch whenever. Information technology's almost like my eyes are having Thanksgiving dinner nigh every ten minutes. I've ever had a kind of steady nutrition of those movies in my life.
9. " Whoopi Goldberg on Broadway "
I think one of the near influential things for me as an artist, only too for me seeing the world in a new way that'southward always stuck for me, is when I used to heed to Whoopi Goldberg. I didn't go to see her on Broadway, merely my parents had the anthology, and I would mind to her play these dissimilar characters. And it was astounding. Here'southward this African-American woman who's playing several characters. She's playing a adult female with disabilities, she plays a young daughter who'due south Black but she had blonde pilus. She's playing a surfer daughter who, as I'm listening to it, I'm hearing her voice, I'm going, "OK, yes, this girl is supposed to exist white."
And and then she plays this educated junkie. A junkie who travels to Amsterdam and goes to the Anne Frank [Business firm], and talking about, "When I got my degree at Columbia," and the audience always laughs, and she goes, "What? You think I was a junkie for my whole life?" And information technology's one little line in the matter, merely you become, "Oh my gosh, that'due south so brilliant." The character becomes this fully realized human in this tiny thing. It'south her using something Jordan Peele chosen comedic judo. She's using your expectations against you. And it'south washed so deftly.
ten. " Laughter " past Henri Bergson
He posits these theories nearly why we express mirth. And one of them is about flexibility and malleability in club. And so that when nosotros move through order, we all try to be, for the most part, as fluid as nosotros can with each other. Oftentimes, inflexibility or rigidity is what brings virtually laughter. There are these unwritten contracts that we have with each other, that I'thousand going to continue this much distance from you lot, or I walk out of the way as you lot're coming downward the street. You lot know, that kind of situation. Nosotros accept these moments, small, infinitesimal, about imperceptible negotiations with each other all the time. And when someone refuses to negotiate, sometimes the effect is laughter.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/movies/keegan-michael-key-favorites.html
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