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Interview with Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele


There are plenty of people on TV trying to make you laugh, but none of them are quite like Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. As the masterminds behind Comedy Central's new sketch-comedy show "Key & Peele," these comedians have an impressive handle on knowing how to put out a comedy show that stands out from the rest of what is on TV right now.

The series premieres Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 10:30 PM on Comedy Central where Key and Peele will demonstrate their skills of comedic timing, hysterical performances, perfect chemistry and social relevance all while making us laugh... right out loud.

PCM's Allison had the chance to speak with both Key and Peele about everything from the night they met to what we can expect from the series overall. She also got some story gems from them like Keegan finally meeting someone he didn't like, something the duo refers to as discovering the Fountain of Youth, and what a day on set with them is like - hint: it involves a made-up language.

Be sure to read the full interview below to learn more about these two comedy dynamos who are sure to make a splash with this new show and the absolute chemistry that they exude in any given situation. Seriously, check out the clip that first got us laughing here:

Key & Peele premieres Tuesday, January 31, 2012
at 10:30 PM on Comedy Central.

---

I can't even imagine how exciting and crazy things are for you guys right now with the upcoming premiere. How are you guys holding up?

Key: Longest. Month. Of. My. Life. [laughs] I mean, it's like, remember when you were a kid and it was Christmastime? It's been Christmastime for three months. It's been Christmas Eve for three months. It's just been getting more and more intense as we get closer to the premiere.

Peele: Yeah, the only difference is that it's almost from the parents' point of view. It's like we're getting to present this, what I hope ends up being, gift.

Key: [laughs] Right, right. That is perfect, Jordan.

Peele: But we've been working pretty nonstop. It's certainly one of the most busy times.

Key: Yeah, I mean, I would say that's the one thing that's kept me sane: that we keep on working. We do interviews and we have to be in editing and have to mix the final episodes. You know, there's so so so much work to do, so time isn't at a grinding halt. At least it is indeed passing.

Peele: This last week has slowed down considerably.

Now I know you both worked together before on MADTV, but how did you both meet? Do you remember that fateful day?

Key: [laughs] Yes! We met in Chicago in kind of 2002. I'm sorry, I don't know why I just said kind of. It was not kind of, it was virtually- it was not virtually, it was actually 2002.

Peele: [laughs]

Key: [laughs] We met in kind of 2002. And I worked at the Second City in Chicago and Jordan worked at a theater in Amsterdam called "Boom Chicago," that was the name of the theater, and their cast came over to the Second City in Chicago and one of our casts from Second City went to Amsterdam. We did like a cast swap and that's where I met him. You know, we have similar backgrounds, similar tastes in comedy and it was just like "boop" - just a click, it was so simple.

The fateful night was spent in a diner off the Belmont Redline in Chicago, underneath the L train and we were in the diner with some friends. We were there for hours and hours just talking about all the things that excite us about our work.

Peele: Just nerding out. You know, the improv and sketch community, even though it has grown considerably in the last 10 years, it's still very small and pretty insular and there's very few black people in sketch and improv even though that number is growing. Yeah, Keegan and I, our sort of reputations at the time preceded us and I was just told that I would get along famously with Keegan from a friend who actually ended up writing with us on "Key & Peele."

It was a destined, fateful day.

And this great opportunity for a show actually came about from a couple of unfortunate circumstances like a pilot not getting picked up and a show being cancelled. When you two decided to team up together again, did you immediately know what you wanted to do? Was it always going to be part sketch, part stand-up?

Key: Gosh, we originally - we found out from Comedy Central that was the direction that they wanted to go to, but there was a short period of time where Jordan and I were both talking about also making the show a narrative.

Then Comedy Central said, no we kind of prefer you guys to stay in the sketch direction, which was certainly fine for us because it then gave us the opportunity to write all of those sketch ideas that we had, that we thought weren't going to make it on MADtv or MADtv would not be interested in. Well, now we would have the opportunity to do whatever we wanted because it's our show.

Jordan, did we originally say sketch?

Peele: This was our first hand at producing, so yeah, we did from the very beginning. That's our wheelhouse - sketch. It was always going to be some sort of sketch show. I think the conclusion we came to with Comedy Central is, you know, we can really offer something to the pantheon of sketch comedy shows. So there's no need to reinvent the sketch format in some crazy way.

We decided to do a pretty straight forward show that really focused on letting the audience into who we actually are as people as well as our sketch. That was the strategy we realized worked for [Dave] Chappelle so well and has worked, really, for any successful sketch comedy show since the beginning of time.

Working together again, was it easy to fall back into the groove with one another?

Key: Oh, yeah, like riding a bike! Like riding a bike. It was not difficult at all. We just locked ourselves in Jordan's apartment...

Peele: You know, Keegan gets along with everybody, though, famously, so that's not saying too much.

Key: I didn't tell you, Jordan, I actually met a dude in San Francisco who I didn't like! [laughs] And not a comedian, not a comedian. We finally found the guy. This is like finding the Fountain of Youth for us, finding somebody that I just abjectly despise.

Yeah, this guy, I was watching the game and I was like, "gosh, this guy's horrible. I cannot wait to leave here." [laughs]


Peele: Okay, so I know it's not within the realm of your conscience to pinpoint who this guy is, but can you give us a sense of what irks you about this person?

Key: Oh, it's just - we were watching the football game and everything he had to say, it was... you know what it is? It was a know-it-all vibe, so like every time, you know he goes "I can't believe- he stepped out of bounds! He just stepped out of bounds!" And then they show the shot from another angle and then he's "Ok, ok, maybe I guess I'm wrong." [laughs] And I go, "yeah, you're wrong! Stop saying sh!t until you know sh!t."

I'm sorry, I just couldn't believe how viscerally I was responding to this guy. Then I was told he was a lawyer and I was like "Yes, of course you're a lawyer! Of course you're a lawyer." [laughs] It was just like, dude, the world isn't that bad of a place. Relax. It's just a football game. You know what I mean? It was weird.

Peele: We also liken our personalities to - I would be Garfield and he would be Odie.

Key: [laughs]

Peele: Not that you annoy me or anything, Keegan, but I think that those energies are...

Key: Yeah, if anything we tickle each other. Jordan, he's a 5'9" duck. I mean, everything just slides off his back. It's really got to be bad to irk Jordan. [laughs] And I just marvel at that.

Peele: Well, I get irked more often than you might know.

Key: That's probably the case. [laughs]

Peele: We have, just, crushes on each other's comedy, for starters. So that makes a perfect comedy marriage right there. We just, we're inspired by one another and I think some of the most fun scenes in our show are the ones that, you know, we call one-upsmanship scenes, so it's all about a sort of friendly competition, in some way or another, you know, behind the premise of the sketch and it just offers a chance for Keegan and I to inspire each other to greater heights than we never would have gone without one another.

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