Keegan-Michael Key
Keegan-Michael Key
Keegan-Michael Keyis an American actor, writer, and comedian. He starred in the Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele and co-stars in the USA Network comedy series Playing House. He spent six seasons as a cast member on MADtv and has made several guest appearances on Whose Line is it Anyway?. In 2014, he also starred in the first season of the FX series Fargo and the final season of the NBC series Parks and Recreation. He has had supporting...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth22 March 1971
CitySouthfield, MI
CountryUnited States of America
My adoptive mother tirelessly worked most of her life to build up my self-esteem. So what happened was finding her started to shed light and destroy my mythos. So for the first year of knowing [biological mother], my mom kind of actually literally visited me in Detroit and kind of gave me a tour of my life - where I was conceived, where I was born, where she found out she was pregnant. It was amazing and very emotional.
Everybody puts on airs, regardless of race.
It was very important thousands of years ago to categorize things. I can eat that plant, I can't eat that plant. Or this tribe, not that tribe. We don't have to do that anymore - we have processed food now!
There Is Nothing More Dangerous On Planet Earth Than A Black Wife
The audience loves to figure things out. They love it when a performer leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them, and they get to participate in the comedy.
When you're a child, the most important thing is to be able to live a life of comfort. You want to be sure that the moon goes up at night and the sun comes up in the morning and dad comes home from work.
Like every human we have to categorize ourselves, so you kind of start to build a mythos 'cause I had no information about [ biological mother]. So you have to build a mythos around yourself. And so my mythos included me not being wanted or me being a wretched person, which is just great fertilizer for comedy.
I have this little thing that people call Keegan-ese, where I don't speak English words at all. I just say stuff like, "You gotta toish the doish and you gotta maloish the hoish."
I have always, or for the most part, identified myself as a biracial person.
My father has passed away. He was African-American. My mother is white. So I was adopted by a couple that was of a similar dynamic as my biological parents.
There's a thing called the 'One Drop' theory in African-American culture, which is if you have one drop of black blood in you, you're black.
There is no top. You are never going to reach the top if you go for success. That way lies madness.
Surprise is not humor. I think that there can be a fine line there.
You can not have comedy unless people are behaving badly. You can't have it.