For Keke Palmer, Work Is ‘Joy.’ Life, She’s Still Figuring Out

Keke Palmer is a performer down to her bones, honey. She’s booked, she’s busy, and thanks to her two-year-old son, Leo, she can now act out a good portion of Boss Baby on demand. “I do that [voice] to my son, and he immediately starts laughing,” Palmer, 31, says. “He’s absolutely obsessed.” 

Since her breakout movie role at age 12 in 2006’s Akeelah and the Bee, Palmer has conquered nearly every medium there is. She’s become a Nickelodeon star, recorded two R&B albums, and appeared in a steady drip of films and TV shows. She was nominated for an Emmy as a daytime talk-show host (on Good Morning America) and won one as a primetime game-show host (of Password). Last November, she became a New York Times bestselling author with her memoir, Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative. 

Now, Palmer is jumping back onto the big screen in One of Them Days (out Jan. 17), a buddy comedy co-starring SZA and co-produced by Issa Rae, about two best friends desperate to make their rent money in 12 hours. Their raucous romp through the streets of L.A. lets Palmer’s comedic talents shine — but, surprisingly, it also made her think about whether being booked is what she wants forever. “[My character] is just trying to get her a good nine-to-five job and do enough to be good,” Palmer says. “And that’s how I feel. I want to do enough that I can be good — and then be able to do a little something for somebody else.” 

How did you first get involved in One of Them Days? 
I had a music meeting, actually, with Issa going into the last season of Insecure. But it’s taken us five, six years. We started it [in 2019] when I was doing Good Morning America in the second hour with Michael Strahan and Sara Haines. So it’s been a long time coming. When I first read the script, you could tell it had weight but still had a levity and humanity to it, which I think is so important. It gave me that feeling that I had as a kid when I would watch those old Nineties, 2000s comedies. You just see our culture, and you see friendship. It’s one of my favorite movies that I’ve done. Not every movie that you do is [one] that you’d watch a lot. This I would. It’s like, “Put that shit on real quick!” You get into it.
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You’re telling me you’re not watching Nickelodeon’s Rags [a gender-swapped version of Cinderella with Palmer as the prince] on the daily? 
Now, Rags was good. I gagged the kids earlier talking about it.

Female buddy comedies are pretty popular, but the time between big successes always feels surprising. I think of Girls Trip or Joy Ride — like, why don’t we immediately have nine more of these?
Yes. I don’t know what that is. You don’t always want to be harping on the horn of “It’s because we’re women!” but…

Your character in One of Them Days, Dreux, is an overachiever focused on the next thing, whereas SZA’s Alyssa is a laid-back artist. What draws them together as friends? 
Dreux is a Type A personality. She feels like, “As long as I do everything right, everything should go right.” She has a soft spot for [Alyssa] because they’re kind of what each other is not. Alyssa is more free-flowing. Dreux really wants to be able to work her way up, because she knows that that’s where the money is at. But it feels like all the cards are stacked against her. It’s almost as if there’s imperialism in place. Oh, wait, there is. So [the film] is about her trying to find her way through that, but coming around to realizing that, in a lot of ways, being in service to herself is also being in service to others.

The key to any good buddy comedy is the duo’s relationship — if the friends aren’t believable the whole film falls apart. What made you and your fellow producers confident SZA was your ideal Alyssa? 
We had been doing a ton — a ton — of chemistry reads with people. They were good, but it didn’t necessarily feel like “that was the one.” Eventually, they were like, “We’re gonna have SZA come in.” I’d been around her a few times, we did SNL together. And then she gets in there and immediately nails it. She nailed it. That was our favorite part, being with each other, because it was such a grueling schedule. We were having so much fun, laughing and talking shit, we would lose ourselves in that and be like, “Damn. We’ve been here for 16 hours. It’s time to go!” We’re extreme versions of our characters. So when we’re around each other, I think we just lean into that. She always gets me into a very deep, introspective, reflective place. 
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The musical sketch you and SZA did together on SNL, “Big Boys,” got so popular on TikTok that fans continue to beg SZA to put a recording of it on her next album. Was it surprising that it became such a hit online? 
That was so funny to us. And so kismet. Because I’ve always been a huge fan of hers. [Her album Ctrl] changed everything. It was just such a moment in pop-culture history. Over the course of the years, we would chitchat, [but] always from afar. And that night, it was so cool that we got to actually be around each other. Then I met her parents, and then we end up doing a movie. So it’s just very interesting how life works.

In the movie, one low point for Dreux is feeling like, even at her best, things are being taken away from her. What was important to you about portraying that feeling of helplessness, especially right now? 
Everything. Everything. Everything. One of the scenes that was chilling, like “Damn,” was when Dreux [expresses], “I could run this company.” That’s how I feel! I’ve done sang, dance, hosted, acted, did everything under the sun. That’s how I felt. “Just let me be the director, let me be the producer, let me be the company. I’ve been doing what y’all been wanting me to do for the last 22 years. I think I’m capable.” And that was, for me, a moment of reflection. Your community is a great guiding force. Your core people that you know, that’s got your back when the direction you’re trying to go [isn’t] fitting, they’re there to help guide you. And when it feels right, it feels right.

You’ve said things have changed in your life that make the film feel truer. What are those realizations? 
After my son, my intentions over my life became clearer. It pushed away the debris. What my son has had the power to do for me is to put things into perspective. He’s allowed me to see what I do and don’t need, and what’s going to make me my best. 

One big revelation in your book, Master of Me, is that during your time on the Ryan Murphy show Scream Queens, one of your co-stars made a racially charged statement to you during an on-set argument. You’ve continued not to name her in the press. Why is that?
I thought people was gonna get too caught up in the person. I also think it would have made it a less relatable situation. There’s so many of us that experience this in the workplace, and I wanted the focus to be on how I recovered from that, not the tea of who said it and how we feel about them. 

You earned the nickname Keke “Keep a Job” Palmer because of your never-ending résumé. But you’ve said that you spent a lot of your career feeling like you were missing key information to succeed in Hollywood. What are things you wish you would’ve known? 
[Always being booked] is not what everybody thinks it is. We fantasize ideas of what it means to be a boss. I don’t think it’s for everybody, but if it is for you, you deserve to know what it takes. Everything isn’t going to be perfect. Sometimes you are going to have to get your hands dirty. Being a leader doesn’t just mean delegating; it means getting in the weeds with everybody. 

Is the pace you keep ever tiring? 
Not for me. That’s the source of my purpose: to create. I’m working at something that I love. Doesn’t mean it’s not hard. Doesn’t mean I’m not wore out at times. But I like to be put to work. For me, that’s my joy. Now, where that comes from, we could dive into all day. But all I know is it makes me happy, so I keep doing it.