The day Key & Peele took over an Oakland cat cafe for 'Keanu'
OAKLAND, Calif. -- What's better than Key & Peele? Obviously, Key & Peele & Cats.
In case you've been living under a rock, the two Comedy Central funnymen have been touring the country (and the Interwebs) to promote their new cat-centric film, "Keanu," which claws its way into theaters this weekend.
The film centers around two best friends, Rell (Jordan Peele) and Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key), who live a quiet, suburban life. But when a thief breaks in to Rell's home and steals Keanu, his kitten, both men must find their inner thugs to get the kitten back.
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In an homage to their feline costar, the pair have been organizing their press junkets at cat shelters. As you might have guessed, the results are lots of kitten cuddles and kitten cookies.
One such press junket was held in Oakland on April 20, at a cafe/adoption shelter aptly named Cat Town Cafe. Once there, Key & Peele regaled reporters and felines alike with some behind-the-scenes tidbits on Keanu.
The movie wasn't originally about cats
Hard to believe, right? As it turns out, the film was originally the briainchild of Jordan Peele and screenwriter Alex Rubens, who concocted a story that comically depicted code-switching, or the practice in which people change their voice and mannerisms to suit whomever they're talking to at a given moment.
After putting the finishing touches on the first draft of the script, however, Peele and Rubens decided that it needed "more heart." The kitten was re-worked into the script (because who doesn't love kittens?) although Key insists that he "lobbied so hard for a chinchilla."
Contrary to some rumors, the movie is not based on a beginner's screenplay writing book
In university film departments across the country (okay, well, at my university's film department), beginning auteurs and writers are often assigned the book "Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need." The text argues that one of the easiest ways to establish a character as a hero (or loveable anti-hero) is to have them do something heroic, like saving a cat. Theoretically, from that point on, the audience should relate to that character.
Peele admits that the movie might be a bit of a tongue-and-cheek nod to the book, but stops short of saying it was a part of his writing process.
"There was sort of a realization that the device of the cat came at a point when I needed that book, so to speak," he said with a laugh. "But the movie becomes the best possible version of that...We're improvising. We're taking a suggestion and putting it through our own creative filter."
It's all about the Benjamins
In the roundtable press interview, one reporter asked if it was hard for the Key and Peele to get the movie off the ground as actors of color. The answer was a resounding "no."
"We didn't have that problem," said Peele. "We're lucky because we had our show, and we were the controlling voice of that show, so as soon as someone decided to make a movie with us they knew they the only way to do it was to trust in our voice."
Key echoed his partner-in-comedy's statements, adding that it all boils down to one thing in Hollywood: Money.
"Because of the platform of the show, we just switched colors, so to speak," he said. "(The film's producers) didn't care so much about being black. They cared about the green. At the end of the day, in our industry, that's all that matters.
At the end of the day, in our industry, that's all that matters.
If the commerce makes sense, they don't care if you're purple. They're going to make the movie."
There was some friendly competition behind the scenes
Rapper Method Man has a part in the film, playing a deadly-serious man holding Keanu ransom. Apparently, when time would permit, both Key and Peele would try as hard as possible to make the rapper bust up laughing.
"When we're improvising, that's when we're having fun," Peele said. "Whenever you have someone in a scene whose job it is to be serious the whole time, through whatever you do, it's almost a challenge. It was basically a competition between for and Keegan and I to see who can make Method Man laugh."
Aside from a few laughs, Method Man was the consummate professional.
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