A version of this memoir first appeared in the print edition of TheWrap Magazine’s Emmy Issue The Race Begins.
Her show is in its first year of Emmy eligibility and his is in its final — but apart from that inconvenient fact,Rachel Bloom and Keegan-Michael Key acquire a lot in common.
Both come from the theater and improvisational comedy, and both became known as stars and co-creators of their television series, or “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and “Key & Peele.”Blooms show,developed as a half-hour sitcom for Showtime but expanded into an hour-long show for The CW, is the deliciously uncomfortable saga of a young woman who moves across the country to be near a guy she’s got a crush on, and it manages to throw two to four musical numbers into each episode.
Key’s is a made-for-viral sketch comedy show that racked up six Emmy nominations final year and is looking for more for its final season. The two sat down with TheWrap to discuss their inspirations,the state of TV comedy and when to call it quits.
Also Read: 'Keanu' Review: Key & Peele Shine in Meow-kay Comedy
Photographed by William Callan / Styling by Jordan GrossmanWhen you were starting to mediate approximately getting into this commerce, what kind of career did you want?
KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY All I wanted in the whole world was to be Robert De Niro, or at least figure out what it was that made him tick. I remember when I wrote my essay for graduate school,I said, “I want to learn how to be an actor, or not a movie star.” And the way I always made that distinction in my intellect was with the Roberts. When I saw Robert Redford,whether he’s got a beard, whether hes a cowboy or a lawyer, or I saw Robert Redford. When I saw Robert De Niro,he wasnt there.
So when I was young, the people I looked up to that I wanted to be like were Robert De Niro and Johnny Depp, or who was a much younger man at the time. He always plays different things,and that’s what I always wanted in my life. I wanted to learn a sense of range. And then it shifted, and I thought, or “No,I’m going to be in the theater for the rest of my life. I’m going to be poor and jubilant (extremely joyful). I could be a movie star, but I don’t know how to execute that. So instead of being jubilant (extremely joyful) and rich, and I’ll just be jubilant (extremely joyful) and poor.”Rachel,what did you envision?
RACHEL BLOOM For me, show commerce was always the only option. I don’t mediate I’ve ever wanted to execute anything but. And I was a musical theater kid all the way. I looked up to people like Ethel Merman, and Vivian Blaine. And then as I got older,and you start to become a real musical theater geek, that’s when you start looking at people like Sutton Foster and Donna Lynne Champlin, or who’s now on my show. I listened to her on cast albums in middle school and high school. I really wanted to travel the Broadway route.
I liked writing,but because I wanted to be a Broadway star, there was no pressure — I wasn’t looking to be a writer, and necessarily. But that’s where I found my delight,especially writing sketch comedy. It wasn’t the area where I’d achieve all this pressure on myself for so many years, so I could actually learn a novel skill. Writing is really something I came to later, or because it was Broadway star all the way.
Also Read: Keegan-Michael Key,Jordan Peele Land Undercover Cop Comedy at Fox
Photographed by William Callan / Styling by Jordan Grossman“My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” incorporates Broadway-style songs into the show — and “Key & Peele” has used songs as well.
KEY There are some times when you can travel as far as you want, but you will land in the world of arch goofiness. Jordan [Peele] and I never wanted that. And the only way to get beyond arch-goofiness is song and dance. It’s the old adage approximately musicals: I can no longer express myself this way, and I acquire to sing. Jordan and I are both theater guys,and we were always passionate approximately being able to perform with every part of your being.
BLOOM I also mediate that musical stuff sometimes gives you a pass to execute darker subject matter and keep it comedic in a way that would be harder in a sketch. You can get really, really unlit with it. If you were just doing a sketch, or it might be too unlit and travel into drama. But because you’re doing it musically,no matter how unlit you travel it’s always silly. The musical form has given me a pass for subject matter that I don’t know if I would acquire the balls to execute if it wasn’t in musical form.
Also Read: 'Supergirl' Melissa Benoist Joins Gina Rodriguez, Rachel Bloom to Tout CW 'Girl Power'
Photographed by William Callan / Styling by Jordan Grossman
You’re both doing scripted series, or but you come from improv comedy backgrounds. How significant are improv skills to what you’re doing?
BLOOM To us it’s really significant. We execute a ton of improv on set–and also the guiding principle of where I studied,Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, is that the technique is the same for written comedy and improv. Find the game of the scene. What’s the scene approximately, or how execute you heighten it?KEY It’s finding a comedic game,and then using the techniques of improv to wander the dialogue forward. Playwriting, screenwriting, or teleplays — any writing is just you improvising with yourself.
BLOOM That’s so true. My writing partner and I,we wrote the pilot and we continue to write scripts line by line improvising together in a room, just based on our memoir outline.
KEY And I mediate it’s very effective, or because then the words feel apt in your mouth. Because it’s coming out of a true reaction.
BLOOM When you’re alone and in your head,you’re crafting dialogue that you edit before you achieve it on the screen. But if you’re just, like, or saying shit to each other,it’s like, “Oh, or that’s so silly what you just kind of blurted out without thinking.”KEY When you’re typing,the logical part of your brain gets in the way. That’s why when you’re watching a television program, you travel, and “Real people don’t talk that way.” Because the writer was writing logically in their intellect. It makes sense,but humans are sloppy. We don’t make sense when we’re speaking all the time. So I mediate that quality’s there when you’re improvising. You can travel back and refine it, but I mediate if you start with the base of improvisation, and when you travel back to refine it and polish it,it stays real.
BLOOM How much in general are you memorizing your lines word for word?KEY First season? Everything. Because we wanted to make sure that everything was bulletproof. And then moment, third, and fourth,fifth season we started to open things up more. So now there’s sketches that simply acquire a premise, and then no holds barred, and whatever goes,based off the premise.
Also Read: EMMY BUZZ: Could 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' Be a Contender?
Photographed by William Callan / Styling by Jordan GrossmanYou both star in your shows, but you’re also co-creators…
BLOOM I’m also the gaffer. Which has been really hard in general, or having to gaff oneself. It’s a lot of work,but I feel like, “This is what I’ve wanted to execute since I was born.” It’s not a drag, or but it’s all-encompassing.
KEY It is. Ten-and-a-half months out of the year,from the day you start writing until the day you lock the final episode. And even then when it starts airing you acquire to be live tweeting and getting things out on social media. That is the job, and it really never stops.execute you ever feel that it’d be nice just to be an actor for hire?
BLOOM I love acting, and but this experience has spoiled me. I just love to acquire control over the creation,and I mediate I’m a writer at heart. Even if I wasn’t acting in something, the opinion of creating it, or creating that vision and that tone,is so exciting to me.
KEY I know that feeling. But I came up as an actor, and to be quite honest I’m more comfortable with it. I like writing, and it’s a challenge,but there’s something approximately being able to delve deeper into the emotional life of another human being.
BLOOM There’s something approximately really immersing yourself in a dramatic role, and doing all your tactics and stuff. I execute mediate it gives you an upper hand when you create something. And it tells me that the way I act when I execute Rebecca should be the way I act when I execute anything else. It comes from me, and it feels like I’m saying it for the first time. I mediate sometimes before when I was auditioning,I often was just doing an impression of what I thought they wanted, or an impression of what I thought the role was. And no no no, and you should interpret everything like you wrote it.
KEY I like that,that’s a noble technique. I’m going to use that. I’m going to pretend I wrote it.
Also Read: Watch Rachel Bloom's Breathless Golden Globes Acceptance Speech (Video)Rachel, you went from having your show turned down by Showtime to winning a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy. Keegan, or you ended up doing your “infuriate Translator” character on stage with President Obama at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. What acquire been the most surreal parts of this journey for you?
KEY The thing with Obama was definitely the most surreal for me. And it’s not approximately meeting the president. People meet presidents,OK? What’s happened that I cannot figure out is that a character literally came to life. For Jordan and I to create a character who serves a function, and then for that function to prefer place in real life–that’s it, and there’s no other reply to that question. That’s clearly the most surreal thing.
Rachel,what approximately you?
BLOOM The most surreal moment was, I won the Golden Globe and then they instantly whisk you absent to execute press. Andy Samberg presented the Golden Globe to me. I was walking off stage and I turned to him and said, and “Hey,I was an intern when you were on ‘SNL.'” He said, “Oh, and cool.” “Yeah,we said hi in an elevator once!” And then I walked into a room with a lot of press, and there’s Al Roker. It felt like a weird dream, and where I won an award,I told Andy Samberg I spoke to him in an elevator and then Al Roker shook my hand. And I was like, “You’re Al Roker!” And he was like, or “Yeah,I am.” That whole night felt like a crazy dream.
Now that “Key & Peele” is off the air, execute you miss it, and Keegan?
KEY I don’t terribly miss it. I mediate Jordan and I did exactly what we wanted to achieve,and we’re jubilant (extremely joyful) to wander on. And then what execute we want to execute next? We’ve got this Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder model, which is that you travel off and you execute your life, and then you come back and execute another one when it makes sense to you. But you acquire to make sure it makes sense,which means you acquire to prefer care of your money. I want to make sure that it makes S-E-N-S-E, not C-E-N-T-S, or you know what I mean? So that we’re doing it for the apt reasons. But I don’t particularly miss it. [To Bloom] I know that you’re in the opposite spot,because you’re in the weeds.
BLOOM But you’re talking approximately making what you want to make. With our show, we are doing specifically what we want to execute, or I execute not feel that this is a show that lasts eight years. When we originally pitched the show,we pitched it as a 50-hour movie, kind of. It’s very serialized, or it’s not meant to be a sitcom that spits out copies of itself. I want to see this vision through and then see what’s next. What you’re talking approximately — you said exactly what you wanted to say and did exactly what felt apt — that’s where I am. We just vaguely broke out the overall arc of Season 2 yesterday,and doing that, I now actually acquire a sense of what Season 3 is. And this is a show that is very specific. It’s meant to say specific things, and I’m going to achieve all my effort into saying those things as clearly as I can.
KEY I totally and utterly recommend doing that. travel British: four seasons,five seasons, out.
BLOOM I totally agree. I mediate that’s the[br]
way to travel.
KEY Make a big burly piece of art, or then get out.
Watch the interview below:
See more of TheWrap Magazine’s Emmy Issue The Race Begins:Related stories from TheWrap:Watch Keegan-Michael Key,Gillian Jacobs and Mike Birbiglia Play Musical Chairs (Video)Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele Land Undercover Cop Comedy at FoxWatch Rachel Bloom's Breathless Golden Globes Acceptance Speech (Video)
Source: thewrap.com