KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY IS GETTING ANIMATED while discussing the arc of his character Ethan in the Netflix series Friends From College when he’s rudely interrupted.
“Sorry, I couldn’t find what you were looking for,” says Alexa—she of the disembodied, faintly robotic voice programmed into Amazon’s virtual assistant, who he’d failed to realize was eavesdropping. “It’s fine, Alexa,” Key sighs. “Stop, Alexa.” Perceptive as she may be, she doesn’t understand the nuances of human behavior quite like Key. During our conversation on a dreary January afternoon in a greenroom before a television interview, he references Aristotle, Konstantin Stanislavski and improv gurus Del Close and Keith Johnstone with a recall that belies the 22 years that have passed since he graduated with an M.F.A. in theater and began studying improv.
The minor mishap between computer and man could be part of an escalating bit from Key & Peele, the sketch-comedy show Key created with Jordan Peele that ran for five seasons on Comedy Central, winning two Emmys and a Peabody Award. For as much as the show was celebrated for its incisive social commentary, particularly about race in America, it also produced hours of absurdist vignettes that took quotidian events—like the interminable lineup of groups invited to board a plane before the average coach ticket holder—to illogical extremes: “old religious people with military babies,” “Jason Schwartzman,” “anyone with a blue suitcase.”
This story is from the January 21, 2019 edition of Time.
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This story is from the January 21, 2019 edition of Time.
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