Judd: Were you studying theater at all in college?
Key: I was studying theater, yeah, and I did this improv group, went off to graduate school, and then, after graduate school, joined the Second City in Detroit and was there for four years.
Peele: I was hosting at Second City so I was taking classes there but really the best thing I did was sit there and watch the main stage.
Judd: Were those the Adam McKay–Tina Fey years?
Peele: No. This was right after, with Stephnie Weir, Rich Talarico, Kevin Doyle, Susan Messing, Tami Sagher, T. J. Jagodowski—just unbelievable, night after night. It’s so important to see the best. That’s how you know how good it can be.
Key: And you’re like, Can I do that?
Peele: I remember feeling like, Oh no, I can’t do that. I just watched some magic right there. It was a gut-wrenching feeling.
Key: So many people have the same journey. I remember being a first-year in graduate school, sitting in the room where we did all these showcases that nobody watches but the other students, and the second-years were doing their Greeks final. And it’s all like the Trojan women and everybody’s been fucking raped sixty-five times and the husbands have been killed and babies have been chucked off the side of mountains. There was just so much raw emotion taking place in these four actors in front of us. I remember looking at my roommate and another one of my friends and saying, “I’m getting kicked out. I’m getting kicked out of this program. I’m never going to be able to do that.” But then you get the tools, and one of those tools is the confidence to say, “Of course I can do that.” It was so important for me to be able to get that foundation.
Judd: When I first started doing stand-up, I was watching the highest level of it with Jim Carrey and Sandler and I just thought, I’ll never get there. It was almost like it was unfair. It was like if Brando was at your college and you were watching him while you were taking your first acting classes.
Peele: One of the breakthrough moments for me was realizing that, you know, you can take all the classes you want and learn and practice and get all the advice from other people, but it’s really like learning an instrument that has never existed until you were born. No one can tell you how to play that instrument. There’s a part of that journey that you have to figure out for yourself.
Key: And then there’s putting your own spice on it.
Peele: Yeah. When I moved to Chicago, I was like, All right, I want to be a sketch comedian and my power is going to be in the fact that I’m going to dedicate myself completely. There’s not going to be a fallback, you know? I’m going to watch people give up and I’ll still be there, learning from it all, and if I stay with it, I’ll be successful. That was everything.
Key: Part of Jordan’s X factor is that nobody out-hustles him. You can try, and you will fail. Which, of course, makes your job easier if you’re working with him. So even if you’re excelling, he’s there taking the pressure off. He’s the anchor.
Judd: I always wanted to be that guy, too. Like, no one is going to do more than me. You see so many people who are great but they don’t go that last twenty-five percent in effort. It’s what Seinfeld talks about, how he just gets up every day and writes for two hours. Every day, he sits alone in a room with a legal pad. And I guarantee you that one percent or less of comedians do that.
Peele: You know, after ten years in Hollywood, you really see the system is set up to sap money from people who are trying to get into the business. It’s just set up that way. There’s so many things that people are told they must do. You must get representation. I mean, the number of people that sit by idly in this town saying, “I just need to get an agent or a manager,” and you’re like, “You’ve been here what, eight years? Dude, just make a show.”
Judd: A lot of people ask me, “How do you get people to read your scripts?” And I’ll go, “Did you write one?” “No, but I was wondering how you get someone to read one.” You know, there’s no great script in town sitting in the stack that people don’t know about. There’s no insanely funny person that can’t get attention or get an agent. That’s not going to be the hard part.
Key: Yeah. You’ve got to just do the show first. I mean, that’s the way it’s always worked.
Judd: So now that the sketch show is ending, do you guys have a vision for the next phase of your career?
Key: Yeah, I mean, in my mind—and I think I have probably said this to Jordan in some form or another—it’s almost like, boy, wouldn’t it be great if we could be the next Pryor/Wilder? You know, go off and do maybe three projects that fulfill us, and then come home and see each other? I think we have the ability to do that.
Peele: We’re never going to have another version of this.
Key: We’ll never have another version of this.
Judd: You really have very few people in life you get along with, especially in a creative situation. Some people are great together but then they just can’t stand each other because every time an idea is accepted or rejected, there’s so much on the line emotionally or self-esteem-wise. When you find people who make it work, it’s that much more important.
Peele: Absolutely. Before I met Keegan, I could spend a week with my best friend in the world before getting sick of him. But because we’ve got something more important than us that we’re working for, it has put us in this category where we could spend years with each other and always have this positive working relationship where we’re trying to make each other laugh. It’s a special thing.
Key: The love—our love—is wrapped up in the work. There’s this goal that we’re always trying to achieve together. We know we can’t achieve it alone. It works because of a mutual respect for each other.
Judd: It doesn’t seem like it takes you two a lot of effort.
Key: No, it doesn’t, and I think that’s because, as different as we are energy-wise, we’re very similar in a lot of other ways. Our backgrounds are similar. We’re nonconfrontational guys. You know, I don’t believe in the idea that conflict must exist for creativity to flourish. That’s such a false thing. For us, it always goes back to the respect thing. It’s just releasing the ego. I just hold his hand and we jump off the cliff. He’s got me. If he says, “This bit is going to work,” it’s gonna work.
Judd: That’s just so rare. In the world of comedy, so many people are so damaged that even though they say, “I got you, no matter what,” a fair amount of time they’re really like, “Well, fuck you, I’m doing it this way.” So for two people who are healthy to say to each other, “I got you”—and to believe it—is a beautiful thing.
Peele: The best moments I’ve ever seen in improv are funnier than the best stand-up bits that I’ve ever seen. There’s something that can only happen between two people collaborating, and I just think that two people with the same vision is better than one.
LARRY GELBART AND JAMES L. BROOKS (2007)
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asked me if I was interested in putting a panel talk together. I said yes, but only if I could invite James Brooks and Larry Gelbart, and spend an hour talking about comedy. I knew I had no business being on the same stage as these guys; nobody does. I was simply thrilled to have the opportunity to sit there and talk to them, and I knew at some point that a photograph would be taken of the three of us onstage, which I would cherish for the rest of my life. So yes: I did it for the picture.