Keegan-Michael Key Puts Comedy Aside and Shoots for His Dreams

Keegan-Michael Key likes to tell the story of how three years back, when the end came for “Key & Peele” — his socially provocative, deeply hilarious Comedy Central sketch show with Jordan Peele — the friend who would eventually become his wife asked him a simple question: “What do you want to do?”

It took a while but he eventually came up with an answer. “I said, ‘I want to be Jason Bourne and I want to do Shakespeare,'” he recalled. “My career — the career that most folks know me for — is ostensibly a 19-year detour.”

Last year, Key got his Shakespeare, portraying Horatio to critical acclaim opposite Oscar Isaac’s Hamlet at the Public Theater in Manhattan. Now he is getting if not exactly Jason Bourne, then a character swimming in enough blood and guts to feed his action-thriller nightmares.

In Shane Black’s movie “The Predator,” opening Friday, Key plays Coyle, one of a motley crew of veterans known as the Loonies sent to fight a hyper-lethal, genetically upgraded alien who likes to hunt humans. “I’m a huge fan of the original ‘Predator,’ so this was a no-brainer when they offered me the job,” Key said. “If I can tell jokes and shoot guns, I’m your man.”

As for Key’s Jason Bourne dreams, his new wife, the producer and director Elisa Key, happened to be friends with Doug Liman, who directed “The Bourne Identity” and who cast Key in his YouTube Premium action thriller series “Impulse.”

“See what happens when you ask the universe for something?” Key said.

He will also appear this fall in Season 2 of the Netflix comedy “Friends From College” and recently shot “Dolemite Is My Name,” a biopic about comedian Rudy Ray Moore, starring Eddie Murphy.

On a balmy August day, Key, 47, bounded into a Manhattan photo studio before settling into a candid discussion about rethinking his career, life beyond “Key & Peele” and why he does not miss what he had.

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

A: They’re shattered men with very sad pasts, and Coyle tries to cover everything with a layer of humor and jokes. They’re all suffering from some form of PTSD. They’re being haunted by old memories of war. It’s very unlike the original “Predator,” where there’s beefcake and muscles on top of muscles and guys who weren’t afraid to run into a buzz saw.

A: I would say Shane Black’s writing is the comic relief. But make no mistake, the subject matter is dark, it’s thrilling, it’s scary, it’s ominous. But it’s got that Shane Black signature where these really serious themes are in place but always done with a dollop of humor (in movies like “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”). It’s a good transition piece for me because as I move forward in my career and do more action stuff, more thriller stuff, get back to my dramatic roots, this is what I would call a “bridge job.”

A: I felt like I was at my absolute best with the best possible partner. There was an alchemy there that will never happen again. I will admit that there is a certain amount of trepidation to moving forward and going: “How naked do I want to be in front of people? What will it cost me to show who I truly feel I am to audiences?”

A: I was on my way to doing dramatic and classical work in Detroit, and I met a bunch of real fun actors, and they were all performing at Second City. And I thought: “Well, I feel like I have a facility for comedy. I should go audition for this place.” And I got in and that was the beginning of this other path. So from June or July 1997 until October 2015, that was my life. I enjoyed it and I learned so much from it. But then you just start getting itchy.

A: I’m not. I was at one point in time and then I realized it was an unhealthy endeavor.

A: I don’t. If Jordan wanted to do it again, that might be something I’m interested in doing. But right now, any time I’m asked this in an interview, I just have to honestly answer: “I don’t miss it.” Nineteen years of the same thing — I didn’t have any more desire to do it. We had new, stronger desires that were pulling us.

A: He doesn’t need one. He has an anger translator. It’s called Twitter.