Keke Palmer has been in the acting game for two decades. © 2025 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Keke Palmer once did an interview on the legendary American radio show The Breakfast Club in which she called Bow Wow a young OG.
It was a nod to how, having started his career as a child, the rapper and actor had the experience and knowledge of entertainers twice his age.
She might as well have been talking about herself. At just 31 years of age, Palmer has been entertaining audiences around the world on film, television, stage and other platforms for more than two decades.
Beginning with her breakout role as a precocious girl who takes part in a national spelling bee in 2006’s Akeelah and the Bee, Palmer has been a star since she was 12 years old.
“I definitely feel like a young OG because I just started so young. My experience doesn’t necessarily match my age, so sometimes I do feel like a little old person but, at the same time, I still very much am the same everyday type of 31-year-old.
“I think that experience shows up in my work but definitely not in my personal life,” she says before letting out that infectious laugh her fans know so well.
She’s got 25 film credits, 30 TV roles and two Primetime Emmy Awards under her belt but somehow it feels like Palmer is just getting started.
“I think storytelling is naturally something I love to do, and as you grow more in the industry you realise that there are so many different facets to storytelling and different ways that you can add on and kind of layer that.
“Whether it be through the fashion when you do the promo tour or the story you tell of the making of the project or the process of being more involved in the making of something outside of just being an actor, the music that you add to it, and the visuals and the cinematography and how the writing choice lends itself to telling a deeper story of what you’re trying to say.”
Palmer’s latest film, opening in South Africa today (7 February), is the buddy comedy One of Them Days.
After its release in the US and Canada on 17 January, it grossed $14 million, earning back its production budget in just four days.
The film, in which Palmer stars alongside Grammy Award-winning musician SZA in her first acting role, is a throwback to the classic R-rated comedies of the Nineties. The most apparent influence is the 1995 comedy Friday, which also follows the misadventures of two down-on-their-luck friends during the course of a particularly eventful day in South Los Angeles.
“When I was younger, I loved Friday. I watched that so many times. I used to quote it growing up. That’s how much I watched that movie with my family.”
Leading a film inspired by that Ice Cube classic is a kind of full-circle moment for Palmer because not only was the gangster-rapper-turned-acclaimed-filmmaker a childhood idol of hers, he was also the star and a producer on the first film she ever appeared in.
Although Palmer’s first starring role was in Akeelah and the Bee, her first film credit came two years earlier when she played a small role in Barbershop 2: Back in Business.
Her character Dreux’s first look in One of Them Days — an open plaid shirt and grey pants — was even styled as an homage to Craig, Ice Cube’s character in Friday.
Original gangsta: Keke Palmer (right) appears alongside co-star SZA in the new film One of Them Days. Photo: © 2025 CTMG Inc, all rights reserved
Palmer sees her new film as carrying on the thread that Cube and other filmmakers started unravelling in the Nineties.
“When you think about Friday and a lot of those early movies, they were about things that weren’t being talked about then, like gang violence and epigenetic trauma. They were showcasing some of those things that we now speak so much more openly about, probably because of the impact of that art.
“Whereas with One of Them Days, I think we’re talking about a graduation of some of those same topics, such as gentrification and the nuances of the different characters that are in poverty. It’s not one note.
“The cyclical journey of poverty and credit, how to maintain good credit, how that stops you from being able to go forward and trying to make it in corporate America when the cards are stacked against you.
“So, it had that same feeling where we’re talking about some real stuff but, also, we’re not beating you down with it,” she says.
“We’re also showing the impact of people having a sense of community and pride in where they come from.”
Palmer has been fortunate enough to work with some of the most compelling black voices in film and TV, including Jordan Peele, who directed her in the neo-Western sci-fi horror Nope, her co-star in the same film Daniel Kaluuya, and Issa Rae, who is a producer on One of Them Days.
Yet Hollywood still has a long way to go in terms of the opportunities available for people of colour — or the lack thereof.
“I think there’s always more that needs to be done but I’m definitely the kind of person that’s more glass half full than half empty,” she says.
“And the thing that excites me the most is, over these years, we’re getting people in positions that are also making the decisions — not just the creatives are people of colour — but the people that are actually able to move the needle, the executives and the people with the money.
“They’re being put in position to make a change and so I encourage that, I think it’s exciting. And again, I think it’s one of those things that takes time.
“When you think about history and how we got here, that took a lot of time so, to undo and create a better way, I have to be realistic and know that it’s going to take time.
“So, while there’s more to be done, my gratitude in the moment goes towards the strides that all the people before me have made.”
Palmer is one of those people who leaves you wondering how she finds the time to get so much done. In addition to her acting career, she’s a singer-songwriter with no less than two studio albums and three EPs to her name. Her book Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, released in November, is a New York Times bestseller. She’s also the CEO and co-founder of the digital network KeyTV and the record label Big Bosses Entertainment.
Yet, somehow, she still has no less than three films in production.
One is a comedy written and directed by Aziz Ansari, in his feature directorial debut, titled Good Fortune. Palmer will star alongside Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Sandra Oh and Ansari himself. Then there’s The Pickup, a heist flick that will see Palmer sharing the screen with Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson.
Perhaps most exciting is I Love Boosters, an adventure sci-fi comedy written and directed by Boots Riley in which Palmer will star with Demi Moore, LaKeith Stanfield, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige and Will Poulter.
More than two decades in the game and the young OG is clearly still going strong.
“Even though people don’t see the entertainment industry as a corporate entity, it is, and learning how to make it work for you is something that you have to do no matter what group you’re in – black, a woman, a millennial, whatever it is that you’re up against — it’s a journey.”