Most famous for his stint in the Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele, Keegan-Michael Key in an American actor, writer, and comedian. An accomplished actor in Hollywood, Key has appeared in a plethora of popular films and shows. His projects include the role of the mummy Murray in Hotel Transylvania (2012), multiple episodes of Fargo (2014), Bojack Horseman (2014), Horrible Bosses 2 (2014), Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015), Tomorrowland (2015), and Hotel Transylvania 3 (2018), among others.
EARLY LIFE
Born in Michigan and raised in Detroit, Key was adopted as a child by a black father and a white mother, who were both social activists. His multiracial upbringing has been a major inspiration behind his brand of comedy. He completed his schooling from Shrine Catholic High School in Royal Oak, Michigan and attended the University of Detroit Mercy as an undergraduate, after which, he majored in Fine Arts in Theater at Pennsylvania State University.
While in college, he found out that his biological father is African-American and his mother is Caucasian, which was exactly the same with his adoptive parents as well. Through his birth father, Key discovered, he was a half-brother to Dwayne McDuffie, an American writer of comic books and television, known for creating the animated television series Static Shock. McDuffie passed away from complications from emergency heart surgery.
PERSONAL LIFE
In December 1998, Key tied the knot with Cynthia Blaise, but the couple filed for a divorce in January 2016.
TELEVISION CAREER
Key was roped in for the comedy show MADtv, in 2004. He auditioned against Peele, who later became his partner, for the show. Eventually, both got selected because the producers of the show found their comic timing together very interesting. Key portrayed various characters on the show like Snoop Dogg, Roscoe Orman, Eddie Murphy, Charles Barkley, Lionel Richie, and Barack Obama. He also impersonated female celebs like Eva Longoria as Gabrielle Solis on a Desperate Housewives parody. Key was a part of the show till 2009.
In 2012, Key along with his MADtv co-actor Jordan Peele started their own Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele, which ran for five seasons. The series won Peabody Award and Primetime Emmy Award, along with being nominated for awards like Writers Guild Award and NAACP Image Award. He then teamed up again with Peele for two episodes of Epic Rap Battles of History. In one episode he essayed the role of Mahatma Gandhi, while Peel played Martin Luther King Jr. and in the other episode, key played Michael Jordan, and Peele was Muhammad Ali. The hit comedy duo then played FBI agents in a recurring role in the 2014 FX crime drama Fargo.
He then did guest appearances in shows like Childrens Hospital, Love Bites, Whose Line is it Anyway?, How I Met Your Mother, Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Modern Family, and House of Lies. He also featured as a host in Animal Planet's The Planet's Funniest Animals and the podcast Historically Black by American Public Media and the Washington Post.
MOVIE CAREER
Key has also been a part of several films such as Just Go With it (2011), Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star (2011), Tomorrowland (2015), Horrible Bosses 2 (2015) and Due Date (2010). He lent his voice to the animated feature films, Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015), The Lego Movie (2014), and The Angry Birds Movie (2016), Keanu (2016) alongside Peele, Storks (2016) and Hotel Transylvania 3 (2018), where he plays Murray the Mummy. His upcoming projects include The Lion King (2019) and The Predator (2018).