Our podcast, Five Things with Lynn Hirschberg, is back. Next up for the third season of the series, in which stars sit down with W’s Editor at Large to discuss the five things that have made them who they are, is multihyphenate entertainer Keke Palmer. During their candid conversation, Palmer opens up about leaving her idyllic Midwestern hometown to pursue acting as a child in California, her relatively seamless transition from child actor to box office movie star, and why family will always be the most important thing to her.
Listen to the full episode below:
In this episode, the new mother covers everything from her first audition (Nala for a production of The Lion King in Chicago) to her “golden ticket” opportunity of getting flown to California to try out for American Juniors. With her big break being a role in Barbershop 2 at the age of 11, Palmer’s career as a child star officially launched, and her parents moved from their small Midwestern town of Robbins, Illinois to Los Angeles.
Her parents wanted to keep her family close-knit. “It got to the point where my parents actually couldn't have a job, because I worked too much,” she says. “My family would always want to try to keep us together, so I didn't end up living this more extreme life than my siblings. So they made the decision to make [my career] the family business and just support me and help me.”
Emphasizing the importance of family in her life, Palmer talks about how her grandmother, Mildred, encouraged her to channel her hyperactive energy into a love of performing. “She always just told me that I could be everything I wanted to be and always just championed me and encouraged me to be myself.”
She also talks about her relationship with Jordan Peele, and how supportive he was in giving her room to create her character for Nope.
At 29, the new mom has spent two decades in show business, and has learned plenty of lessons from its inevitable ups and downs. She also has grown up in the public eye, and tells Hirschberg how she’s managed to do so gracefully and largely without scandal.
“I think every young person everywhere, when they go from being a teenager to being an adult, they're extremely judged….I think being in the public eye, I was very careful not to over-sensationalize my experience, because that only would make me feel that much more separate,” she says.
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