After decades of loving ‘Dolemite,’ Keegan-Michael Key gets to live it

There are three people Keegan-Michael Key admires most in comedy, and two of them he’ll never work with: the late Richard Pryor, and the late Peter Sellers.

But the third, Eddie Murphy, is sharing the screen with Key in his new movie: “Dolemite Is My Name,” opening Friday at SMG Chatham and Cinema 8 in Lansing. “For me to be able to work with one of those faces on my own personal Mount Rushmore is absolutely, deliriously fantastic,” he told the Sun-Times.

It’s just one more achievement in a year full of thrills for the former Second City actor. Already he’s added his voice to two powerhouse Disney franchises, as the hyena Ed in “The Lion King” and the stuffed animal Ducky in “Toy Story 4.” And in the coming months he’ll be heard again narrating the Netflix series “Green Eggs and Ham,” drawn from a Dr. Seuss book he savored as a kid.

“It’s nice to be asked to be a part of something that was so instrumental in forming who I am,” he said.

Also striking a personal chord is “Dolemite Is My Name,” the true story of bawdy nightclub comic Rudy Ray Moore (played by Murphy) and his quest to star in a movie of his own making. As blaxploitation fans know, he succeeded, and Moore’s “Dolemite” — a loopy, micro-budget hoot populated by cops, crooks and action-hero hookers — continues to be appreciated for its raw humor and shoestring production values.

“Rudy was not a great actor. An average at best singer. One could say, mildly corpulent. He’s thick, he’s a little big-boned. And not terribly attractive,” Key said. “Yet he made his dream come true. He becomes this badass, kung-fu-fighting civic hero who became a touchstone for a subculture.”

Key, 48, has a vivid memory of discovering “Dolemite” when he was 19 and hanging out with his improv troupe at the University of Detroit Mercy. “Somebody had a VHS tape and popped it in. And then for the next hour we were either all hysterically laughing or our mouths were agape at what we were seeing. We were just like, ‘Somebody MADE THIS!’ It was really unbelievable.”

That began what he calls “a casual and longstanding love affair with Rudy Ray Moore’s films” that continued through Key’s breakout role on “Mad TV” and his Peabody- and Emmy-winning sketches on “Key & Peele.”

“If you’re a Rudy Ray Moore fan, when you introduce the movie to somebody new, what you spend your time doing is watching them watch the movie,” he said. “Eventually they’ll look at you like, “What. Is. HAPPENING?’ I go, ‘Keep watching. It gets more sublime.’ ”

Besides pairing him with Murphy, the new biopic lets Key fulfill any number of other dreams: co-starring with Wesley Snipes (who plays the disbelieving “Dolemite” director), taking direction from Craig Brewer (“Hustle and Flow”), dressing up in period attire, “and I got to wear a handlebar mustache. Not ironically!”

Key portrays Jerry Jones, the earnest, socially minded playwright Moore recruits to craft the “Dolemite” script. “I got to play a real person, which I’ve really not done yet,” Key said. “I dove into the research.”

That meant revisiting “Dolemite,” in which Jones also acted. Aside from the sequel, “The Human Tornado,” Jones was absent from most of Moore’s other, equally bizarre films. “He was not in ‘Petey Wheatstraw,’ ” Key informed us. “He was not in ‘The Monkey Hu$tle’ or ‘Shaolin Dolemite.’ I just want to say all the names of the films because it’s fun. I’m showing off because I love how it sounds in my mouth.”

Second City

Even as he ascends to big-screen stardom, Key holds on to happy memories of the city where he wrote and starred in three Second City shows.

“Chicago isn’t a city. Chicago is a town with 3 million people in it. I meant that in the most positive possible way,” he said. “You can have a conversation with anyone in Chicago. You can get on the bus and talk to the driver, you can go to a bar and make a new friend.”

Key’s bucket list will shrink some more in December when he starts shooting “The Prom,” director Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of the 2018 Broadway musical. This time he’ll be working with Meryl Streep, and admits, “I can’t really ask for much more.”