In a new cover story for VARIETY, Keke Palmer speaks with Selome Hailu for the SXSW issue on getting political, child stardom, I LOVE BOOSTERS, her son, roles she’s played, her current career stage, and much more.
Palmer on the roles she’s played: “The characters I’ve played are on these existential journeys of: What is value to me?” Palmer says. “How does value show up in this world that already tells me that I’m not of value — being a woman, being Black? What’s important to me is that at the end of my projects, there’s never a perfect ending. Because that’s what I’ve had to learn. When I turned 30, I realized that there is no destination.”
On getting political: “In order to be down with the people, you gotta be willing to bleed — but it’s like, ‘We can’t keep bleeding, y’all!’” Palmer says. “Because the people you keep asking to bleed are already dying. How many times can we keep asking people to lose their lives, and then nothing changes?”
On reading headlines lately: “It puts you in a position of ‘I just want to survive. I want to hold my son. I want to get out of here,’” she says. “But I also know my life is different.” She’s wary of falling into despair when she knows she has protection in the wealth she’s built. “Some people in the entertainment industry are just in it for the money and the fame, and that’s part of the problem.”
On child stardom: “Being a kid entertainer on networks such as Disney and Nickelodeon, there’s no machinery more dehumanizing than that, and I say ‘dehumanizing’ completely without sadness,” she says. “It’s just — you’re a product.”
On issues facing society and finding a connection to her “I Love Boosters” character: “Some of these things may not change in our lifetime — capitalism, racism, feeling isolated, unseen. There’s a maturation that happens with this character that I directly connect to: Maybe there’s no moment where this comes to a climax and the problems are solved. So now what do I do? How do I manage?”
On prioritizing bodily safety over radical action: “I’m always going to be that person that wants to fight with the people, but I’m also the person now, at 32, that wants people to live,” Palmer says. “I don’t want people to lose their lives, especially because the people usually losing their lives are the ones that are fighting to keep their lives.”
On wanting to give herself the love she gives to her son: “You start seeing how you’re loving the baby, and then you’re like, ‘I’m not loving myself right,’” Palmer says. “Because the way that this baby is being loved, and the way I see the baby responding to that love, suddenly I realize not just what I lacked, but what I’m responsible to give myself.” She doesn’t mean to criticize how her parents raised her: “I’m not a baby, so I can’t go back to Sharon and Larry and say, ‘Why didn’t you — ?’ That would be childish as hell. So I have to now say, ‘Well, whatever it was that I needed and didn’t get that I have the capacity to offer my son, I’m responsible to do it for me too.”
On her current stage of life and career: “I’m gonna do what feels right and what feels in alignment with me, as opposed to what I think I’m supposed to do,” she says. “That, to me, is what having integrity and true faith is.”
[Photo Credit: OK McCausland for Variety]
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