Key plays hyena for more than just laughs
For generations of viewers, “The Lion King” is sacred ground.
Yett Keegan-Michael Key embraced the opportunity to appear in Disney’s photorealistic remake (in theaters Friday) of the 1994 animated classic.
“I wasn’t as nervous as I was excited and honored,” he says. “I was really ready to get to work as soon as I could.” A crucial factor for Key was who would be in the director’s chair: Jon Favreau, director of “Iron Man” (2008) and Disney’s re-telling of “The Jungle Book” (2016).
“I was like, ‘It’s Jon Favreau, whatever he wants, I’ll camp out in the living room, anywhere he wants, name the recording studio,’ ” Key says.
“I was really, really, really just so humbled and honored to be given the opportunity to be part of it, especially with a mind like his behind it.”
“The Lion King” is the saga of young lion Simba, his regal father Mufasa and their struggles against the king’s nefarious brother, Scar.
It’s a tale with heart, humor, tragedy and terrific music.
While the new “Lion King” largely adheres to the beats of its animated predecessor, Favreau switches things up a bit
when it comes to Scar’s hyena accomplices.
Shenzi (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg in the first movie) returns, this time played by Florence Kasumba of “Black Panther,” and original characters Banzai (Cheech Marin) and Ed (Jim Cummings) have been replaced by Key’s Kamari and Eric André’s Azizi.
“The fact that the bones were there but we were allowed to put in the drywall and the electricity and the plumbing was great,” Key says of working alongside André.
“We were given a lot of license to do
what we wanted, and I think that we got to develop a little more nuanced relationship than you saw in the original film.”
The new film’s more grounded humor, as opposed to broad caricatures of the original, is in keeping with the overall tone achieved by Favreau, screenwriter Jeff Nathanson and Caleb Deschanel’s vibrant and naturalistic cinematography.
This is a world that, talking animals and all, feels remarkably authentic.
“We got to give it a very traditional Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy dynamic and at the same time there’s a very kind of loose, almost lackadaisical sensibility that made it even more real,” says Key. “And so I felt like we really were reinventing these characters.
“They were pure, and I thought they were necessary, comic relief in the original version. In this version, I feel like we got to step into another territory simultaneously.”
Key, who initially achieved mainstream success as half of Comedy Central’s Key and Peele, notes that he and Favreau both have roots in sketch and improv comedy.
That background can be felt in the way the director consistently finds grace notes in scenes, letting the action breathe and finding natural interactions, whether that’s between Key and André, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen’s Timon and Pumbaa, or Donald Glover and Beyoncé’s Simba and Nala.
Favreau would observe Key and André interacting together in character and be really good at saying, “‘I need to you say this line to start, and I need you to say this line to end. Do whatever you want in the middle, just find your way to point B,’ ” the actor says.
“And it was really liberating and fun and it really sparks the mind and it allowed us to have those moments.
“It’s really important to him to photograph a comedic moment as opposed to there being cuts back and forth, letting those moments live.”