Keke Palmer and SZA Will Co-Star in a Buddy Comedy That Issa Rae Is Producing

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Today in collabs you didn’t know you needed: Keke Palmer and SZA are co-starring in a buddy comedy film produced by Issa Rae.

This project marks SZA’s acting debut, although the “Kill Bill” singer previously appeared alongside Palmer during a 2022 episode of Saturday Night Live, when Palmer hosted and SZA was the musical guest.

Palmer took to Instagram on April 27 to confirm the casting news, writing, “I CAN’T WAIT!!!”

The movie will be helmed by many of the same creatives behind Rae’s recently canceled Max series Rap Sh!t, which followed two estranged friends (played by Aida Osman and KaMillion) as they formed a rap group together in hopes of succeeding in Miami’s music scene. Lawrence Lamont, who directed several episodes of Rap Sh!t, will direct Palmer and SZA’s buddy comedy. Meanwhile, Syreeta Singleton — who served as Rap Sh!t’s showrunner — will write the film’s screenplay.

Although additional details about what is now one of my most anticipated movies are still under wraps, you can still look forward to plenty more appearances from Palmer and SZA across music, film, and TV in 2024. SZA’s highly-anticipated Apple Music Live show premiered earlier this year, giving fans a front-row seat to a previously recorded Brooklyn concert. The Grammy winner is also set to release a deluxe version of her 2022 album SOS at some point in the near future, which will include three new tracks that were previously leaked earlier this spring.

Meanwhile, Palmer is currently hosting the NBC game show Password and recently appeared in the iconic, often incomprehensible cinematic moment that was Jennifer Lopez’s This Is Me… Now. While the multi-hyphenate has long been open about her attraction to women — see: the ending of her 2015 music video “I Don’t Belong To You” — she’s resistant to the idea that queer people owe anyone an explanation of their identity.

“[After the “I Don’t Belong To You” music video], people kept saying, ‘So are you coming out? Are you saying something?’” Palmer recalled in a video for Them’s YouTube series Becoming. “[And] I’m like, ‘You motherfuckers still didn’t get it. I’m not bound in my sexuality. I’m just doing me.’ I think that hopefully people are coming around to that reality when it comes to the queer community. Why the hell do I need to declare to you who’s laying in my bed?”

Of course, Palmer has played queer characters before, most notably the badass Emerald in Jordan Peele’s 2022 film Nope. And if one or both of SZA and Palmer’s characters wind up being queer in their buddy comedy film, well, who am I to argue with fate?!

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Originally Appeared on them.