Keke Palmer will soon take the stage again on Broadway, but don’t hold your breath for a musical return — “anything can mess up these vocals,” she asserted on The Kelly Clarkson Show in a recent appearance.
While promoting her buddy comedy One of Them Days, in which she portrays the other half to SZA as the two try to scrounge up their rent money in the course of a measly 24 hours, the child actress-cum-media mogul teased her return to theater’s most-coveted district.
“This would be a play directed by Debbie Allen, about Muhammad Ali‘s life and his relationship with Stepin Fetchit,” the two-time Emmy winner said. “And kind of just like, the exploration of our culture, what it means to have pride. I play Sonji, his first wife, Muhammad Ali’s first wife. So I’m very excited at the opportunity to do a play, I’ve never done one before! I’m always singing, so it’s like, ‘What does this feel like, coming out there just giving you a monologue?’”
The Nope star was previously in talks for the role back in December, The Cut reported. As Palmer noted, this would mark her first foray into a non-musical performance, as she became the youngest actress to portray the title princess in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella at the age of 21 in 2014.
Sonji Ali, who married the boxer a month after their first meeting, was one of the most influential women in the icon’s life. Referred to by Ali’s family members as the true love of his life, she was fiercely independent and refused to become a member of the Nation of Islam, which led to their divorce less than two years later.
Additionally on the docket for Palmer, the self-described worker bee will soon be in Amazon’s heist movie The Pickup alongside Pete Davidson and Eddie Murphy, and has since wrapped production on Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters, which features a star-studded cast and follows a ring of shoplifting women who sell clothes at a discounted price. There’s also Peacock series The ‘Burbs, action-thriller Gods Unknown, feature comedy The Backup, ’70s-set Super Toys about a sales rep couple and Aziz Ansari’s star-studded directorial debut Good Fortune.
Watch the full interview below:
