Keke Palmer glides into Nope on the wings of a many-feathered monologue. In the blockbuster film, written and directed by Jordan Peele, Palmer plays Emerald, the charming animal wrangler for Haywood Hollywood Horses, a legacy company that trains horses for film and commercial productions. She bounds in to give a safety speech on a film set, delivering both her family history and the serious rules of the shoot with endless charisma. The monologue is a mouthful, but Palmer, in real life, did 14 different takes for Peele, relying on her stamina as a longtime actor to buoy her through the highs and lows of the speech. Her delivery—a precision blend of acting, comedy, and even a little singing on the side—shows the wealth of Palmer’s talent, which she’s been refining and displaying for nearly two decades now. An ascendant moment for a longtime star entering a new phase of her career.
In other words: Baby, this was Keke Palmer’s year.
From the actor’s award-winning performance in Nope—currently appearing on many best-of-the-year film lists—to the launch of her digital platform, KeyTV, to the premiere of her star-studded podcast and her debut as host of Saturday Night Live, where she joyously revealed she was pregnant, 2022 has been a banquet of delicious Palmer-centric moments. It seemed like everywhere one turned, Palmer was there: in theaters, on television, and across social media, her off-the-cuff moments getting transformed into instant memes. In the canon this year? “Aw, shit. They thought I was dead.” Also: “And who the hell are they?” (The latter is from a Vanity Fair video, where all of Palmer’s greatest memes are born.)
Palmer is, of course, not new to this. She’s been acting since 2004, making her film debut at just 11 years old in the Barbershop sequel. She worked consistently for the next four years, landing breakout roles in Akeelah and the Bee and Madea’s Family Reunion. In 2008, she landed the starring role in the Nickelodeon series True Jackson, VP, the font of her most ardent fan base and the foundation of her acting stamina. In a July interview with VF, she credited her ability to do 14 back-to-back takes of her Nope monologue to her child-star days. “I really think I owe that to Disney and Nickelodeon,” she said. “Working with a large corporation at that age, I had to do a lot of things repetitively, whether it be marketing or whether it be [acting]. My ability to be consistent and to give variation comes from all those years of training as a child.”
Though she still does G-rated fare (including a voice role in Lightyear, Pixar’s Toy Story spin-off, this year), Palmer advanced past the child-star label long ago. She’s taken on leading roles in shows like Scream Queens and Insecure, as well as films like Hustlers and this year’s Coffy-inspired Sundance thriller, Alice, though the movie received middling reviews. But her casting in Peele’s Nope marked a bold new chapter for her as a leading star, with the film role easily becoming one of the biggest of Palmer’s career (as it would for most actors tasked with carrying the horror auteur’s original, big-budget spectacles).
But it wasn’t just Palmer’s layered performance as Emerald that drew attention this year. It was also her whirlwind Nope press tour, which saw her gamely work through the gauntlet of late-night couches and endless themed video interviews, charming everyone with her Angela Bassett impression (which she finally discussed with Bassett herself) and her Halle Berry jokes. Palmer, who once had her own talk show and did a stint cohosting the third hour of Good Morning America, just knows how to turn it on. There’s something almost vaudevillian about her larger-than-life presence in front of the camera, a natural showmanship that just oozes from the self-proclaimed millennial diva.
Off set, Palmer’s candidness goes hand in hand with a vulnerability that she brings to both social media, where she talks openly about her skin care struggles, and her podcast, where she’s unguarded about topics like sex and dating.
She brought that blend of performance and candor to her Saturday Night Live episode, kicking things off with a funny monologue that quickly became personal. “There’s some rumors going around,” Palmer said midway through her monologue. “People have been in my comments saying, ‘Keke’s having a baby. Keke’s pregnant.’ And I want to set the record straight—I am!”