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When Keke Palmer made her SNL hosting debut in December 2022, she and musical guest SZA gave the internet one of its most viral GIFs: the two stars sharing an awkward look that screams yikes with perfect comedic timing.
Everyone who witnessed their hilarious chemistry knew that wouldn't — couldn't! — be the last time audiences saw the duo onscreen together. Well, everyone except Palmer.
“I should have known,” Palmer exclusively tells Teen Vogue on the set of One of Them Days, the 2025 buddy comedy she is set to star in alongside the “Snooze” singer come January. One of Them Days will be released exclusively in theaters on January 17, 2025.
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Earlier this summer, Teen Vogue was invited to set to watch Palmer and SZA's synergy in action. “Like, I see that GIF used every single day and that was the beginning of our budding platonic romance that has continued to develop over time," Palmer continues. "Getting this opportunity to do this movie with her has been an unbelievable journey.”
The film will mark SZA's acting debut, a feat she says admittedly sparked some apprehension at first. But according to the singer, having an industry vet like Palmer by her side made things much less stressful. “When I got on camera it was spooky, but Keke literally ushered me through," says SZA.
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One of Them Days, set in the Baldwin Village neighborhood of South Los Angeles colloquially named The Jungles, follows one day in the life of besties and roommates Dreux (Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) as they concoct nutty schemes to earn quick cash and evade eviction when they find out Alyssa’s boyfriend has blown all of their rent money.
“Dreux is kind of type A. She's definitely down for her homegirl and down for the cause, but she very much is trying to figure out who she wants to be, where she wants to go, and how to get there, dealing with the circumstances she has growing up in the environment she's in,” explains Palmer, who’s also an executive producer of the TriStar film. “It’s very systemic, the lineage of trying to get out of poverty, and I feel like she's somebody that wants to break that cycle.”
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SZA’s character Alyssa is named after screenwriter Syreeta Singleton’s best friend whom she grew up with in The Jungles. “I was kind of the Alyssa, and if anything, she was more of the Dreux,” Singleton admits, praising SZA’s casting in the role. “She's so smart and so funny and so deep and kind of has that art girl vibe to her. It just feels perfect, and seeing them together, they're a perfect yin-and-yang. They play off of each other so well.”
The buddy comedy, directed by frequent Big Sean visual collaborator Lawrence Lamont, marks Singleton’s feature debut — though she’s no novice when it comes to crafting words for the screen. Singleton wrote for Issa Rae’s critically-acclaimed HBO dramedy Insecure and served as the showrunner for her follow-up Max series Rap Sh!t, about two young women in Miami trying to make it as female emcees. Lamont also directed a handful of episodes of Rap Sh!t across its two seasons.
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“[Singleton] is one of my favorite writers because there's such an effortless display of friendship, of Black women [in her work],” says Issa Rae, who’s a producer on the film. “She has a way of being able to create people that I know, that I'm familiar with, and put them in these situations that I or friends have been in, and they're just real while also being smartly written. This particular project, as soon as I read it, I was like, ‘Yesss, this is kind of a female Friday.’ But it's its own unique story that will stand on its own.”
The influence of Friday, the 1995 comedy starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker also set in South Central L.A., flows through the basic premise of One of Them Days — which also takes place within a single day — and into the wardrobe crafted by costume designer Kairo Courts.
During our visit to set, Palmer wears a gray crop top and white sports bra with an open flannel shirt on top, one that’s reminiscent of the iconic flannel Ice Cube’s character Craig wears.
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“This kind of homage to Craig and Friday, she's done a lot of fun stuff like that because there are elements of nostalgia to this, but still it has its own modern flair,” Palmer says of Courts’ work, which she says she is a fan of onscreen and off.
“I did wear a [costume] out when I got off work early,” she confesses. “I went into their closet, and I said, ‘Hey, hook me up!’ And I was good. Got a wig from hair as well.”
In the scene we saw being filmed, Dreux and Alyssa discover a new white tenant, played by Euphoria's Maude Apatow, has moved into their all-Black apartment complex, causing a curious stir among the neighbors, whom Dreux and Alyssa meet up with to nosily commiserate.
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The film boasts a somewhat ensemble cast, with stars like Vanessa Bell Calloway, Katt Williams, Abbott Elementary’s Janelle James, viral sketch comedian Joshua David Neal, Lil Rel Howery, The Blackening’s Dewayne Perkins, and DomiNque Perry from Insecure and Diarra from Detroit.
The theatrical distribution of One of Them Days is something Rae considers a big win, as it's Hollywood common practice these days for films to be released directly to streaming platforms.
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“I think theatrical is extremely special and it's also its own marketing tool,” Rae says. “Going to the theater is a special event. It's also a friendship event. You want to feel like you're going for a reason, and you want to be guaranteed that it's going to be good. The theatrical release shows a belief in this project.”
It’s also the realization of a longtime goal for Keke Palmer, who grew up watching Will Smith and Eddie Murphy star in a slew of buddy comedies over the years; Lethal Weapon, she says, was a favorite of her mom’s growing up.
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“It was a dream because I'm also trying to be like, ‘Women can be that, too,’" says Palmer. Female buddy films have been few and far between since the late 2010s, and are even more sparse when it comes to Black female buddy films. “It's not even like I'm trying to force it. It's just like, give us a chance to show you motherf*ckers what we can do.”
“Even with Nope, my opportunity to do comedy there, but then also action and drama and in the end being able to slay the dragon, I felt like that was such a great opportunity for people to allow women to have characters that are really only usually given to men," Palmer adds. "I think it's the same thing with this. We are not afraid to get silly, not afraid to get a little nasty, not afraid to get a little tough when we have to be. And that's the range I think that we deserve to see.”
One of Them Days hits theaters on January 17, 2025.
