Do You Believe in Miracles? with Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari

Today we've got the Good Fortune crew in the building starring yours truly along with an amazing cast Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari who also wrote and directed and Keanu Reeves. This film's got heart, comedy, a guardian angel and a body swap twist that takes the chaos to a whole new level. Let's talk about making it and maybe get a little messy while we're at it because baby this is Geeky Palmer. No matter what we're doing in the car just chilling pop on Amazon music sit back and listen life, love, sex, science covering it all especially the bad cause money always involved no matter what it is we gonna make it make sense nothing else to do but kick it with the homies and king so grab you a drink and a snack you enjoy and get into the vibe that only you know it's your girl. Baby this is, this is Geeky. Baby this is Geeky Palmer yeah. As the nights get cooler and the leaves start to change I'm partnering with Airbnb to help you find your perfect autumn escape from mountain cabins to charming cottages with fireplaces Airbnb's got you covered now let's get into it. You guys I love you guys I'm so happy that you're here I'm so glad we did this kick-ass movie together I think the world's gonna love it October 17th y'all better go see it um but I have to ask because of the theme and the vibe of the movie what are you most fortunate about right now in your life Wow you did I'm enjoying this moment right now seeing you do this is wonderful it's so fun in my head I was like she's gonna snap into a whole different gear when we start this podcast and then you really did and I'm really it was fun to see so I'm enjoying this kiki Aziz I'm enjoying this and I'm also very proud of the film and the experience I got working with all you guys I mean you guys are all my dream people to be in the movie and and I'm so excited we got to work together and now put it out in the world yeah what about you Keanu uh yes I think um to to yeah I mean since we're celebrating being here in the moment I think yeah the opportunity to work with you and Seth and Aziz like just wonderful artists exceptional talents and wonderful story I feel very grateful to have worked with you and to be in your company oh man well it takes one to know one I mean Aziz you could have directed a story about anything but this one really blends comedy and some really important themes I mean homelessness the gig economy feelings of hopelessness and second chances I want to know like what inspired you to want to write something about this well I you know you see it all around in LA and and uh you know I you know I feel very fortunate and and uh I'm I'm definitely closer to Jeff than Arj and uh but you see this stuff and you hear these stories about you know people working two or three jobs just to get by and just how much things have gotten difficult for so many people because of just you know housing and all these things getting so much more difficult for so many people and so many people and so many people and so many people and so many people and so many people and so many people and I think there's a lot of people that share the frustration that my character has and that your character has and um you know I love your character because there's kind of two different responses where you know my character's like he's lost all hope and your character's kind of on the other end and it's like I'm gonna fight I'm gonna try to unionize this workplace and and um I I I had thought of you for this uh person because we were working together on the other film and your your voice was in my head and and uh and um yeah I'm just so thankful you did it and I think you really delivered for us thank you so much well yeah to to everybody's watching and listening as he plays Arj who's this guy that's just trying to figure out how to make things happen in his life and it's really really struggling he meets a girl named Elena who's going through the same thing but it's true they have two totally different experiences um and yours gets kind of really shaken up because you have an incredible guardian angel named Gabriel played by Keanu but he's like not a normal guardian angel or at least how we think they should be because he's meddling in people's business he's like not listening to his boss he's also asking other people for their advice so like is he really a trustworthy uh guardian angel I mean which part of the quirks of Gabriel were most fun for you to play Keanu because I feel like we got a little bit of Bill and Ted vibe up in there yeah Aziz was asking me to throw a little Bill and Ted a little Todd from uh Parenthood so some early days comedy Reeves comedy Reeves comedy and uh yeah so it was it was delightful to to have that energy along with this kind of aspiring hopeful almost innocent but also ancient character who's just kind of you know out of good intentions making poor decisions I feel like you do so many things well I mean you give us drama you give us action you give us incredible comedy do you have a favorite that you like to play I know you're doing getting ready to um do I have a favorite a favorite you know I think you have all of these different situations and hopefully and gratefully you get to a situation where whatever genre it is and whatever story you're telling when you're in it you end up in the same place and it's a joy you know and that joy can have a different color and a flavor but there is something that just becomes not the somehow of the same the same you're still connecting you're still playing you know whatever it is and yeah so they kind of go like this you know I know exactly what you mean it's like a flow where you just know you're doing what you're supposed to be doing yep yeah and it's like a conscious unconscious mm-hmm I agree I feel the same I mean I feel like we probably all would say yes to this question but I have to ask anyway do you guys believe in angels guardian angels do you think you have one a few um I don't know hell no maybe but Seth have you ever been in a situation have you ever been in a situation in a car or a thing or traveling or going for a place or made a decision or yeah something was like a near miss or something like like something where it's like oh I have a feeling or I didn't go or I didn't do or something stopped me or something maybe I was once at a dinner party where someone had a picture of a ghost on their phone and that honestly made me believe in ghosts damn how the hell they captured that it was like exactly it was like I've never heard of a picture of a ghost in the scariest situation it was like uh they were like there was like they lived in a house that was supposedly haunted it was like their kid's birthday party they're using disposable cameras and there was like an old guy in a brown hat that supposedly lived in the house and then he was in the background of the picture I gotta I gotta dip sorry baby it's time for Aziz to leave yeah I'm not with the ghost whenever our ghost and guardian angels different things whenever I feel that there's something and I just start saying Jesus loves me like I feel as if that's like my power sword I'm like okay Seth you play a venture capitalist I mean this guy is he's pretty out of touch he's a great life he's really rich I mean things are going great for him um I'm curious for you obviously you're not a venture capitalist but you're very successful how do you stay grounded you know what I mean because I do think that's kind of the conversation right it's like okay when you get to that point where you're working and becoming successful yeah how do you make sure that that doesn't become your entire identity I mean I don't I I won't assume I'm I am grounded let's start there I think I love that I think I try to be as grounded as I can be but I'm sure if I was around people who were actually grounded I would seem far from far from grounded I would imagine I think like a bug Hollywood people are pretty grounded but that's like a pretty distorted baseline by a lot of measures yeah I mean I try to participate in life as a as a normal person I try not to like outsource my life to other people wholesale you know I try to go do things I go to I try to be out in the world amongst amongst people living living doing things you know what I mean um and I do think you can you know if you have a certain amount of money you can sort of completely isolate yourself and curate your you know day-to-day experiences and moments and and I try not to do that you know what I mean yeah but but you know I fly first class so Arj is a struggling gig worker in the film and to prepare you interviewed I know because I was there you were interviewing people that were you know having these experiences that were trying to you know get a union going just people that are yeah people were talking about this film um what kind of eye-opening experiences did you have like and was it you know tough like what did it make you think when you were hearing some of these stories well I as I started talking to people I mean look as we're saying now like we're the Jeff guy's kind of making fun of me and Seth like we're that guy like he's like a little bit douchier than us but yeah that's us like we will be the first to say but you guys are nice this is us this is us 100% I I said the script to Evan who's Seth's writing partner and he's like I'm reading this in a sauna now yeah this is this is weird like it's supposed to make us a uncomfortable yes so I I wanted to make sure I I got this right so yes I interviewed people that did uh delivery work and and and you know people that and he's not just a gig worker he's like a guy that's got multiple jobs he's hustling which is like someone's so many people's story and you know you do a little bit of this on the side and uh what was shocking was like how so many of these things like oh I'm sleeping in my car and things like that have become normalized and a lot of people are doing this kind of stuff and it was really pretty scary to hear how commonplace a lot of that stuff was and you know as far as the delivery work thing like I knew there was a sequence where uh Seth's character would have to do uh DoorDash kind of thing to start making money so I'd interview a few of these guys and I was like hey could I like do a run with you could I do DoorDash and and uh so I did it with this guy at LA and after like the first couple was like hey can I like take over the account or whatever could I just do it and he's like yeah and so I said okay and and it was so funny because I was just so bad at it right away like it was just like the stuff you see in the movie like I I went to pick up the first order and I was like all right well it should be ready I'm just gonna double park and he's like I was like don't tell me anything let me make the mistake so I like double parked I put the hazards on I go in and the food's not ready like it's not ready people are just honking and all this stuff and then I finally get back in and then I'm like trying to back up and I almost run the car into a telephone pole and I was like oh man I'm so sorry like I'm used to my car having beeps I'm used to the cameras and the beeps and I was like this is so funny and that's exactly what I put in the movie because it's like you don't realize how much of a jerk you are until you're like put in that different context and then you see how little people tip and how people say things like leave the food outside I don't want to see your face press the button get in the car and leave it's like all right bringing you some burritos man yeah but um you know there's all these people that do all this stuff for us and it's easy to take them for granted and I'm like oh my god I'm not really thinking about what they're doing to provide these services and and I remember when we were shooting you were like oh I tip these DoorDash guys way harder than I used to from doing this movie and I was like oh then we've done our job I mean one thing I really liked even when I read the script that takes a turn from this typical vibe you'd expect from this kind of movie is that when he gets his life swapped it is great like money does change things I mean and that's the whole thing right it's like what is good fortune when you were writing it and you created that that that contradiction where you're like oh my god I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry that I'm so sorry it's like you know yeah like money didn't make my life better that was the answer how did you want the audience to respond to that because you know there is the other side of it too which is Elena my character where she feels like getting it or having it easy isn't actually the answer I mean are you just showing two different perspectives well I hope what people get from watching the movie is like obviously like getting millions and millions of dollars is one thing but some of these people if you just gave them 500 bucks it would it could change their lives you know people are so the the margins are so thin in terms of you know how low wages are now compared to how high expenses keep getting that even just a little bit would help so much and you know the difference with my character and your character is is your character makes the point of like well I'm trying to help everybody I'm trying to help everybody that works at you know hardware heaven which is supposed to be like a Lowe's Home Depot type store and you're trying to unionize so everybody can get helped and it's not just about you alone and and it's one thing I think that's cool about your character and you know I interviewed a real guy that was trying to unionize a big store like that and you know it's really inspiring talking to them and into hearing their ambition and and how much they care about the other people they work with and and everybody that that worked in this guy's store they all had their own story you know of of what they were dealing with and whatever but but the common thread was that they all worked in this place and that if they treated them a little bit better it would have a significant effect on their life and one of the things that I like the most is that sometimes the the most fortunate thing or the real thing is that the richest thing you can have is your community yeah with with Elena whether it's the union in the hardware heaven or it's Arch Gabriel and you know Seth's character like we all end up becoming a community and that I think also is like what I've always taken away is like that's what makes me feel fortunate in my life is knowing I have people that care about me um Gabriel takes one small change in his path Keanu and it just you know it changes everything what is the most life-changing encounter or moment in your own story where you felt like oh my gosh if I I went to that audition or I didn't go to that thing or I went to that store and boom oh well it's audition stories in an early day well it's like oh those would be like uh regrets like I didn't get that role I didn't get that and like so what's the question well I mean that would also be funny too if there's something but where did it go good yeah where are we good I don't know uh where it helped the trajectory of you being who you are now oh gosh um I don't know there's moments where maybe you know I didn't die yes amen to that so maybe one of those moments where I I was good that I didn't die it's always good that is good maybe maybe there might have been I got a little help and I didn't die I love that thank God thank God for that yeah we don't know what we would do without you Keanu yeah y'all I have been scrolling through Airbnb looking at the most gorgeous Victorian Mansions in the Catskills and let me tell you your girl is ready for a fall moment I'm talking spiral staircases Tower rooms with panoramic forest views the whole vibe like imagine me and my friends making apple cider in a vintage kitchen telling stories by the fireplace and 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mean what does your life look like if you don't have that success or have this passion um yeah I don't know I'd probably be working in like a video game store or something like that I don't know video games still in Vancouver do they have them it's GameStop still around it's actually I think on its way out they don't even have GameStop anymore I would do not I'd be hard I'd be living in my car um yeah no I mean I didn't grow up with uh a ton of money and and like I became you know sort of like the most uh yeah like financially stable person in my family at a very young age and so um but I look at my parents who really made things work and we lived in you know small apartments or houses we couldn't afford um for a lot of my childhood and um and it was nice you know and and I you know we went to a of garage sales it was lovely i had uh you know a lot of like incomplete star wars toy sets as a child um but yeah i don't know i i it's hard for me to imagine what i would i if i wasn't a successful actor and writer i would just be an unsuccessful actor and writer like i don't think i would i have no other discernible skill set nothing else i've ever shown any interest in i wasn't a good student not athletic you know i don't have a good mind for numbers or math or anything like that and so i never even have considered doing anything else with my life so yeah if i wasn't yeah the if i if i hadn't become successful i would just be struggling to do the same thing i i'm currently doing i think yeah i mean i feel the exact same way i don't know what i would do if i weren't a performer it's like you know my world i don't know if that's good or bad but i'm just happy to have it and i would do it even if i didn't get paid for it yeah that's how much i love it um so gabriel ignores the rules like i was saying but i'm curious with you guys have their and i say this because him ignoring the rules although it kind of went crazy it kind of came back right it works were there moments in your life where you didn't you know you went against the grain you did something someone didn't expect you to do and it it made your life better for me i remember when i first wanted to start hosting i was like 18 or 19 i told my mom i want a talk show you know i want to do and she was like kiki absolutely not no my mom she literally supports everything i do when i told her to talk so she said sweetie no one wants to hear you talk i was like now sharon what the hell so i like went against the grain baby you nobody wants kiki palmer i'm like mom but why so i pushed and pushed and i ended up doing my own talk show and i mean hosting and having conversations and talking to people is one of the most exciting aspects to what i do now um and so for y'all it was there a moment where somebody was like or you you know you thought okay this isn't gonna work but i'm gonna do it anyway and it turned out great did anyone ever tell little he couldn't do it i mean i i think my whole journey to me makes no sense that it happened i i grew up in a small town in south carolina with like 8 000 people like i never thought i mean i grew up watching this guy in movies if you someone told a young indian boy in south carolina you're gonna be in a movie with that guy i'd have been like that's that's that's just not possible i mean it's wild to be you know my gosh yeah i mean i would have said the same thing yeah i i'm not about you but about myself i can't believe i i get to do what i do for a living and i'm thankful for it every moment you keanu going against the grain oh gosh is that something you do often why are you are you a rule follower uh no um i don't know i was like what i was like i was like uh i would i was i would i would push back if i didn't agree and you didn't give me a good reason like i was i was i was like against petty authority yeah i am a virgo it was like if it was a virgo i would push back if i didn't agree it wasn't like in schools and it has to make and like and then if it was just because and then i was like a little like i need a little more room than that so you know i i got kicked out of schools and did stuff and dropped out here and there but when it was to the passion to the thing of whether to write or to act or create i was so focused i mean i think all of i mean you all started pretty young but yeah and self-motivated yeah it was just like that's it that's what i'm doing yeah so like you know 15 16 you know acting classes second city community theater you know and it was like you know drop out of high school so what i'm gonna go out go do this thing and so i'm a professional anyway um but so yeah there's been some yeah so there's a little bit of like did you finish high school kiki um the actor kid version yeah exactly so no i always tell people who here dropped out of high school that's pretty good aziz what a nerd i was still in south carolina i graduated i liked high school i wish there was more i i wish i sometimes think about that how i wish there was more acting and things where i grew up because i remember like we'd do one play a year and i would have so much fun and and anytime there was anything in that involved any kind of public speaking or or or you know performance i i loved it but there was just there it was just like once a year you'd get to do this thing and it wasn't there wasn't any like drama department how'd you end up finding it because i went to school in new york and then i started doing stand-up and and it's like kiana said once you know i i did good in school and stuff but i was always just goofing off and wasn't paying attention and it was school in south carolina's was pretty easy uh it's not like a rigorous program although in 11th and 12th grade i did go to like a harder school but like uh when i was in college i was just kind of like i don't really it's exactly what kiana's saying i didn't really know what i was doing i didn't really and then when i found stand-up i was like oh i i i see this i like this and then you know the acting and writing directing all kind of came from that but i never had those dreams it was always just i like stand-up i want to get good at stand-up and then i started filming like sketches and then you force me up there oh yeah did you do the walk he had me up there and i was like i'm gonna do this stand-up he took me to a spot where did we go we're in la we're in la the comedy store you're great have you done it since then i haven't i haven't done it i want to go back i need to know how to put it i'm like the opposite of your mom i think you should just do everything yeah everybody wants to hear kiki talk guys that literal comedy it's not no joke that stand-up you got to be prepared yes for sure be prepared yeah you gotta be prepared it helps it's hard to i mean it's like it's a whole thing to write and put together but what i liked was that you pushed me out there i was scared as i went out there and did my thing and you know what i mean like i learned a little something yeah you gotta you gotta keep going i mean what i like about you know i've been touring a little bit this year and you know the difference between doing that and doing movies is stand-up it's just so much it's so much simpler there's not as many things you have to deal with it's just like you're talking into a microphone you have to wait on anybody you don't need anyone to sign off on anything you don't need to get like dancing to go do a stand-up set it's just it's it's all it's all just very simple it's so pure just as if you're talking into a microphone you know what about you said did you grow up being kind of a rule follower would you say you're kind of by the book person no not at all i love that we're all just misfits i yeah i i mean i dropped out of high school i cut a lot of class i barely went to high school i was writing yeah i mean i knew i wanted to make movies and me and evan started writing super bad when we were like 13 or 14 years old i started writing super bad when we were doing stand-up when i was like 13 and so um i was like very driven to to like make movies and and be like in comedy and entertainment and so yeah i um i also smoked a lot of weed and did a lot of shrooms like that so i i also yeah i was also just cutting class and goofing off and and and going to movies and yeah we my friend me and evan watched a ton of movies um but no i i yeah i was just rigorously disciplined i would say in anything other than uh than and then writing and and working and then once i found writing me and evan would like go to his place we would like skip school and like sit in a parked car and smoke weed and write super bad on like a laptop computer together when you hear that it just sounds like it was just so you know boom we went to but like what do you think like helps a writer start writing because you can have ideas in your head for days but putting it to the paper you know what i mean like you know having the structure like it having an arc what is it how do you do that i don't know i think we we learned as we went and i think we like liked movies a lot and and we slowly uncovered what elements those movies had in their writing that like allowed them to do the things that we liked and we started to be like oh okay if you have three characters who are in conflict with one another it makes the scenes funnier because they can argue with each other which is funnier than them all agreeing with each other and it was like little discovery like that and and set pieces setting up circumstances where oh the characters have to go through these crazy lengths to get what they want and it's all stuff that's like very intuitive to me now but we sort of were discovering it as we went as like on the fly basically um but i do look back and we i think we watched so many movies we did sort of have like an inherent understanding of like film structure and um and character arc and things like that yeah brilliant what's your process aziz i mean i've seen some of your process working with you it's incredible everybody's different i think you really love like real life you watch a lot observe humans and you know also just like us to just go and but how did you get to that point as a writer you know your taste uh well every movie i've written has had a little bit of different process uh good good fortune i i had just that idea of like these two guys mike the orange character and the jeff character one guy that's you know struggling another guy that's doing really well and then i would get to like page 40 that i didn't know where it would go and then i had this idea oh what if the the angel comes in and then you know that that it was not something i outlined sometimes i write things that i outline and i go okay that's where it's going to go other times i kind of just write things say let me just doing this and just see what would be fun to happen next and just kind of write yourself in the corner and then eventually you kind of get it there but then there's a whole other thing obviously when you when you get your cast and you know we all start spending time together and you start dialing it in more i mean you know once you are like okay keanu's angel okay how do we really dial it into his voice and and uh you guys were so fun to rehearse and work with and uh yeah but wait i wanted to ask you just about the super bad thing because you know i it's weird because i i'm curious about this stuff and we never talk about but uh was there any stuff that you guys wrote you know was there anything that made it from even those early like oh in the car like what are some jokes that were like oh even because it's interesting because like your scripts change so much over time right like from the first like version of good fortune i had you know there was different endings and all this stuff and you start sending it to people getting some notes whatever feedback things change but there's certain things that oh well this has always been in there the thing in good fortune was um you know part of that idea came from one time i was writing like one of the like oh sparks that really like put the movie idea in my head was i was in uh colorado doing a show and i was riding in an uber to the venue and i was talking with another comedian that was on the show and we were just talking about how much uh more homelessness we were seeing everywhere all over the country um from the last time we'd done a tour and the uber driver who was like you know a hipster caucasian guy in his 30s uh said oh i was homeless for a while it's not what you have in your head when you hear homeless guy and he was talking about how he you know showered at the gym and all this stuff and that was kind of oh i was like whoa and then you start looking into it and reading about it more and you're like whoa this is pretty widespread all these things he's talking about and i hadn't really seen it in a movie quite in this way and um but that kind of thing of him sleeping in the car and all this stuff yeah that was always that was always in there but yeah so to go back to what i was asking you like were there any bits or things that were like always in super bad even from those early yeah the mclovin joke was always it was always mclovin was there like a number two like oh it was always it was mclovin and you remember that moment was like what if the id what if the navy got was mclovin yeah i remember we thought of it we were in evans like family computer in his basement basically um and that see i mean honestly like a lot of it and and it's kind of shocking because even on like you know a scene will pop up on like social media or something like that like the scene where he brings him the id and they're arguing over the name and muhammad's the most popular name on earth and all like we wrote that scene when we were like 15 years old like like like word for word essentially and like a lot of the jokes like were from the structure is sort of what evolved as we got older and we started to realize like oh it needs to there needs to be subtext and there needs to be this like kind of we didn't understand the difference between like plot and story you know like what's happening and what they're feeling you know and so we eventually were like oh there should be the storyline about how they're going to different colleges and they sort of are afraid of what that's going to bring but that that's what came as we got older but almost all like the funny jokes we wrote in high school which uh which is crazy and and i probably feel so real yeah it is why it's like it feels exactly like young people and it's why i see young people in mclovin shirts all the time like uh like it's crazy how many teenagers seem to still watch uh super bad and i think i think it's totally because we wrote it while we were teenagers and like very few high school movies like have like we did tap into some like inherent truth about being a teenager that that even i look at now and i'm like yeah like we yeah and and the director greg mottola did the smartest thing is he really made it look and feel timeless like he gave it like 70s music we wrote it in the 90s it was shot in the early 2000s but it was like he made it look kind of like it had like a 70s palette like their clothes and the music like and because of that it like it kind of gives it this like this like frozen in time like feel a little bit like and i give him full credit for that like it was really smart of him to do that i think yeah there's also something cool about how they don't have it was before smartphones and stuff it kind of adds the timelessness yeah we like wrote it before cell phones and then we added in like one cell phone scene where like yeah when i was saying his phone like isn't working because at the time cell phones didn't even work that well necessarily yeah you couldn't rely on them so yeah it's a pre-cell 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being in the theater watching super bad i remember seeing your first hit stand-up show i remember watching the matrix with my auntie in the theater and she wouldn't shut up because she was like you better get it you know and i remember and we and we're like that is bad like yo wait we gotta watch good fortune with your auntie yeah i want to see good with your auntie she gone but she's saying it up there she gone um you know kiki's the funniest person in the world she just told me her auntie passed away and i'm like laughing because she gone good fortune she gone good fortune when you guys do stuff like that though like it must raise the stakes where you're like okay how do i be great again or how do i create this moment like or do you just try to keep staying in the fun of it i don't know i feel like i i don't i mean you guys write and you direct and so i i'm i'm more of like a vessel of it than the creator of it but with these john wick i mean these john wick movies are like some of the greatest movies of all time honestly in my opinion and there's and and they do keep getting better and better so like are you when you okay when you're talking about them are you like we have to keep making these better we did this it has to be okay that was a little personal that was more personal yeah okay okay okay yeah i'm a part of that yeah you know they have to be better yeah and you really do keep making them better and better i think that's so important to say because i think sometimes we do get afraid to be like no we want it to be great we want it to be better but i think when you go in there knowing that it gets better and better and better it it is better it does become better sometimes it can get you know worrisome or frustrating but as creatives i think like staying on the pulse of like this really matters to me i think i mean even with the studio it's like incredible oh yeah people for sure have also like glamorized not giving a stuff that much and like i think especially with actors and stuff i see like like actors who try really hard or sort of made fun of and actors who come to set and act like they don't give a shit or sort of like that seems cooler maybe like in the eyes of a lot of people to me yeah like the idea of really caring about what you do and try and like admitting that you try really really hard to make it good and that you think about it being good and you want it to be good like that's been the only thing that's allowed me to make good stuff is like outwardly trying to make it good like because i'm not i'm not good enough to just have it be good i have to really try you know that's how i feel yeah i feel that way too and how did you know you wanted this cast and more importantly because i know me and seth have done a bunch of stuff with you at this point i feel like i do a lot of stuff with you yeah i feel like i do a lot of stuff with you with you a year yeah sometimes they come out sometimes we save them for later we put them on the shelf okay but kianu how'd you know we've done i mean we're about to do a third in italy at some point um so kianu when when did you know you wanted him as the guardian angel did you already think about him for that role so good fortune when i first had the script i i when i first sent it to set i thought he would be the angel and that we would find some guy to play okay and then you know we kind of were like okay who do we want to be this jeff guy and we could never find the person that felt like they could do jeff and also be funny being jeff's a tricky role he's a tricky role and i'm able to bring distasteful people to life in a sympathetic way i mean seriously you nail it and we're like i love the guy for better or worse that that is a skill that i recognize i i do have that's amazing yeah you could be awful and people still oh yeah i'm always shocked by i'm in the test readings i read the numbers People are really on board. I can push it pretty far. But that's exactly why I one day had the, you know, the light bulb of, oh, Seth should be Jeff. He'd be perfect. Like, he's the guy that could be Jeff and we'll find someone else to be the angel. And then it was like, okay, we need to find someone to play the angel. And then Keanu's name came up and I was like, Keanu? Well, who? Like, Keanu Thompson? You're not talking about Keanu Reeves. He's never working with me. I'm trying to find Keanu Reeves. I feel like he got a phone for his phone for his phone for his phone. And he might answer it like in a Batmobile. Like, how do you get to him? I couldn't. Yes. It was just seeming like, you know, Keanu's just, you know, Seth is my friend. Like, yeah, Seth will do a movie with me. But Keanu was like. That seems like a long shot. Yeah, it seems like. Yeah, sure, guys. But Keanu happened to be in London. I was like, I was in London. I was like, well, yeah, let's meet. And so we met up. And as soon as I walked in, Keanu was there, you know, taking photos, kissing. Basically. And I was like, oh, this is no, no question. Like, as soon as we start. And I remember the day before I was looking at the script and I was reading the Gabriel stuff to my wife using a Keanu voice. And I was just laughing so hard. Oh, wow. Let's hear it. Oh, no, no, no. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Only if you give me your Aziz. No, no. Kiki does a great Aziz voice. I do pretty good. It's pretty good. It's pretty good Aziz voice. Yeah, I'm Aziz. I knew Keanu. He wanted to do the movie. I was like, oh, Keanu. They love you. Now do Aziz with an Australian accent. Okay, this is a fun one. If you could choose, would you choose to peak 10 years ahead of your life or would you trust the mess of not knowing? Whoa. Whoa. I would never look. I would never do that. You wouldn't look? No, I don't think so. I'm not looking either. I mean, what if you see some shit that don't make today worth living for? Yeah. But you're saying you look and you can choose. Can we change things? I don't know. Yeah, can we change things? Like if I go forward 10 years and I have like an eye patch or something, could I spend the next 10 years trying to mitigate that or do I just have to accept? I love this is as bad as it gets if you just have an eye patch. I'm trying to keep it tangible, you know what I mean? That would be so weird though because that would be bad to see the eye patch because then you're always on the lookout and you don't know when it's going to come. You're going to be paranoid all the time. It's not good. But then like what if it was just you f***ing around? Like what if it was you saw the scene? What if it was the scene of you with the eye patch and you were just playing a character? Exactly. You don't know the context. Maybe I'm just being a pirate. Maybe I get a big pirate job in an upcoming film. Maybe I wrote that pirate movie for us. Yeah, exactly. He finally made that pirate film. Would you look, Keanu? No. Yeah. Not now. It's dangerous. Not now. What if you looked and all of us just had eye patches? It's just a trend. The whole world has eye patches. It's like Nelly wearing the band-aid. It's just like a new trend. Do you think that fate is just… Do you think that fate is just fate or do you believe that you make your own fortune? Whoa. Whoa. This is getting deep. Whoa. What do you think, Keke? I don't know. Okay. So, I'm about to go somewhere. Go somewhere. Whoa. I feel like it's like on some interstellar, like I feel like we got a bunch of different timelines. Okay. And so, I feel like yes, fate is fate, but I feel like you can choose which one. Oh. You know what I'm saying? Like I feel like you got 10 fates. So, they all exist. They're all there for you to get. They're all there for you to get into. But it's like it's up to you based off your choices which one of those fates you want to go into. And you could choose a really awesome one, a really crazy one. It's a good choose your own adventure book. Exactly. That's how I see it. You don't want to choose the one where you die, look on page 14. You know what I mean? I would always choose that one. It was always like the ghost killed you. Now you have an eye patch. The one with the hat. Yeah. That's a good theory. I like that theory. I kind of went, you know. Yeah. I think about these things. I don't know. What about me? You think we choose our destiny like with every choice we make every day? Or do you think it's like already written no matter what you're going to end up in lane two? Free will. Isn't it free will? I just feel like if you, you know, it sounds a bit cliche I guess. But if you work hard and you're nice to people, I think you'll come through where you want to be. I hope. I mean. I don't think that's true unfortunately. I think you also have to be pretty good. A lot of nice hard working people that are. Yeah, yeah. They're getting. You know, I mean look, I'm just, you know, I'm just happy with the reason I don't look in the future or anything is like, you know, I feel like I'm happy with where I am and. You don't want to poke the bear. Yeah. Wherever, you know, I feel so lucky that even we got to make this movie. Like not many people are getting to make original movies that are released in theaters. It's really tough. It's really hard. And, you know, even this like, you know, Keanu hurting his knee and then there was a writer's strike and there was all this whole stuff and it's like, oh, we got here. It took a minute. We got here. Yeah, Keanu. I mean, you've done some incredibly difficult things in your life and the cold plunge took your knee out. Yeah, yeah. Good fortune took me down. Isn't that crazy? It's so random. Yeah. Yeah. I'm doing comedy's tough. I'm like working with these guys. We're like literally getting into a cold plunge in a hot sauna. It's a beautiful day. It's California, the sun. We have a view. We shoot a really fun, amazing scene. I'm in my like, they gave me a little robe. I'm in my. I'm wearing shorts. I got slippers. I'm going back to my dressing room, like the room they gave me and my foot gets caught in a rug and I spiked my knee and my kneecap cracks. Oh my gosh, man. On good fortune. On good fortune. I know. I've been doing this scene. John Wick 4, it's all fine. Yeah. Well, no, it wasn't all fine. But anyway, but yeah, so that was a challenge, but it was good, but it's all good. It's all good. Well, I'm running out of time with you guys. I want to get into this game. I play a game with all my guests. Okay. And this one is going to be. You know, what am I calling this game? Hmm. It's going to be called Your Fortune Says. Here's how it works. I'm going to read you a series of strange, ridiculous, and maybe even slightly prophetic fortunes, and you've got five seconds to answer. Okay. No overthinking. No playing safe. Wait. Just answer. Okay. All right. You ready? It'll be so clear. I'm scared. Your fortune says, you wake up tomorrow with good fortune superpowers. What's the most useless one you could have? Most useless superpower? What's the most useless superpower? That guy who stretches. He doesn't seem to be able to do much with that. Yeah, he's just stretching everywhere. Stretchiness. Mr. Fantastic. He's stretchy. He just reads stuff. He just kind of stretches. Yeah, like what are you reaching for? That's like not the best superpower. Yeah. Stretchiness. Maybe you have like supervision, but it's not that much. It's just enough so you don't need contacts. That'd be pretty good. That's just called vision. That's just normal vision. It's just normal vision. You have vision. I'd say normal vision is about superpowers. Hey, I wear contacts, you got glasses on, it'd be helpful. I would say it's normal vision. For me, it'd be a gift. You, Keanu? What's the question? Pretty much, what is the most useless superpower you could have? Useless superpower. You ask all your guests this? Like, yeah. This is special for y'all. It's a superpower, but it's useless. Useless. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. What's the use? Crawl. Crawl fast. I don't know. Crawl fast. Crawl fast, like, because why are you crawling to begin with? Oh, is that a superpower? It could be. Like, that's why it's so bad. I know, but do you ever, like, look at an ant and go, like, "How the do they move that fast?" Yeah, they really do. Like, they cover that ground. Cockroaches really move. And they're carrying big stuff. They got big things. It's so insane. They're carrying big crumbs. It's so fast. There's some animals out there and insects that are doing some good work. I think we just came up with Ant-Man. They're doing some good work. It's amazing. Okay, you can swap lives with one of your co-stars for a week. Who and why? I would live to be Seth. Oh, yeah. I'm saying it today. I want to be Seth, too. Baby, I'd be Keke Palmer. I'd say, baby, this is-- First of all, you have an amazing wife. This is Keke Palmer. I love smoking weed. I mean, everything's great. It would be good. It is pretty nice. Yes. Most of the time, it's pretty good. It'd be fun to be Keke Palmer. I would switch with Seth, too, because I feel like if I swap with Keke, it'd be, like, a week. They're like, Keke's empire just fell apart. Like, everything's just gone to. What happened to Keke? Keke. She's been in London for a month. She's like, baby, I think it's Keke Palmer. I don't know. What are we doing? Where-- somebody give me the hood. What about you, Keon? I'm going Seth. OK. I'm telling you. It's not bad. I take it as a compliment. But here's the thing. Like, you'd be Seth, and you're like, yeah, I'm going to be Seth. I'm going to smoke weed all day. They're like, no, Seth, we need you on set. It's like, this isn't as chill as I thought it was going to be. There's 400 things to do today. He's working all the time. I thought I was smoking weed and making pottery. That's, like, one hour away. One hour a week. One hour a week of that. It's true. Yo, that's facts. OK, you're cursed to only eat one food for the rest of your life? Whoa. What is it? Oh, yeah. That's a hard one. I'd eat cheeseburgers. You knew immediately. Yeah, because they're good. I would choose cheeseburgers. I probably wouldn't live very long if all I was eating was cheeseburgers, literally. I would get fat. Maybe I'd have to exercise a lot more. Maybe I'd eat one a day. Maybe I'd cut it up into portions. That's tough. One thing a day-- cut it up into portions. I love the-- What would you eat? Ah, you know, I was literally knowing it was coming soon. Jammy eggs. So I was like, is it jammy eggs? Stay on brand, Kiki. Or is it pancakes? Whoa. Pancakes? I really love pancakes, guys. Wow. I really do love them. Oh. I'll take a toasted peanut butter and honey sandwich. Oh, wow. Tasted peanut butter and honey. Super chunk. Super chunk. Whoa. Sounds good. Sounds delicious. Yeah. Aziz? I would go tacos. Yeah. They're really good. Because it's also, like, kind of a-- Sneaky answer, yeah, 'cause you can do breakfast tacos, You know, you could put anything in there. Yeah. That's what she said. I'm kidding. No, no, no. Guys, you're amazing. Thank you so much. October 17th, Good Fortune is coming out. Make sure you guys, I mean, look, you'll see what the vibe is. You'll see what we're giving the movie. You'll see the vibe. It's going to be a fun time. You guys are awesome. You're awesome. Thank you, Kiki. Bye. I love you. Okay, so clearly this cast is unpredictable in the best way and maybe a little too ready to body swap or barter with the guardian angel. You can catch all this energy plus a whole lot more in Good Fortune in theaters now. Trust me, if making it was this wild, watching it is going to be a whole experience. Baby, this is, this is Kiki. Baby, this is Kiki Palmer, yeah. Baby, This is Kiki Palmer is hosted and executive produced by me, Kiki Palmer. Lucas Siegel is our post producer. Our producers are Lauren Hampton and Molly Nestor. Hilary Esty McLaughlin is our executive producer. Production services provided by Evolution Media. Our original theme song was written and performed by me, Kiki Palmer. For Team Kiki, my producer is Sharon Palmer. For Wondery, our managing producer is Olivia Fonte. Senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. And our executive producers are Emily Feldbrake, Aaron O'Flaherty, and Marshall Louis. there are books that change how you see the world and there are books that change how you see yourself in a new podcast series a great book with barack obama president obama sits down with a series of surprising and sharp guests to explore six books that have shaped his life and perspective on the world from song of solomon and the fire next time to all the pretty horses and gilead the president is joined by guests like tom hanks and tanahasi coats to reflect on how these timeless stories shaped his thinking on everything from fatherhood to leadership and discover together what they tell us about the world we live in and the world we want to create audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of a great book with barack obama ad free right now plus access each audiobook discussed in the series download the audible app today hi i'm kenya barris and i'm malcolm gladwell we're back for season two of our audible original podcast the unusual suspects we're bringing you fresh new conversations from guests like anderson pot davis adair's ron howard richroll amy shell and many more sign up for a free trial to audible to listen to season two in the audible app or by subscribing on apple podcasts