The 'Hustlers' actress is thankful director Jordan Peele wants her character Emerald Haywood with her natural hair in the science fiction horror motion picture.
- Nov 16, 2022
AceShowbiz - Keke Palmer is grateful director Jordan Peele let her sport her "natural hair" in "Nope". In the 2022 horror film, the "Hustlers" star was happy to "represent" her Black heritage via her tresses when she played Emerald Haywood, the little sister of Daniel Kaluuya's character Otis "OJ" Haywood Jr.
"The number one thing that he knew was that he knew he wanted Emerald to have my 'fro. Like he was searching on my Instagram page and he said, 'This is Emerald right here.' [I was like,] 'I'm so glad that this is the look that you chose [for me] to wear on the main stage and represent my natural hair in this way, honey!" the 29-year-old actress said when speaking at Teen Vogue Summit 2022.
Keke - while appearing at the event in Los Angeles produced by the teen magazine - revealed the 43-year-old filmmaker "encouraged" her to "improv" with his material a little bit. She said during her keynote, "There's a script, and the script is like your guideline."
"And the character's not going to change just because you say that one little thing. But [Peele] definitely encouraged me to improv. Like in the scene where Emerald has that big monologue in the beginning where she's talking about the Haywood history."
"We did that so many times that by the end, I was like, maybe I can add some ad libs to it, and he'll be cool with it. So I started doing the whole singing on the side. And he encouraged it, he loved it! So I just kept going with it."
