Keegan-Michael Key and Wife Elle’s Marriage Goals: Helping Each Other ‘Be the Best Version of Themselves’ (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key on March 8.Photo:Emma McIntyre/Getty

Emma McIntyre/Getty

Keegan-Michael KeyandElle Keyare as much producing partners as they are husband and wife.

Those two roles are “very much interwoven,” Keegan-Michael, 53, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “Because we have aspirations for the other person, we have dreams for the other person,” he explains. “And we attempt to work toward that because you want the person to be the best version of themselves.”

In both their personal and professional lives, theTransformers Onestar adds of hiswife since 2018, “she is my inspiration.”

Where Elle, 53, truly excels is in helping Keegan-Michael “turn the boat,” as he puts it. “She’s like my secret weapon, because she’s so helpful in my [career] to go, ‘Well, I can write material for you in the direction you want to go.’ It’s invaluable.”

Whenever the Emmy-winningKey & Peelealum is contemplating new territory as an actor or producer, he says, “She goes, ‘What can we do to make that a reality?’ And I would like to say that I try and do that for her as well.”

Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key on July 31.John Nacion/Variety via Getty

John Nacion/Variety via Getty

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“There’s never a day off,” admits Keegan-Michael when asked about balancing those many projects and ideas with married life. “If, let’s say Elle and I were on the subway going to a Yankees game, anybody I’m sitting across from on the subway, anybody that I’m observing, I put that person’s aura, a facial tick, the timber of their voice, in my quiver so that I can use that to inform a character later on.”

For the New York City-based husband-and-wife duo as with “a lot of creative artists,” he says, “existing is the work. Because we have to be an antenna for the rest of society.”

But a perfect day off, Keegan-Michael adds, may indeed be going to a Yankees game. “Because we are both big sports fans, an ideal day off is for us to go someplace to witness athletics, a football game, a baseball game.”

Transformers One, in which Keegan-Michael voices B-127 a.k.a. Bumblebee, is in theaters Friday, Sept. 20. The animated prequel also features the voices ofChris Hemsworth,Brian Tyree HenryandScarlett Johansson.

For more on Keegan-Michael, pick up the latest issue ofPEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.

source: people.com