'Keanu's' Jordan Peele and Method Man on working with the 'Daniel Day Lewis of cats'

Perhaps the most apt place to interview comedian Jordan Peele and rapper/actor Method Man about their new movie Keanu, co-starring a flat-out adorable kitten, is Brewerytown's Le Cat Cafe, where as Peele and Method Man discussed the action comedy, the first attempt at movie stardom for Peele and his comedy partner Keegan-Michael Key, cats hopped on furniture and slid under the table.

Peele bestowed some cat-rap names. "We've got Mewdacris up there," he said, pointing to one kitty. "That one is Mew Pac."

"Purrell Williams," Method Man suggested.

In Keanu, Key and Peele play two squares, Clarence and Rell, who pretend to be hard guys after Rell's new kitten is stolen by a gang led by Method Man's character Cheddar.

"We got the Daniel Day-Lewis of kittens," Peele said. "We actually did find the cutest kitten in the world."

Actually, a bevy of cats platooned to play the title pet. So how does one cast cats?

"Little head shots came up on a computer, and the ones with props in the head shots or doing some weird thing with their paw on their face, we passed on those. You look for the genuine ones. No stage-mom cats," a deadpan Peele said.

"No, you basically look at a picture and think, 'That's the cutest cat I've seen in my life. Let's make a movie around it.' "

According to Method Man, who spent the most quality time with the Keanu cats, kittens are pretty great costars.

"When they were with you, they would fall asleep in your arms," Peele said.

"Because I would hold them close to my heart, and they were hearing the boop boop, boop boop of my heart," Method Man said.

"Really they're hearing the slow wheeze of your lungs," Peele shot back.

For a guy like Method Man, who has spent a good portion of his career projecting the image of hardened rapper, a kitten falling asleep on his chest is an adorable image - and one that reflects on Keanu as a movie. As much as it's an action-comedy, it's also about how we change our persona and the way we act based on our environment.

"That duality speaks volumes to [Peele] and Key's brand of comedy. They play against type and then play into type," Method Man said. "The best example I can give, when I'm around my people on the block, my accent changes: 'What's good? What's poppin'?'

"When I come around y'all people, it's 'Oh great, that's awesome!' The vernacular changes."

Peele saw a kindred spirit in Method Man, who is also a part of a duo - Method Man and Redman.

"Comedians always look up to the cool kid, and the cool kid looks up to the class clown," Peele said. "But Method Man, what he did with Redman, they are the class clowns of hip hop."

Peele and Method Man were fans of each other's work, and Method Man joined the Key and Peele project without even reading a full script.

"I knew the magnitude of this being their first movie, but I trusted the process because of what they had previously done," he said. "If I'm going to do a comedy, I'm going to do it with these two guys."

meichel@phillynews.com
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