Boots Riley has shared just how easy it was for him to recognize that Keke Palmer was the perfect star for his new movie, I Love Boosters.
The NEON distributed film, which also stars the likes of Demi Moore, LaKeith Stanfield and Don Cheadle, was premiered at SXSW last week to rave reviews. Speaking with Rolling Stone at the Texas film and TV festival, the rapper and filmmaker shared how his process making music is very similar to how he makes movies.
"Sometimes I’ll sit down to write a song. Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a lyric, or a concept for a song, and I just write it down. And then I’ll sit back and I’ll look through my notebooks, and look through a lot of bad ideas and find a couple good ones. And this was just a mental version of that," he explained.
"Like, you know, when I did Sorry to Bother You, and I was like thinking about what my next projects were gonna be, and thinking about the worlds that I have already created in song, and what would be, where some interesting characters and some juxtaposition would be."
One of the characters in I Love Boosters is Corvette, who’s played by Keke Palmer. The Rolling Stone interviewer declared Palmer a "fucking national treasure," to which Riley physically applauded by clapping his hands in approval. He was then asked whether Palmer was someone he always had in mind for the role.
"I wrote the film with characters in mind that don’t exist as actors. Right? That’s kind of what ends up happening," he explained. "And then I start thinking about who could best embody the role, and meeting with people, and talking to them."
He continued: "And so, when I met with Keke, I was like, 'Oh, she’s Corvette.' So that’s where that was at. That's how that came about. I tried not to think about the actor so much when I’m writing it."
This year’s SXSW proved to be more than just a place for Palmer to premiere her new film, it also played host to a stranger asking the actor if she’d marry him.
On March 13, footage emerged of a man bent on one knee in front of a stage while Palmer, Moore, Naomi Ackie and Eiza Gonzalez are on stage discussing I Love Boosters.
According to TMZ, the man was sitting in the front row when he approached the stage and whipped out a box, which assumingly contained a ring. Palmer appeared bewildered, as did her co-stars.
"I can't marry you, I don't know you, I'm so sorry," Palmer told the man, prompting laughter from the audience. "I'm so sorry, sir. No, it's okay. Is this a prank?" she asked.
"It's okay. Oh, that's very sweet," she continued, at which point security escorted him out of the venue. "Good luck to you, brother."
