Key & Peele not only want people to laugh at their latest movie, they want people to go absolutely crazy over the cuteness overload. The comedy duo’s movie, Keanu, is being released on April 29, and they are doing the rounds to promote their movie.
One of the co-stars in the film is an adorable kitten whose name is actually the film’s title. New Line Cinema’s Keanu stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as slackers who become extremely attached to a stray kitten that shows up Peele’s doorstep. When a drug dealer kidnaps Keanu, the two men have to pose as criminals to try and infiltrate the drug dealer’s gang to save their beloved kitten in an epic rescue mission.
![Key & Peele with one of the ‘Keanu’ kitties. [Photo by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images]](http://thebestcatpage.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Key-and-Peele-2-670x388-min.jpg)
Key & Peele with one of the ‘Keanu’ kitties. [Photo by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images]
“The studio said, ‘You’re going to do all CGI for this right?’ and I said ‘No, we have to use real cats. You have to see the cuteness!’”
Atencio went through great lengths to find the best type of kitten that could play Keanu. The film director even held kitten auditions to see which kitten would be the most photogenic to star in the movie. After debating between using tabbies or tuxedo kittens, Atencio settled for a tabby kitten, since tabbies are much easier to work with, the easiest breed to match, and the most common breed in animal shelters.
The Key & Peele film actually ended up using a total of seven kittens to create the movie, Keanu. The three kittens, Nacho, Jefe, and Squibword, were the first weeks-old kittens used at the start of the film. With time, four more kittens were brought on as the first three started to get bigger.
The kitten trainers and the director had their work completely cut out of them as they had to find tricks to get the kittens to act in certain scenes. The film crew used buzzers to get the kittens to move to specific spots and would use treats as a reward.
The real life kittens were used in all of the scenes, including the shootout action sequence, and absolutely no CGI effects were added. Cats are usually skittish when it comes to loud noises, but the kittens were brought on location prior to filming so they could get used to the noisy environment over time and keep calm.
In fact, the toughest part of the shoot was trying to keep the hats on top of the kittens’ heads. At one point of the flick, Keanu is seen wearing a black do-rag and a thick gold chain when he’s under captivity by his kidnapper. The kitten trainers slipped the kittens food whenever they needed to wear the headgear, as a way to train the kittens to not pull off the do-rags. The gold chain is a lightweight plastic prop which was not difficult to wear.
Just like in the movies, a happy ending came to all the kittens in this shoot. An American Humane Association representative was on-set throughout the entire filming of it to make sure the kittens were handled with care. The film crew treated the kittens like mini-movie stars and after the movie wrapped, all the kittens were adopted by various people who worked on the film.
Director Atencio himself adopted three of the kittens for himself, and hopes that he might work with them once again in future projects. Unfortunately, Jordan Peele is allergic to cats, but was able to use allergy medication to work with the Keanu kittens in the film without having any issues.
