Back in January, Keke Palmer had fans concerned after she spoke on the possibility of retirement in an interview with Teen Vogue. “I don’t know. I think the timer has started,” she said. “I think it’s because I just haven’t felt it yet. But the timer, I know that it’s around the corner. I don’t know when exactly, but it’s around the corner.”
via: People
But with season 2 of her game show Password premiering March 12 on NBC, the actress made it clear in an interview with PEOPLE that she’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
“People took that literally, but I was thinking in like 20 years!” she says. “But also, what I will say is I meant a different type of ‘slowing down.’ I think there’s a version of me that really wants to do more producing, that really wants to do more directing, that wants to do even more work, not only in front of the camera.”
“I’ll be still doing stuff, but I don’t know if I’m going to always want to be doing three movies a year,” she explains. “That’s amazing. Thank god I am doing that. But I don’t know if I always want to be doing it at that level or that way.”
In the meantime, Palmer, 30, teases there’s a lot to look forward to on this season of Password, including guests such as Jimmy Kimmel, Wiz Khalifa, Chance the Rapper and Johnny Knoxville, and fashion from designers including Dolce & Gabbana and Sergio Hudson. The show will also have new “touches” for contestants including Shoot the Moon and tie-breakers.
“Usually I’m just hosting, but this season, whenever there’s a tie-breaker, I get to also jump in on the Password fun,” she shares.
Some previous contestants will return, too, for another chance to win cash prizes. “We heard some of their stories of what their life was like and what was happening the first time that they won Password,” she notes.
When Palmer isn’t working on projects like Password, the animated Prime Video series The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy, and her podcast Baby, This is Keke Palmer with mom Sharon Palmer, she’s spending quality time with son Leo, who turned 1 in February and whom she shares with ex Darius Jackson.
Although she wants to teach Leo how to eventually be self-sufficient and “his own person” as her own parents did, Palmer admits her son is also teaching her a thing or two, as well.
“Leo’s teaching me that I have a right to enjoy life,” she explains. “I gave up a big part of my childhood for what my family and I have the freedoms to do now. We all put off parts of our lives for this career and for this opportunity to find generational wealth … So for me, there was often the feeling [with] my childhood of, ‘Damn, I’m never going to get that moment back,’ that moment that everybody has where they just get to say ‘to hell with it’ and be irresponsible and just be a kid.”
“I didn’t have that moment, because I was always having to show up, be on time and hold my own,” she continues. “With my son — not that I’m going to be irresponsible — but my son has given me the permission to explore some of those things I felt I missed out on. And I get to do it with him. We get to have fun together, let our hair down together, and he’s just given me the opportunity to remember what it was like to be a kid again.”
Password season 2 premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and will be streaming on Peacock.
