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

For ‘Transformers One’ star Keegan-Michael Key, his Hollywood career and marriage are “very much interwoven”

Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key are 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, the Transformers One star adds of his wife since 2018, “she is my inspiration.”

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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-winning Key & Peele alum 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.”

Among the Hollywood power couple’s projects is The History of Sketch Comedy, their award-winning podcast that became a hit book in 2023. They’re both among the executive producers of shows Keegan-Michael has hosted, including Game On! and Brain Games.

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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.”

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As for rules he and Elle follow to maintain their strong bond — as partners in work and life — Keegan-Michael says a “guideline” he lives by is simple: “Breathe and listen. And not that it's a rule, it’s just something that is, I think, helpful in being able to click into the other person and where they're coming from.”

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 of Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry and Scarlett Johansson.

For more on Keegan-Michael, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

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