How One of Them Days made SZA the breakout comedy star of 2025 so far

One of Them Days, the new buddy comedy movie starring Keke Palmer and SZA, has it all: stolen Jordans, a ticking financial deadline, bombastic neighborhood bullies, white gentrifiers, annoying exes, and the looming threat of imminent death. Centered around the trials of its two main characters Dreaux (Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) scrambling to make rent, one could consider it the closest to a modern-day spiritual successor to the 1995 Ice Cube and Chris Tucker-led cult classic Friday. It certainly ticks all the boxes, from its increasingly unhinged high jinks down to the riveting bond between its two charismatic leads.

But One of Them Days, out January 17, is also a rarity in itself. According to director Lawrence Lamont, it might be the second film ever to feature two Black women as leads in a buddy comedy film: “[The last one] I would say is the 1997 movie called B.A.P.S.,” he tells The FADER. For Palmer and SZA — who makes her big screen debut — their chemistry forms the heart of the film as they encourage each others’ hijinks and come to terms with the fractures in their relationship. The rest of the cast isn’t any less memorable with star-studded, wacky cameos from the reigning Black comedy bloc including Katt Williams, Janelle James (Abbot Elementary), Vanessa Bell Calloway (Coming To America), and more.

Calling in from Los Angeles, where raging wildfires forced the cast and crew to cancel the film’s premiere, Lamont detailed the natural chemistry SZA and Palmer fostered with each other on set, and how the long-standing canon of buddy comedy films inspired him to revive a genre that might have gone out of favor in recent years. “I miss those moments,” he says. “I want people to leave this with that feeling we had going to see our favorites growing up.”

The FADER: Were you intentionally looking to fill the hole in the Black female buddy comedy market when you first read the script?

LAWRENCE LAMONT: I wasn’t like, “Oh my goodness, where has this black woman buddy comedy been?” Honestly, it wasn’t until after we got deeper and deeper into the process that it hit me like, “I’ve never seen this.” After I finished the script, I was more so leaning into the originality of it all and how the story is something that we all can relate to. We all have one of them days. I actually was talking to the director of B.A.P.S., one of the original films that was a buddy comedy, and it hit me then where I was like, “Wow, this is so rare, this needs to be told, and we need to do it justice.”

Was SZA always on your mind for the role of Alyssa?

We had so many people audition for the Alyssa role, and no, it wasn’t on our minds to start. It was kind of like, we had Keke Palmer, should we find somebody new that can break for this character, should it be somebody we know?

The studio had the idea for SZA and it was like, wow, that is so interesting. I wondered how it would be because her and Keke were on [Saturday Night Live] together, so they already had a little bit of chemistry. And then, SZA was interested, and when we first met her, I was like, “All right, let’s rehearse some scenes.” It was just clear as day that she was Alyssa and is Alyssa, you know what I mean. She has a natural essence when you see the film, but she kind of is Alyssa! I’m not just saying that, she literally told me this. Once I rehearsed them, I said, this is a no-brainer.

Was it automatically bestie vibes when you got them in the room together?

Even on set sometimes I would say cut and try to go in and give notes and they would still be laughing and enjoying themselves. I’m like, “We shouldn’t even cut the cameras.” We might as well roll on all the behind-the-scenes stuff that they’re doing because the bestie vibes were strong and their chemistry is one of a kind.

I feel like SZA and Keke are both just naturally funny people. How did you go about encouraging them to lean into their natural instincts when it came to the comedy? Was there any improv?

I definitely encouraged them to loosen up and have fun. What do you think Alyssa would do? What do you think Dreaux would do? Keke really helped steer that ship, you know, she’s just such a legend. And our veteran cast from Janelle James to Katt Williams to Vanessa Bell Calloway, I was able to lean into their veteran leadership and find those right moments to improvise. But SZA found key moments to improvise and they made the script, they made the trailer, and I think there’ll be lines that will be quoted forever.

Going into this movie, you can’t ignore the long lineage of buddy comedy films. I think of 21 Jump Street, I think of Friday. Was there anything you wanted to achieve or add to that existing canon with this film?

I’ve seen a lot of buddy comedies or comedies in general where [it’s just] funny, crazy, off the rails, high jinks galore, and then the movie ends. For this one, I wanted to make sure we really had our heartfelt moments, because we are laughing and cracking jokes, and it’s a comedy about very serious circumstances. I wanted to make sure that the heart really shined and was at the forefront. So it’s not just just a comedy with no stakes or no payoff at the end, not to say that those films that you named don’t have those, but sometimes we can see films, especially Black comedies that are just crazy, and they end. I wanted to make sure that there was some heart in this and some soul and some hope, outside of all the high jinks.

One Of Them Days is out exclusively in theaters on January 17, 2025.