Meet Keenan Rogers | Actor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Keenan Rogers and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Keenan, why did you pursue a creative career?
I learned at a young age that if you make a person laugh then the chances of them liking you as a person are higher. It seems that my decision to pursue an artistic career stems from a constant need to be liked, however it morphed into something much greater than that. Getting people to laugh is one thing but I began to realize the span of my creativity. I liked fabricating things out of thin air, or taking someone else’s words and figuring out how to make them my own. Computers and numbers were never my thing but I could write a 5 page essay like it was nothing, words and emotions were my foundation. When I was 11 I was cast in my first professional show and got paid 150 dollars a week, I felt like I had won the lottery, but more importantly I realized that I could get PAID to do something that brought me more joy than anything else in the world, I was addicted. I went to college for Economics but always participated in something that scratched my creative itch whether it be the Circus, local theatre, or an acapella group. I always had my hand in different pies, trying new things, seeing what I could take away and add to my entertainment career. When I graduated college I decided to pursue acting full time because I thought I wasn’t good at anything else but I knew I was darn good at acting and entertaining. It took me a few years but I finally realized that life is way to short to be doing something that makes you miserable. So coming out of the pandemic I decided to really commit and fortunately it has paid dividends, I’ve been booked more than I ever have and I even have my first feature film coming out. My definition of success has changed since I graduated college as well. I thought if I’m not an A lister then I’ve failed, but now I realized that if I can simply be part of projects that I believe in and can make a few bucks here and there doing it, then I’ll be the luckiest guy on earth.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
The thing that I’m most well-known for is what also sets me apart from others. I’m from a family of children. There’s six boys and one girl. The oldest boys are twins, then there’s triplets, then a single boy and a single girl. My twin and I are the oldest, I’m older than him even though he’s got about 7 inches on me, I’ll always have those 13 minutes of bliss. Two years later came the triplets who are one and two minutes apart. Then as if having five kids under the age of two wasn’t enough, my parents kept going and got my youngest brother Leith. They still wanted a girl so eight years after the twins were born, Ivy Catherine came into the world and she runs this family and is the princess. We all grew up playing piano, my mother started us all off when we were three and we never stopped. I almost quit piano when I was in college but then one day I found a piano on campus and started dinking around, suddenly I looked up and there were three girls standing there listening. My desire to quit quickly faded after that. A few years ago, we decided to shoot a music video with all seven of us playing one piano at the same time after seeing something similar on YouTube. We would have four of us on the keys then the other two using the piano for percussion and then another person using alternative techniques such as using a violin bow on the piano strings. Our videos started getting more traction and now we have several million views, over 50,000 subscribers and we’ve gotten some incredible opportunities to perform such as TV shows in LA and Symphony halls in Germany. So that’s something that sets me apart from others.

But the thing I’m the most proud of is the time I performed in a circus. I went to Florida State University for college and one of the extracurricular activities they had was a full 3-ring Circus. I auditioned and tried out knowing nothing about the Circus and I was cast as the Ringmaster in the show. I ate it up, 3000 people listening to me being surrounded by cheers and laughter? It was heaven on earth. I was also cast on the Flying Trapeze which consists of swinging from a bar 23 feet in the air, doing a flip, and then getting caught by a catcher. I had never done anything like it before, so in the beginning my body was screaming at me to get down and stop this foolishness. Me and my partner were both rookie flyers at the time and we were told that new Flyers usually take about two months to make it into the show, we made it in three weeks. To this day, it is one of my proudest moments and I will cherish it forever. Performing 23 feet in the air for thousands of people where you have half a second to make a trick is one of the highest highs a person can experience and I’m forever grateful for my time as the FSU Flying High Circus.

So long story short, I’m known for my large family and performing in a Circus.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We would start the morning off at Buttermilk Kitchen in Buckhead, then I would take him to the beltline where we would hop on scooters and visit every eatery we could. We would grab pub subs and hit up Piedmont Park, then we would go golfing at Bobby Jones golf course and immediately after go to the city’s best taco joint for dinner, Hankook Taqueria(iykyk). Then the next day we would drive up to the north Georgia mountains and hike Yonah Mountain stopping at the Bigfoot museum on the way up.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It’s as cliché as all get out but my mother. My mother is a college professor with 6 other children not including me, and this amazing woman made the life changing decision to start me off playing the piano when I was 3. That’s really where my creative journey began. Then she introduced me to acting and would pull me out of school at the drop of a hat to go to an “appointment” which was always an audition. To this day she reads my scripts with me in my auditions even though she knows she’s not the greatest actress, but one of her proudest moments was reading with me for an audition that go me cast in my first feature film. She is truly a treasure and my number one fan…. oh yeah my dad helped too.

Instagram: keenan_rogers

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RogersFamily

Image Credits
Leith Rogers Kurt Yue