Keke Palmer's two-decade résumé is a tongue twister. The 31-year-old is an actress, singer, social media influencer, dancer, podcaster, producer, talk show host, game show host and, most recently, beauty executive. What some might call a "jack of all trades and master of none."

But baby -- say it from the side of your mouth while doing your best Keke Palmer impression -- we've gotten that phrase wrong for years.

"It never made sense to me that you couldn't be great at many things," Palmer writes in her new book, "Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative." What's more, when Palmer did a little digging, she discovered there was more to that cliché. "The full quote is, 'A jack of all trades is a master of none but oftentimes better than a master of one.' I was gagged!"

Can you hear it? Palmer's trademark delivery, like a lounge singer who's seen some things, with a dash of vaudeville and a skosh of Angela Bassett?

That's Keke Palmer the Performer, the natural entertainer who knew as a kid that she had the gift of gab. Then there's Lauren Keyana Palmer the Person, who after a year of public bumps and triumphs decided she wanted to let her fans (14 million on Instagram alone) in on a little secret: "I'm just a girl trying to make it."

After Palmer's second (or was it third or fourth?) breakout role as the delightful Emerald, a fast-talking horse trainer, in Jordan Peele's 2022 film "Nope," the actress was on a roll. Folks were talking Oscar. She announced her pregnancy while hosting "SNL" in 2022. She kiki'd with Usher in Vegas during his 2023 residency. Palmer appeared unstoppable -- a former Nickelodeon and Disney child star who made it to adulthood sans scandal. Then her son Leo's father took to social media to complain about the saucy outfit she wore to see Usher. Things devolved. The pair now amicably co-parent, but the narrative had gotten away from Palmer after a violent video of the couple surfaced online and the actress filed a restraining order against her son's father.

"When the audience thinks I'm the joke, honey we've lost the plot," Palmer writes in a chapter titled "Public Service Announcement." The plot, she writes, "is about a young beautiful Black girl from the south suburbs of Chicago ... who spent years becoming a generational talent. That's the plot. It's not 'I got problems with my baby daddy.' Now let's move on."

That's the only real piping-hot tea you'll find in "Master of Me." It's less of a memoir and more of a road map. Palmer writes about how she went from the 11-year-old star of "Akeelah and the Bee" and survived the child-actor curse by pivoting to social media after the entertainment industry dropped her in the has-been pile at 20 years old.

Palmer pulled herself out by pivoting. Hollywood wasn't reaching out to her for grown-up roles. When "GMA3" asked her to co-host in 2019 (she had been the youngest talk-show host in television history with the 2014 premiere of "Just Keke" on BET) the then-26-year-old Palmer figured daytime TV would be great exposure. "Everything's an audition," she said. Soon after, Palmer appeared in Jennifer Lopez's stripper flick "Hustlers" effectively shedding her baby-cheek image. In the years that followed she successfully transitioned from little girl to "your girl."

Now Palmer wants to help others find their own plots. She chatted with The Washington Post from a bathroom in Atlanta were she is -- what else? -- working on a new film with director Boots Riley. Dressed in black athleisure and a ball cap, she commanded the conversation as if she was wearing a ball gown. We discussed her career, her book and how she balances being both Keke and Lauren Palmer.

We're just two days past the presidential election and you were vocal about your support of Vice President Kamala Harris. So I have to ask: How are you doing?

I'm trying to figure out what it's telling me about the world right now and not just from a personal standpoint, but what people are in need of.

What do you think that is?

If I'm looking at it from a compassionate standpoint, I'm asking what does that tell me about my country? People are struggling. You know, it's like the "White Chicks" quote: "What do you mean broke? Like Martha Stewart broke or M.C. Hammer broke." When you're in survival mode. You're just looking for the quickest answer. And I'm like, "Damn, it's like that?"

You framed this moment with storytelling, which makes sense because in the book you write about how the power of story is something you recognized as a child. When did it click?

Even if I go back to growing up in the church. When I'm telling you the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, you really gonna know that through God you can do all things. Or if I said, "Then next thing you know he put a boat together. And he made it!" It's much more profound when we really get poetic.

The first time I felt the impact was probably with "Akeelah and the Bee." People responded so greatly to something and I connected the dots to what I could do with stories. I was in the driver's seat. Art is an opportunity to tell a story of something greater. But obviously you can do it as a person in any field. I think storytelling is a part of every public-facing thing and even the personal story that you tell yourself.

What the personal story you're telling with your work -- because you do a lot.

It's what I consider to be the American Dream. Growing up in a suburb of the Midwest and following the yellow brick road with my family to Oz -- that would be entertainment -- and using what I learned there to manifest my dreams and make them into reality. I'm just a young woman trying to make it too! You know what I mean?

Do you ever wrestle with the Instagram vs. reality tension? Because life always looks good online, and what's happening behind the scenes? Not so much.

You guys get to see my dreams. It's always going to be better than the real. The real is that I don't barely sleep. I'm overworked and underpaid. But I don't even want to boggle you down with that. That was what I was saying in the book. I don't want you to think I'm perfect, but if I'm going to sit up here and get in front of you, then it better be my best, you know what I mean?

I think about this when people say Beyoncé is doing too much! Why she always got to be so perfect? Like, should she be up there and half-a-- it for you? If she's going to be a representation of womanhood, motherhood, um, marriage after heartache, then she should make it look good, because aren't you going through the same things? Don't you want to look good?

What's the difference between doing too much and doing the most?

Doing the most is when there's no intentionality behind what you do and it doesn't make sense, it's not actually helping you reach the goal. When you're doing a lot -- all this [stuff] is valid. When you got five things that are a big deal. That's doing a lot.

You're getting into the separation between Keke and Lauren, the performance and the performer. But they are both you. How does one not harm the other?

There was a time in my life, especially when I had my son, where I was a little bit more open about things I usually would be private about. You try things out and then you realize "I don't think that that's something that I want to be centered in my work." Our parasocial relationship is a product of you loving the work that I do, not loving me in totality. That's thing I tell myself and the thing I tell my audience.

But you are the person we see online?

I'm not far off from that person. Like you're not far from the person you are that shows up at The Washington Post. But you ain't going to have the same conversations at your job as you would with your girlfriends over drinks. As an entertainer, people don't think about it because we don't show up in office, but we still clock in and clock out.

And when you clock out who are you?

I'm always kind of flamboyant, but I have way more introspective conversations. I'm working right now with Boots Riley and he was like, I feel like the intellectual side of you is the side that people don't really know. I'm actually super-heady, but I learned at a young age that my awareness can sometimes be off-putting. When you're growing up in a home where everybody's trying to survive nobody has time to think about their feelings. I felt so much and I learned to put a hat on it.

When did you realize you had to make the shift from acting in the business to actually being a business?

If I'm Mickey Mouse then who's Walt Disney? The front cover art of the book shows Keke Palmer is the brand and Lauren is the person. How can I get to where it's not just me. Where everything that I stand behind can exist like the Estee Lauder company. I've been in the industry 20-plus years. I've already been a has-been and came back. I know what it's like when people are done with you. You can only be the player for so long. You have to be the owner of something. Otherwise how do you create generational wealth? I can't hand me over.

It seems like the main thrust of "Master of Me" is showing your readers how to control their futures as well. Did you always set out to drop more gems than gossip?

I live for gossip, but not if it's not going to be in service. Like if I'm Wendy Williams, I'm getting into the tea with you but then I'm also going to say "Well what would have been right ..." I was always going to give some tangible things. Because like I said, motherf---ers is MC Hammer broke. So we got to be about something. I want to help you figure out how to survive all this.