Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya: ‘This is 12 Years a Slave: The Horror Movie’ – The Guardian

Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington in Get Out. Photograph: Universal Pictures

Jordan Peeles comedy-horror hybrid Get Out has struck a raw nerve with US moviegoers. Made on a slim budget of $4.5m, the film took in $33.3m on its opening weekend in late February, charging to the top of the box-office charts and making Peele the first black director to have a debut movie earn $100m.

At a time when unabashed racism is rearing its head in various grotesque shapes from alt-right trolls to the KKKs fanatical support of Donald Trumps discriminatory proclamations and executive orders its success suggests that audiences are hungry for more nuanced explorations of the complex depths of racial prejudice.

Its star, Daniel Kaluuya, is keen for more, too. It speaks to all the subconscious stuff that Ive felt, growing up as a black man in the industry, he says of his breakout film. He talks in a rapid, north London baritone down the line from Atlanta, where hes currently shooting Marvels forthcoming The Black Panther. Its not overt. The narratives we usually see within the boundaries of television or film are extreme racism. People [think] racism is something you do as opposed to something you believe, like: Im going to go out of my way and be racist.

Get Out, however, is far more subtle. Like a fiendish fusion of Guess Whos Coming to Dinner, The Stepford Wives and Rosemarys Baby, the film follows Chris (Kaluuya), a young, successful black photographer, who travels with his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) to meet her parents at their vast Alabama estate. Spoilers withstanding, Chriss initial anxieties about the trip transpire to be more than justified.

In an unpredictably off-kilter way, the film takes on everything from the long shadow cast by slavery and segregation to contemporary police brutality. But it also tackles less overt forms of racism. Near the start of the film, Chris wonders if Roses family know he is black. They dont, she replies, but she tries to offer an assurance: My dad would have voted for Barack Obama a third time. The implication: how could this committed liberal possibly be racist?

At the estate, Chris is confronted by all manner of micro-aggressions, from ham-fisted attempts at street talk by Roses overly ingratiating father (Bradley Whitford), to sinister suggestions of biological bigotry from her brother Jeremy, played by an oily Caleb Landry-Jones (With your frame and your genetic makeup, you could be a beast, purrs Jeremy over dinner). The effect is quietly suffocating for Chris, and nerve-shredding for the viewer.

The film has become an instant phenomenon in the US, inspiring countless memes and parodies. But will it resonate as strongly in the UK? Kaluuya explains that hes observed different experiences of racism between England and the US. Back home, its felt but its not heard, which is quite hard, he says. Theres an undercurrent, even if when you look at it factually or objectively, nothing has been said. He has, he says, seen more inadvertent openness Stateside. In America, people are worse at hiding it; they say crazy shit. For instance, when some black boy dies, someone on a set might say: Its really sad he was killed by police, but you know, he was a little shit, so its difficult I dont understand. I dont understand. I dont understand! he says, exasperated.

In 2014, Kaluuya sued the Metropolitan Police for an incident that occurred in Camden in 2010, when he claimed he was taken off a bus by four officers, pinned down, then strip-searched at the station. A pair of especially tense scenes in Get Out dramatise and smartly subvert the fraught dynamic between black men and the police. It must have been satisfying, then, for Kaluuya to see such provocative material explored in Peeles fearless script. I read it and I was like: Oh. My. God. I remember sending an email to my agent which said, This is 12 Years a Slave: The Horror Movie. I was like: Are you allowed to say this? Are you really going to do this?

Kaluuya was desperate for the part, and was encouraged in March 2015 when he discovered that Peele wanted to Skype with him. Even if I didnt get it I could say: Well, I Skyped with Jordan Peele, so I dont give a shit! he laughs. When we spoke, he wanted to pick my brain about the African-American experience. He wanted to know if I connected to it. I was like: Yeah, Im from London!

Peele also sent Kaluuya a list of horror films to watch for research, should he get the role. But Kaluuya wasnt playing ball. I didnt watch them, he says. I didnt want to, because Id be too aware of it being a film, a fiction. I just like playing guys, normal dudes. Thats the stuff that I really enjoy watching: when it feels grounded.

In fact, it was one of Kaluuyas earlier performances as a normal dude that ultimately led to his big break in Hollywood. After their initial Skype chat, Peele fired up Netflix to watch Fifteen Million Merits, a 2011 episode of Channel 4s Black Mirror in which Kaluuya played a good-natured everyman struggling for survival in a nightmarish, dystopian world. Its not hard to see what made Peele consider Kaluuya a good fit for the role.

His performance in Get Out is understated and layered. He nails the demanding scenes that require him to plumb torrid emotion as he recalls the death of his characters mother in a hit-and-run incident. Of playing these moments, Kaluuya says: I felt that thing of not wanting to confront your demons, which I think is true for a lot of black men. Theres a lot of black men running around with crazy trauma scars and they should be going to therapy. They should be sitting down and talking to people. But they cant. If youve got the armour of being a man, and the armour of being a black man, that hyper-masculine thing can make those scars deeper.

Get Out has provided Kaluuya with his first high-profile leading film role. But, at 27, hes amassed an impressive list of credits in various disciplines. Born in Camden Town to a Ugandan mother, Kaluuya developed an early taste for the arts. He wrote his first play when he was nine; it won a competition at primary school and was subsequently performed at Hampstead Theatre. His mother suggested that he study acting to let out his excess energy, so he signed up for an improv class at Islingtons Anna Scher school. He found it hard to get roles, so he went back to writing plays for the Hampstead and National Youth Theatres.

His writing drew the attention of E4, which hired him as a staff writer, and to play the role of Posh Kenneth on hit teen drama Skins. Since then hes won Evening Standard and Critics Circle awards for stage acting, shone in various TV roles, been accepted into the prestigious Sundance Screenwriters Lab with his first screenplay, and made strides into US cinema, from Denis Villenueves thriller Sicario (2015), to Ryan Cooglers aforementioned Black Panther, due in 2018. He has also recently been cast alongside Viola Davis in Steve McQueens upcoming heist thriller Widows.

Kaluuya is still based in London but, like compatriots including David Oyelowo and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who have relocated to the US, he is appearing increasingly frequently in American roles, a development that sparked a heated recent debate. Samuel L Jackson questioned the aptitude of black Brits such as Kaluuya for roles like Chris in Get Out, and speculated tartly on the reasons for their success (Theyre cheaper than us, for one thing, he said). It prompted Star Wars: The Force Awakens star John Boyega to snap back on Twitter: Black brits vs African Americans. A stupid ass conflict we dont have time for.

Kaluuya, however, is pragmatic when taking roles, and wants to know why black Britons are being singled out. Sometimes Ill work in America, sometimes Ill work in England. Whats important is fulfilment. I just want to tell stories, he says. I dont think theres a lot of roles in England point blank. White people are going [to the US] too, and people dont talk about that. People just blame us, and we get the fucking blame because were black. But everyones going there. How many white actors are putting on American accents? he asks. Are we just going to ignore Andrew Garfield? Why is it always us as black people who get this narrative pegged on us? I just think America has a bigger industry, and so a lot of stuff that we aspire to in this industry is in America. If you have ambition and drive, its a natural progression.

For now, Kaluuya is palpably enthused about Get Out. I remember being at the premiere and was being all self-conscious. Suddenly, my body relaxed, and I thought: Im so happy that this film exists. This, for me, is what racism feels like.

Get Out is in cinemas now

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Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya: 'This is 12 Years a Slave: The Horror Movie' - The Guardian