Peele turns focus to directing
LOS ANGELES Jordan Peele is “kind of done” with performing.
While that might be a dagger in the hearts of fans who came to know and love Peele as an uncannily calm Barack Obama, the endlessly annoying Meegan or any of the other characters he played in the sketch comedy series “Key & Peele,” the good news is that he's still in the business of entertaining. He’s just taking a seat behind the camera. The better news? He’s really good at it.
His directorial debut, “Get Out,” in theatres Friday, is one of those rare creations that functions both as a taut psychological thriller and as searing social commentary about racism in the modern era. The premise is simple: A black man, Chris, (Daniel Kaluuya) goes upstate with his white girlfriend, Rose, (Allison Williams) to meet her parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) and things get weird. It’s been described as “The Stepford Wives” meets “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
Peele, who also wrote the film, isn’t necessarily commenting on interracial relationships directly. His mother is white, as is his wife, comedian Chelsea Peretti — although he met her after it was written. Instead, it’s in part based on the experience of being the only black man at an event full of mostly older, white people.
“There’s a desire to connect that is sweet and endearing, but I wanted with this movie to show how you experience it different from our perspective,” Peele said. “It’s one thing to have one conversation with somebody but when every conversation you’re having begins to resemble that conversation you begin to realize that you are being seen as other... it’s at least a reminder that we’re not past race.”
Like “Scream,” “Get Out” is a satire with "full thriller vocabulary.”
Peele is a lifetime fan of horror films and thrillers and on one level wanted to make something for the underserved black audience — but not exclusively so.
“The black horror movie audience is a very loyal fan base,” Peele said. “We come out and we enjoy horror movies and there’s this extreme lack of representation of black characters, black protagonists, but also the values that you see demonstrated in a theatre — people yelling at the screen, ‘get out! Get out of the house!’”