Oscar nod gives ‘cheap’ British actor last laugh
Little-known Daniel Kaluuya earns nomination despite Samuel L Jackson’s protest about his casting
A little-known British actor has been nominated for an Oscar after criticism over his casting as an Africanamerican in a US satire about racism. Samuel L Jackson complained that the role in Get Out should have gone to an American and suggested Daniel Kaluuya had been hired because he was cheap. However, the 28-year-old Londoner has been nominated for best actor at this year’s Academy Awards, in a category that includes Daniel Day-lewis, the three-time Oscar winner, as well as veterans Gary Oldman and Denzel Washington.
WHEN Daniel Kaluuya was cast in Get
Out, it was a controversial choice. Here was a British actor playing an African-american in a US satire about racism. Samuel L Jackson complained that the role should have gone to an American and suggested Kaluuya had been hired because he was cheap.
Now Kaluuya can command a higher fee. The 28-year-old Londoner is nominated for best actor at this year’s Academy Awards, in a category that includes Daniel Day-lewis, the three-time Oscar winner, as well as veterans Gary Oldman and Denzel Washington.
Get Out, made on a budget of just £3.5 million, was the breakout hit of 2017 and grossed £180million worldwide. Kaluuya plays a photographer who spends a weekend with his white girlfriend’s seemingly liberal parents, in a comic horror that crosses The Stepford
Wives with Rosemary’s Baby and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.
It is Kaluuya’s first leading role – and he plays it with a faultless American accent – after a decade working his way up through theatre, television and film.
He was raised in Camden, north London, and attended a local school with a tough reputation. To get him off the streets, his mother sent him to classes at the famous Anna Scher Theatre. “There were people in class who were on TV, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this could be possible,’” he has said.
He was scouted by the BBC for a television film in his teens, then wrote for and appeared in Skins, the Channel 4 drama that produced Dev Patel, another Oscar-nominee. Kaluuya won a best newcomer award for theatre work in 2010, and took several minor film roles before auditioning for Get Out.
Jordan Peele, the film’s writer and director, had intended to cast an American. “I didn’t want to go with a British actor because this movie was so much about representation of the African American experience,” he said.
But he spoke to Kaluuya via Skype and “once I’d wrapped my head around how universal these themes were, it became easy for me to pick Daniel because, at the end of the day, he was the best person for the role. He did the audition and it was a slam dunk.”
Kaluuya may have told Peele of his own experiences of racial prejudice. In 2013, he sued the Met Police for assault and false imprisonment after he was wrongly suspected of being a drug dealer.
Yesterday, Peele said on Twitter: “I just spoke to Daniel. You know when you’re on the phone trying to disguise the sound of an ugly cry? I failed.”
Oldman is the front-runner for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in
Darkest Hour, which is also up for best picture alongside Get Out.
The stars will be joined on the red carpet by Maisie Sly, a deaf, six-yearold British girl, who makes her acting debut in The Silent Child, which is nominated for best live action short.
The Oscars will be held on March 4.