Known for his captivating gaze, Daniel Kaluuya says his ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ role was all about the mind

“Yo, why are you smiling like that?” Daniel Kaluuya asks, looking directly into the camera during an early February Zoom call. “Why are you smiling? What’s funny?”

The answer is nothing, a genial smile turning nervous as Kaluuya continues the line of questioning. To be on the receiving end of the British actor’s gaze is to realize how much he controls and shapes the exchange, with remarkable agility. He picks up on the slightest response and shifts his mannerisms accordingly, a skill he developed during his improvisational theater days and that he employs on the call as a way to demonstrate how quickly an actor can generate conflict at any given moment.

He then breaks into a smile himself, and returns to discussing technique: “You build and build and build. Later, when I started getting scripts, it was like, you’re telling me what to say? Amazing.”

Even relying on prewritten dialogue, Kaluuya, 31, introduces a dynamic quality to his roles; standout moments often come back to his eyes. The image of his face as he descends to the sunken place in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” is indelible, eyes wide open as tears stream down his cheeks. In Steve McQueen’s “Widows,” his chosen intimidation method as a mob enforcer involves forcing two soon-to-be victims to rap while he stares them down from just inches away - a spectacle that could have stopped at ridiculous, but to which he adds a necessary layer of menace.

In Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah,” now on HBO Max, Kaluuya radiates charisma. He plays Chairman Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party’s Illinois chapter, who was killed in 1969 by police and federal agents in Chicago. Although

viewers know how the story ends, Kaluuya’s embodiment of the leader demands their attention, earning effusive praise from critics.

In the process of researching Hampton, Kaluuya says, “I was hit by how brilliant of a mind he was. How much he knew and how much he cared, how much he loved and how much he did.”

Kaluuya can’t recall much from filming the speeches in “Judas.” He used to remind himself during his improv theater days that “once you’re in your head, you’re dead.” Projecting Hampton’s verve as an orator required the actor to let go of himself and allow the chairman’s words to take over.

He was introduced to the project through producers Ryan and Zinzi Coogler, who pulled him aside during “Black Panther” reshoots and told him they were interested in him starring as Hampton. They had LaKeith Stanfield in mind for the lead role of William O’Neal, who was arrested as a teenager for impersonating an FBI agent and later given a choice by an actual special agent, Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons): face a seven-year prison sentence, or work as an informant by infiltrating the Black Panther Party’s local chapter to keep tabs on Hampton. O’Neal chooses the latter.

There’s quite an age discrepancy between the actors and their characters; Stanfield and Kaluuya are each about a decade older, as Hampton was killed at 21. To believably inhabit Hampton, Kaluuya had to capture his spirit. He had to convey the magnetism of the chairman’s addresses, which fellow Panther Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback) likens to poetry in the film. The actor worked with a dialect coach to slip into Hampton’s style of speaking and met with an opera singing instructor to learn how to properly engage his diaphragm to make it through 12hour shoots.