Jordan Peele compares his working relationship with Get Out and Nope star Daniel Kaluuya with that of Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese. After receiving Oscar nominations for Get Out for their writing and acting work, respectively, Peele and Kaluuya have gone on to collaborate again with this year’s Nope. Nope also stars Keke Palmer, Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Steven Yeun, and Barbie Ferreira. Nope is Peele’s third feature, following 2019’s Us.
Get Out was a breakout hit for both Peele and Kaluuya’s careers. Before Get Out, Peele was mostly known as a comedian, acting most famously in the sketch comedy show Key & Peele along with Keegan-Michael Key. For many people, the announcement that Peele was directing a horror film came as a great surprise. Kaluuya, on the other hand, was a relatively unknown name before his lead role in Get Out. While he had acted in his fair share of TV episodes, including an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror, he was not nearly the widely-known superstar he is now. Get Out resulted not only in Oscar nominations (and a win for Peele for Best Original Screenplay), but really launched the pair into stardom, with Peele going on to direct and produce other features, and Kaluuya going on to star in major films such as Black Panther and Judas and the Black Messiah, for which he won an Oscar.
Now, Peele dissects the pair’s standout collaboration, comparing it to the relationship between Scorsese and De Niro in a recent interview with Empire. From early on in the filming of Get Out, Peele recognized that Kaluuya was a stellar performer. From that point forward, he knew that he would want to work with the actor on future projects. During the shooting of Get Out, Peele even said to Kaluuya “You’re my De Niro, man.” Check out the full quote from Peele below:
“It’s so funny, but by the point I was in the middle of [shooting] Get Out, that’s what I was telling him. I was like [makes serious eye contact], ‘You’re my De Niro, man. You’re my De Niro. I was like, ‘I need you to be in the future ones too, man!’ You could just tell what we had in him as a performer, from the very beginning. The first big movie he was a lead in, and my directorial debut, was Get Out. And we bonded because we went through that together. In the beginning of that, it feels like two people who have faith in each other, then by the end, it all works. So I just couldn’t wait to further that relationship and explore a completely new character with Daniel.”
Although Peele and Kaluuya have only been collaborating for a few years and have two projects to their name, the comparison between them and Scorsese/De Niro is still apt. Like in the case of Kaluuya, Scorsese helped to make De Niro the icon that he is today. It is hard to imagine De Niro’s career without Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Similarly, Kaluuya’s stardom is inextricable from his stunning performance in Get Out, which in this case was also a breakthrough moment for Peele.
Hopefully, Peele and Kaluuya’s return as collaborators in Nope will live up to the high precedent set with Get Out. With Peele becoming one of the most acclaimed horror directors today, perhaps his De Niro comparisons seed the potential for future collaborations with Kaluuya. Peele clearly holds Kaluuya in high regard, and evokes great performances from the actor. Future films with the two of them would be extremely exciting. But first, audiences will have to see how the two stack up to their previous collaboration when Nope hits theaters later this month.
Source: Empire
