Nothing really compares to the feeling of getting the audience to shudder.
There is no more interesting film maker in Hollywood today, if you ask me, than Jordan Peele.
He became famous on the sketch comedy show 'Key & Peele',
He then went on to break box office records and win an Oscar for 'Get Out'.
And now his brand new horror movie 'Us' is....
We'll I haven't slept since I saw it so... I think that means it's good.
[Jordan laughs]
- Hey, Jordan, lovely to meet you. - Lovely to meet you.
So as I understand it, you knew around the age of 13 that you wanted to be a director?
Yes, I loved film so much that it hurt.
And there was a point at which you thought it wasn't going to happen?
- Yeah. - Is that right? What happened?
I think part of it was that subconscious feeling that as a black artist
there wasn't room in such a competitive industry.
I also think there was a great feel of failure. That if I tried and failed, it was devastate me.
So, the easier path was to go a different way.
The laughter, I followed the laughter.
- I've brought here my anger translator, Luther. - Hi
You know, if you look at scary movies and you look at comedy, that involuntary reaction from the audience
is something they have in common. Do you remember the first time you had the power to tell a scary story?
And get a reaction from people?
Yes, there was a transformative moment where I told a scary story at a class trip where we went overnight
to the woods. I was probably 12 or 13, terrified of the dark still. Even though I was a fan of movies.
I'd watch horror movies and then I'd creep myself out.
- That is an unhealthy obsession [laughs] - That is the definition of an unhealthy obsession
When I told this story, I just remember everyone going [shudders] in this collective shudder.
And it gave me power.
From that moment, I walked maybe half a mile alone through the dark woods.
It was something that before I told that story I would have never been able to do.
Next thing we're going to do after this shot is the whole walk over and her reaction to her saying sit.
Tell me if this is bad pop psychology but is there an element of what you're doing
that is chasing that or replicating that one a bigger and bigger scale?
Yes, that moment was a release of all my fears.
I realised the only way to battle the unpleasantness of my own nightmares was to become one of the monsters
Right, I mean, the ability to wield fear gives me an amazing strength.
I've heard you use the description that horror is the ultimate outsiders genre.
I'm wondering if you could explain what that means to you?
- I don't know exactly what it means to me but I will try. - Sure!
-As I have know to bulls**it my way through life. - Me too, it's television, it's what we do [laughs]
You know, when we talk about monsters and monster movies
there is a fascination with characters that are outcasts.
But also the fact that they're an outcast is connected to their power.
We, as human beings, are in a period of immense fear of the outsider, fear of the other.
This movie poses the notion that what if the invading force that we are so afraid of has our face?
I feel like it means she's getting closer.
Who?
Was there a moment when the idea of being an other became real to you?
When the concept wasn't just an abstract concept, you were like "I identify with that"?
When I was six-years-old, they give you a standardised test.
One of the first things they ask a six year old is "What race are you?"
Caucasian, African American, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Hispanic or Other.
I have a white mum and a black dad so I would put other.
I think that was the beginning of it on a cultural, racial level.
It was this idea of "Wow, I don't fit into any of the boxes that have names."
I didn't fit into the boxes that the world was telling me to fit in.
I'm half Indian, half Irish and I've been ticking 'Other' boxes for 33 years. I feel that completely.
- We found each other. - We did! All of us, in a room at this exact moment.
You know, when we're a teenager and all that, it's when we're the most isolated.
I did, you know, I had friends but I still felt like an alien or someone that was misunderstood.
More and more I was drawn to the stories that explore the power of the other side, the dark side.
When I started writing 'Get Out' I was in a state of great fear.
Low in my life and these projects have dug me out of that darkness.
So when you're standing up the back of a cinema watching an audience watch 'Get Out' or 'Us'
and you see them leap with fear, is that a little moment where you feel like God? For that one brief second?
I can tell you, I've done comedy for over 15 years and gotten some great laughs.
Nothing really compares to the feeling of getting an audience to shudder.
There's a mischievous pleasure, you will see me in the cinema laugh if I get the audience on the level.
There's a lot of therapy that goes into this moment.
Yeah [laughs] something about it is that I have less of an exact science for wielding fear as I call it.
It's more of an alchemy than comedy which became almost mathematic at a certain point.
Nothing beats hearing the audience be afraid and then giggle afterwards.
- Jordan Peele, that was really lovely to talk to you. - You too, brother.