(music)
- Thanks for stopping by.
- Always a pleasure.
(music)
- It was only a few short years ago
that you and Keegan were shooting water guns
into my crotch.
(Josh and Jordan laughing)
The transformation is complete, my friend.
Which is very apropos, given the duality
at the heart of this film.
- Yes, you don't know whether
or not I'm myself, or if my tethered dopplegänger
has come up and killed the real Jordan.
And now I've decided to make horror movies.
- I didn't even think of it that way.
But is it more satisfying in a way,
you've obviously achieved such success,
in the comedic space, as much acclaim
as you can get.
Is there something almost more satisfying
to get this kind of acclaim on 'Get Out' and 'Us?'
- Yes. I've been in comedy for, you know,
many years, I was in comedy, and I got
my fair share of laughs, and I failed
at getting my fair share of laughs.
And laughter is great.
It feels awesome, but, when you make an audience,
like, (shudders), when you get that shudder,
it is a different level of,
like power.
It's just so cool, and I think part
of it is because it's,
it's helping me conquer my own fears.
- Right.
- This whole thing.
- Well, it's funny, because I would imagine
one of the kind of stock questions people ask you,
for these last two films, these sort
of recurring nightmares. Right?
And, I'm guessing almost one
of the recurring nightmares, if I were you,
would be, how do I succeed 'Get Out?'
How do I not disappoint,
audiences, getting the Oscar,
becoming a pop culture phenomenon?
Were you racked with that kind of burden,
going into this one? Because it's a tough act to follow.
- Yes, I was very racked with that burden.
You know, last year at the Oscars,
I went to ... I'm gonna tell a cool story
about myself.
(Josh laughing)
If that's okay.
- They're only cool stories about you.
- I went to the Gold Party afterward,
which is Jay-Z's party.
So I met Jay-Z, and I'm like,
aaaaaah, and he's giving me,
"No, you. What you've done, like you
don't even understand."
And I was like, "Did you see it
more than once?"
He was like, "What!? What!?"
And so it was the coolest night,
and at some point is was like,
how do you follow this up?
It worked perfectly, I'm just afraid I'm
not gonna be able to replicate, or beat it.
And he goes, "It doesn't matter.
"You already did that."
And I was like, you know--
- It's all gravy now, it's all--
- When Jay-Z ... When Jay-Z tells you it
doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
You're good. I'm good. And I could
just return to this idea of,
make my favorite film that didn't exist.
- We've talked before about, we both grew up
here in New York City, yet these
first two, kind of, installments
in this new career, they're not
about urban environments.
Do you find suburban settings,
non-urban settings, more chilling,
more disturbing than horror set
in an urban environment?
- Horror movies that are ... take place
in dark, dusty, muddy houses or basements,
it's kind of like, meh. - What do you expect?
- But the horror movies that take place
in idyllic environments,
you know, 'The Stepford Wives,' the Jaws,
even 'The Shining,' the horror you can get
from daylight and places that are supposed
to be a vacation, I think that they're
eerier, scarier, you know, there's a
more satirical horror to them.
Also they kind of give the audience
their cake and they get to eat it, too.
- Right.
- They get to kind of go on an adventure,
or a vacation, as opposed to being claustrophobic,
and--
- Totally, totally.
- So that's my style.
- You've talked a little bit about how this film,
is dealing with this pervasive fear of the other,
that is in the zeitgeist right now,
in particular,
I'm curious, do think this film
would have emerged in your brain
had the election of 2016 not happened?
How much of it is born out of our lives
and times right now?
- You know, hard to say. The first I do,
when I'm trying to come up with a movie,
is, I listen to myself.
So listen to my emotion, what makes me scared,
you know, this idea of the dopplegänger came up
because I've been afraid of the idea
of seeing myself since I was younger,
- What do you mean by that, seeing yourself?
- Well, I would literally picture myself
across the subway platform,
as a kid growing up in New York City,
and it was a fun, sort of titillating fear,
but it was primal, and I didn't,
I hadn't intellectualized it
or hadn't really thought about it,
but it's always been present,
an idea of yourself giving you a knowing smile,
sort of indicating, I'm the version
that was ready for this.
There's something chilling about that.
So I wanted to make a dopplegänger story,
and the idea of a family of dopplegängers,
when I got that idea, when I got that spark,
I knew it would be a new direction
in dopplegänger lore. Right?
And then only in analyzing this
and why this was coming up,
do I get at this idea, because collectively we
have a dark side. Right?
To answer your question, I didn't set out
to make a movie about a post-Trump America,
but, it's not an accident that
these were my fears, were surrounding
this sense of us, as a collective.
Our demons.
Certainly I, at a certain point,
decided to use United States imagery,
from, whether it's the genocide
of the Native American people,
or our xenophobia,
and privilege.
But however you define us, in order
for you to have us, there's gotta be a them.
- Right.
- And I think that's, in its core,
what this movie is about, is we will value
our own, however we see it,
more than we'll value the other.
- How important is it for you,
that, at the center of this film,
is middle-class to upper-middle-class
African-American family, we talk a lot
about representation now. Growing up did you see
yourself depicted in horror movies generally?
And how important is it for you nowadays
to kind of change that?
- No, I didn't. The closest would've been
'The People Under the Stairs,'
which was actually pretty darn close.
A little black kid in a house
of, a house where there's a psychotic,
weird, kinky white family.
Great film. But otherwise, no.
There was no black families in the center
of a horror film.
There's elements of this film
that are following in the Amblin tradition,
of family working through their dynamic.
- Right, the 'Poltergeist' kind of a thing.
- The 'Poltergeist,' 'Jaws,' Close Encounters.
And when I realized, yeah, we haven't
gotten a black family in that scenario,
I realized that there was a whole,
different reason this movie was important,
even though the movie itself, plot-wise,
is not about race.
- Sure. I think this is Lupita's
first leading role?
- Yeah.
- In a film, which is just bananas
to even think about.
- Yeah. If not our most talented star
that we have, and I think, if the opportunities
have come by her, they probably
haven't been good enough.
- Right.
- It just highlights this idea,
that, we're still very much in ... living
with the systemic, sort of, failure
when it comes to representation,
and I was just so lucky to get her
and to be able help her show the world--
- A couple of new sides to her in this one.
- Yeah. And, why she's queen.
- Well, it's funny, I remember we had a chat once
where we talked about your horror influences
growing up, but also about sci-fi,
and you talked about your love of 'Aliens,'
growing up and how you were obsessed,
you had the face-hugger.
- Over my bed, I had the face-hugger,
just dangled over my bed.
- That's the first indication that things
are gonna go--
- Something's wrong.
- Gonna go weird as some point in your life.
- The call's coming from inside the house.
- Exactly. So, clearly, there's the shadow
of Ripley, I would think, a little bit here.
- Oh, hell yeah.
- That classic, iconic character.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Is that something you talked about with Lupita
a little bit?
- Yes. I've been telling her, look,
this is gonna be a thing,
you, going down to save your son,
with a, spoiler alert, on your journey
with your fire-poker weapon, it's like,
iconic, let's go, mom-power stuff.
That is so Ripley.
She hadn't seen it and I was on a plane
with her recently, where 'Alien' was an option,
the first one.
- Okay.
- And so we watched that, and she's
not the best equipped for horror movies,
but I think that's why she was--
- Perfect.
- Perfect. She's ready to ... the darkness
is like, suppressed, like it is with
most of us, so I think she got some kind of,
therapeutic--
- She got something out of it to ... yeah, okay.
- I think so. I think so.
- One curious thing. There's so much iconography
you're playing with throughout the film,
one is a prominent use of a 'Thriller' t-shirt,
Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.'
And, I'm just curious, if you were making
the film today, would you put that
front and center still? There's obviously,
the dial around Michael Jackson is changing,
it feels like week by week now,
and a lot of people are re-evaluating,
where he stands in the culture.
- If it was today, I probably would've
thrown a couple more Michael Jackson--
- Really?
- T-shirts in. I mean, he is a fascinating,
being, and he ... this moment,
when it starts in the '80s,
there is this examination of '80s duality,
whether it's Hands Across America,
or Michael Jackson, 'Thriller,'
actually, this is ... Hands Across America,
the thing that inspired me to bring
that in was, I believe, an MTV commercial.
- Really?
- For Hands Across America.
- For those that don't remember, was
- People tethering themselves together,
hand in hand, to cure hunger.
- Sure.
It's only natural.
- Yes, and it sort of connected to me,
in this Michael Jackson duality,
that, there's this great philanthropy
with this underbelly of darkness,
that is, kind of confusing,
in the type of nostalgia it gives me.
- Right.
Coming off of 'Get Out.' It's safe to say,
the opportunities that were at your feet were endless.
I think it's so cool that you went this way,
and if anything, this is more out there
than 'Get Out.'
I mean that as a compliment.
- Thank you, I like that.
- And I like that you, sort of,
that's how you tackled the expectations.
But I'm curious, was it tough
to say no to franchises?
I'm sure you've had ... if I were a betting man,
I would bet you a million dollars
that Marvel offered you several different films.
Would you take that bet with me?
- You know what? I did get a lot
of amazing opportunities.
And, they were, I think in retrospect
they sort of amounted to something I was
entertaining, because the dream, any one
of these things is a dream come true.
- Sure.
- But in the back of my head I knew
it wasn't meant to be.
There are a few of us out there, trying
it's scary work and it's bold work
to write original movies.
And, whenever one of these things came up,
or like rumors circulated, my fan base would
collectively tell me, “Noooo!”
So, I love that. I love that.
That to me, means, if I write something new,
and write it from the heart
and try and make my favorite movie
that doesn't exist yet, if it fails,
it fails. But I did what I'm here to do.
- You've been open before after 'Get Out' came out
that you toyed with ideas for a continuation
of that story. Is there a treatment?
Is there an actual document with ideas
for a 'Get Out' sequel?
- No. All of this stuff is in my head.
I build a little bit of a sandbox up there,
of images, and ideas, and sometimes they connect
and sometimes they don't.
80% of it will never see the light of day.
- Right.
- But, it's all a part of staying
as creative as possible. Following the fun
of what I would want to see.
- If there's a downside
to all the success, I would guess
that, is the final nail
in the coffin of your acting career,
thanks to your success as a filmmaker?
Like, are you entertaining ideas
to act again, or are you just so
down this path that it's not
even interesting to you?
- Getting to host 'The Twilight Zone' is,
will satisfy my on-camera desires,
which really aren't much.
The anxiety of being onscreen
is less fun than the anxiety
of creating from behind the camera.
- So more likely at this point
for you to cast yourself
or Keegan in one of your future films?
- More likely for me to cast Keegan,
by a longshot.
- Also, you're co-writing and producing
the 'Candyman' continuation, sequel, reboot?
Whatever we wanna call it, but what should we call it?
- We're calling it a spiritual sequel.
- Okay.
- Whatever that means, but--
- I don't know what that means.
- I don't either, but, it's ... yeah,
we sort of reserve the right to connect
to the mythology in our own specific way.
- Right. And as if the last couple of years
couldn't get great enough for you,
you also, are maybe most responsible
for getting Spike Lee his Oscar.
It wouldn't have happened without you.
That's gotta be a crazy source of pride to see,
someone you grew up with.
- I was very fortunate enough to be
in the right position where
QC Entertainment brought me this script,
and I was able to hop on board
and add some momentum to it
and get Spike on board.
And of course we deal with Focus
and Blumhouse.
It didn't hit me until Spike got his award,
his Oscar, how historic,
a thing this was to have been a part of.
And, when that happened,
I was just like, a faucet.
Just watching him deliver his speech,
and that was just like 30 years in the making.
Just so--
- It's amazing.
- Remarkable.
- It's been a good couple of years
for you, man. Congratulations on 'Us.'
Now, just for the record,
should the Star Wars and Marvel folks
not call you?
Like, are you totally cool on not hearing from them?
Or should they keep your number, just in case?
- You know what? I'm good.
- All right. I like that.
- Okay, cool.
- I've got a lot of stuff to do.
- [Josh] Okay, excellent.