The Big Picture - Jordan Peele on ‘Us’ | Interview

Episode Date: March 19, 2019

Oscar-winning director and writer Jordan Peele joins the show—the day after the premiere of his new film ‘Us’ at SXSW—to discuss following up ‘Get Out,’ working with stars like Lupita Nyong’o, Elisabeth Moss, and Winston Duke, and tackling complex themes within the horror genre. Hosts: Sean Fennessey Guest: Jordan Peele Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Liz Kelley and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. March Madness tips off on Thursday and to get your brackets set, make sure you listen and subscribe to our college basketball experts on One Shining Podcast with Mark Titus and Tate Frazier. Also on Monday, be sure to watch the guys on their live selection show, recapping the seedings from Selection Sunday and previewing the top matchups to look forward to. You can check out the show on YouTube and listen to One Shining Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

My films are always going to feel like a risk and always going to feel like I'm sort of, you know, jumping off a cliff in some point. But, you know, with as many, as many, in as many ways as possible, you try to make sure you're not, um, you know, being pretentious. I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the most fascinating filmmakers in the world. Today, we have a returning guest, or maybe I should say a returning champion.

Last time I spoke to Jordan Peele, his directorial debut, Get Out, was just becoming a cultural phenomenon. And Peele had suddenly emerged as one of the most exciting new filmmakers in the country. Get Out went on to earn $255 million on a $5 million budget. And one year after its release, Peele won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Now the stakes are higher. Bigger budgets, bigger stars, and bigger expectations. His new movie, Us, debuted to a thunderous crowd at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

But it isn't quite the same sort of social thriller as his debut. Us is a complex movie about big themes, doubling, identity, family, and why things in life are not always the way they seem. We're not going to spoil it here today, but I did speak with Jordan the morning after the premiere about the anxiety of following up Get Out, finding the best way to tell stories with horror, and how he's improved as a filmmaker. Without further ado, here's Jordan Peele. really delighted to be joined by jordan peel jordan thank you for coming in thank you thank

you for having me i actually came to you we're here in austin at south by southwest rapturous applause for us last night how'd you feel that felt good yeah man that Man, nothing is better than the feeling of having a crowd that not only enjoys it, but wants to enjoy it. And it's just such a wonderful feeling seeing all of the work we did kind of amount to that night. Were you nervous were you feeling of the burden of following up the titanic emotion and success of get out you know maybe in i mean the the whole process that that's kind of in the back of your mind but you have to keep reminding yourself look you the way you got that first film to, you know,

be what it was, but it was by saying, what's my favorite movie I've never seen. And so you sort of returned to that idea. And, and because of that, you know, I think I succeeded at that.

And so when you're delivering your film finally and saying goodbye, like that's it, there is a sense of, know what cool i'm cool like people people like you know are will bring their opinion to it and you know my opinion of it is it's cool there was so much analysis of of get out there was a desire to understand every last bit of it did you feel like you needed to make something that was similarly packed with meaning and visual cues and was that was that a was that a goal of yours going into us yes i i i feel like that has emerged as as part of my my style part of what I think people look for in my work. And it's the most fun way to create, is to sort of pack as many layers as possible.

Easter eggs, references, and really these ideas I call these thematic connections that work either on this conscious or subconscious level. You want to make a movie that people want to see again and that they get something more out of it when they see it again and then again and again and again. And yeah, that's the most fun way for me to tell a story. There's like an artistic and commercial upside to that. And I feel like just if you have to go see it three or five times, that's, that's helpful in both ways.

Right. Yeah. Well, you know, I think it's, it's, it's this tricky balance because I think that generally, you know,

films with layers are, are off often relegated to a, you know, a, a smaller, you know, theatrical commitment. It's a difficult thing to make that work. So I don't know that the depth is always connected to success,

which is why I think my films are always going to feel like a risk and always going to feel like I'm sort of, you know, jumping off a cliff in some point. But, you know, with as many ways as possible, you try to make sure you're not, you know, being pretentious. Us, was that in your mind before Get Out was out in the world or is it something that you worked on after the release of the movie there pieces of it have um have been there so the fear of the doppelganger has been there since i was young i always start a horror movie with what is the visceral um idea image that if i met if i go there it will always scare me so so i know i have a sort of

engine um for the horror and the idea of seeing myself across the subway platform um as a kid just always did something very primal um so that has been there. But after Get Out, I said, look, there's something about that that feels untapped enough. Although, ironically, it's a very tapped subgenre, the doppelganger genre, in the years since I started making it. But the greater story I started developing this past year. What's your writing process like with something like this? Is it you have an idea and you sit down and you just write through the night or is it like you have to germinate on it and walk around?

How do you end up ultimately putting a script like this together? It's more the latter. Say there's a six-month process and in in a script um pretty close to how it was for this one about four of those months i'm trying to figure out the i the idea and trying to uh figure out those connections put the sort of the the framework for the the themes to work in and connect it to images only in the last couple of months i'm actually okay let's write this script let's turn this idea into an actual screenplay did it change a lot over time from when you were germinating on it or did it land really where you thought it was going to go? No, you know, as happens with a lot of story, you know, I think I started with an idea that was pretty, fairly close to where it is. came back from that to sort of the beginning,

armed with ideas, images, connections. But in that walk, it changed a great deal. There's so many great visual cues in the movie and sequences and sort of recurring motifs over and over again that you see. Is that all in the script or are those things that you're like well don't i'm not going to explain this to you on the page i'll just i'll make it happen when we're shooting or do you have to lay all of that out for the crew and for the for the cast it's all pretty laid out yeah i you know i i'll i'll find i think about 10 of the the imagery um comes together in in toward the end when we sort of see our location and

realize oh you look at you know look at this shape here look at this um we can do another one of these shots um but yeah i mean i'm i'm i really plan as much, including my great storyboard artist, Eric Yamamoto. We sit and we sort of figure out the blueprint for the visual. And I had just an extraordinary DP in Mike Giolacchis who really got what I was doing and just took my vision to this crazy other level, as well as my production designer, Ruth DeJong. Are Lupita and Winston and folks like that saying, you know, a Frisbee lands on a circle. What does that mean?

Are you having like deep conversations about the intentionality of everything that you're writing with the cast too? Yes. But not, what are you going to do with me? Will you tell me what everything means? You know, we can see how far we get okay but you know honestly this part of you know the the treat for me is sitting back and

getting to watch the the pieces come out and and um uh i love people getting it and i think it's all there i think it's all there for people to to get but it's also a bit more of a Rorschach than my last picture. You know, I think it really is about looking within. I think there was a feeling of like what just happened at the end of this one, which I think is a little different from Get Out. Is that the feeling that you were hoping people would have this sort of like gobsmacked? What the hell?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I, I think my, um,

my creative drive, I, I think automatically goes toward, uh, you know, where I, where I think the audience expectations are. And when, when I can pinpoint that, you know, where I, where I think the audience expectations are. And when, when I can pinpoint that I can, you know, I can take them another way. I can use that momentum, um, against the

audience or, you know, what do you, so what do you mean by that? Like, what do you think it was an audience expecting one kind of story and then you'll just pull the rug you mean yeah i think i think you know after get out the audience is has very clear expectations i think um i i know a lot of people that were assume my next movie would be about race for example so you know that's exactly why i wanted to make a movie that um you know started Black Family but isn't about race because I think the moment an audience sort of realizes that, they realize that they have to kind of

submit. Yes. They have to kind of lay down on my hands and say, okay, well, I'm going to try and stop expecting things, which you'll never really be able to do, especially when I'm peppering you with, you know,

horror tropes that usually, you know, take you down certain paths and trying to kind of flip them on their heads. And yes, this movie, I wanted something of a, holy shit, he just did that you did it you accomplished that it's very fun to talk to you about the influences thing and the sort of the who was meaningful to you while you were writing and making

this you put things in the movie at the start of the movie we see Chud we see the man with two brains we see a couple of things that are clues I'm curious about kind of picking what is the thing I'm going to show you and then what is the thing that is behind there? So how do you decide to say, okay, we'll do the man with two brains because that's a very straightforward metaphor, but this is actually a Wes Craven cue or something like that. How do you decide to choose what to show and what not to show? In terms of which references sort of make the cut?

Yeah. You know, there's, well, first of all, you'll be surprised how much, how little you can give an audience, and especially the, you know, I think my audience, how little you can give them that they'll sort of take and go with and run with. Yeah. sort of take and go with and run with. So for me, it feels a little bit like a playground, like these sort of final decoration. Dude, completely mixed the metaphor. The final decorations on the cake are kind of... The sprinkles. These sprinkles, these little fun pieces of flavor, these things that bring you know with one

small you know in one moment or one piece of imagery bring a loaded connotation for uh the audience um you know and so you know movie references and homage do that whether it's consciously or subconsciously you'll um uh you know there's there's an emotion there's an entire story um so that's you know for me that that's really the most fun part is going oh when the people who get this reference get it they will feel heard they will feel spoken to what is your dream double feature with us if you could choose any other movie to watch alongside of it. Any other movie to watch alongside it? Well, it's tough because this is a really bold and ambitious,

I'm not trying to make a comparison to maybe the best horror movie of all time Alien. Alien to me is a film that is probably the greatest offering in horror design and storytelling simple storytelling that just has a design element to it that is unreal. And with Get Out, I'm so used to talking about Get Out. With Us, I really wanted to create a visual universe that I hadn't seen before in a movie.

Why is the concept of we may not be what we seem so resonant for you? Well, you know, because it's true. And with Get Out, I think part of what helped the timing with that film and helped that movie land what seemed at the perfect time was because when I was writing it, I was focusing on something that I felt like we all, that was a truth and undeniable truth that we, as a culture, we were collectively suppressing.

And that was that racial conversation, um, with us, you know, I, it wasn't until I realized I could make a movie about that there was another sort of suppressed piece of conversation that I could acknowledge ability to our inability to point our finger inward and at at us at our faction be it our family our country um or even us as as individuals are part in it we're we're so trained to point the finger outward did you have like a soul searching

moment where that it was a realization for yourself absolutely yeah absolutely i realized you know and that was that was the first thing i had to do when i when i embarked on a them them them um mentality um the same way the people that i i think are wrong and whether i'm right or wrong doesn't matter we all have to sort of soul search and figure out what our part in, in, in evil is. So, so yeah, I mean, I think I, I start, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm always, you know, I'm, I'm no, I'm certainly no saint. It's, I think something that I have to continuously push myself to do and, and, and that we do, but, you know, really, you know, more than trying to, even more than trying to say something that, you know, will affect change. You know, I think I'm really trying to take advantage of the fact that when we, when we don't talk about something, when we suppress something and a valve is created to discuss it there is a burst of energy and that and so i think

i i think you know when you see the response to the the trailer and you know a good response to this this this movie last night is because something uh visceral is happening on the subconscious level that is kind of cathartic. It's clicking, yeah. It's clicking, yeah. By the same token, though, there's a lot of ideas in the movie. I thought it was also very funny.

I thought it was even funnier than Get Out. And a lot of that is Winston. I thought Winston Duke was phenomenal. I'm so interested in how someone like you balances tone, because everybody's always like, what genre is your movie? And you're often saying it doesn't really matter. It's every genre but specifically trying to fit a horror set piece next to a great laugh line seems like one of the hardest things to do you know how is it difficult to write that sort of thing to put to do it on set how do you do that you know that

uh to me the the the link between horror and comedy the in my brand, the way I like to do it, is that they're both about taking an absurdity and grounding it as much as possible. So I think both genres only work if the line feels real. So if you're talking about a line that gets a laugh, you can't go for a joke. You have to go for an accurate character. When you nail a character and when an actor nails a character and they're reacting realistically, and Winston is fantastic as Gabe in this and in some ways serves a similar role to Rod in that he is an immediately relatable, yeah, that's probably how I would act sort of guy or that's how my husband would act sort of guy. It just clicks. And I felt it last night. He's not doing jokes. No, night. He's not doing jokes.

No, no. He's authentically responding, but it's really funny. Yeah. He's a dude we know. So he crushed it. Let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Bud Light. Did you know not all alcohol products are required to list their ingredients? That was news to me. But Bud Light is changing the game. They believe that we deserve to know our beer's ingredients, so they put an ingredients label right there on the packaging. Bud Light, brewed with hops, barley, water, and rice. No corn syrup, no preservatives, and no artificial flavors.

Find out what ingredients are in your beer. Bud Light. Enjoy responsibly. AB Bud Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. I feel like you're going to have 400,000 questions about Lupita in the next few months, but it's a pretty, it's an amazing performance. And I wanted to know what you guys discussed before you started the part, because I imagine that there's kind of an insane level of preparation to do these two parts and to balance them and manage them so what were those conversations like and how did she just get involved in the movie you know I she she was she's a singular performer and and I I wanted somebody who would fit into this in an iconic in an iconic way um I I couldn't believe she's never been a lead in a movie as one of the, you know, um, probably, you know, most popular and, and talented, um, and magnetic actors that we have.

Do you know, was she not ever asked to do something this big or is it just, she had been choosy? Like how, why is that the case? I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I, it's hard for me to imagine she wasn't asked but it's also not hard you know we have a a a system that's catching up to this idea that oh yeah you know black people can open movies um so anyway but i don't know i don't know yeah for all i know she's just been turning them down left and right that's a compliment compliment to you then, I guess, that she was like, okay, I'll do this guy's movie.

Well, I was, yeah, extremely complimented. I mean, when I first met her, she was like, I saw Get Out five times in the theater. And I was like, okay, so you're going to do it. We, you know, it's very out there, esoteric premise. And, you know, our job when looking at the characters was just to, once again, to kind of ground the characters in real emotion. And to explore the link between them and explore the differences between them. And she is just so thorough with how she prepares for a character. So, you know,

she was, she took the, you know, ballet lessons and, um, just, you know, physically felt both roles and the,

and, and emotionally really shouldered the burden, um, burdens of these characters as well. Um, so she gave, I mean, she, she,

she talked the talk and then she came and walked the walk and, and committed 110%. I feel like you can tell me if you disagree, but the, the framing and the choreography and the cinematography of the movie felt like a leveling up in a lot of ways. I thought it was very balladic, very beautiful. Did you feel yourself sort of improving as a filmmaker on this movie from your last movie? Yeah, I felt, you know, yeah.

I felt more confidence with what I was doing. I was able to sort of locate the visual motifs and techniques that are my favorite from Get Out and kind of use myself as one of my influences in a way. Also, you know, and, and I, you know,

both, both films I've, I've worked with just unbelievable talent in front of and behind the camera. Mike Geolakis is, is, you know, helping put in my favorite living cinematographer. He did, its and Split and Glass. And he's just a super talent and such an amazing collaborator.

And so, you know, having that tool in your arsenal is a really, really big deal how much did fatherhood influence this movie if at all um um a lot but you know i don't know that i'm in entirely in touch with how um except to say Look, when you go from being not a father to a father, there is a soul searching that comes with that. Whether you're ready for it or not, you're reintroducing yourself to yourself. Hi, this is Jordan Peele, the dad. What is the, the light and dark of that, you know? And then, you know, also obviously this, this being able to speak to the, the love and the fears of having a family and, and asking myself what that means on the, the horror level is a heightened stake stakes,

a higher, a higher stakes. So yeah, yeah, it did. It did. Okay. Fair enough.

You, you made a joke last night about working and not working with children and some of the, the sort of the old saws about that in Hollywood, the two kids in the film are incredible. They're also very, very charming last night. Um,

how'd you find them? How do you write Joseph and Evan? Alex, um, found them through auditions and, um, uh, you know,

we have, I've got a great, you know, uh, uh, casting, um, person and Terry Taylor.

Um, and she's really remarkable finding young actors. So yeah, I watched their tape. I found, you know, obviously I had Winston and Lupita already. So not only did I need actors that looked like Winston and Lupita, they could be their kids, but they had to be incredible and be able to keep up with their charisma. And so Shahadi Wright-Joseph is a musical theater actor. She's in The Lion King on Broadway, and she plays young Nala in The Lion King. Oh, wow. Big year for her.

She's a big year for her. And one of those things where when you have somebody from musical theater, you have somebody who can hit their mark and be focused when they need to focus. There is a discipline there that is remarkable. And then her talent, as you saw, is just so, you know, she just takes it, you know? Yeah, they have real parts, both of them. You know, they're not just like, oh, and the kid's in the backseat. Like, they really, there are emotional stakes to their situation in a real way.

And for Evan Alex, you know, working with him and seeing how he you know sort of he he it was fascinating watching a kid almost you know he's almost naturally method you know he's first of all super funny but he's very funny last night, super funny guy, super smart guy, but was also able to sort of channel this and possesses this innocence that is pure and yet also specific you know he he really he found Jason and and molded him out of who he was which is something that you know it usually takes a much more seasoned actor to be able to do do you feel any anxiety about matching the success of Get Out the actual you know cultural phenomenon aspect of it? Yes, some. And I've thought about it a great deal, but not as much as you would think.

Like I said, I love this movie. I'm very, in putting it out there, you face three possibilities, right? It could not do as well. It could do just as well, or it could do better. And ultimately, if it doesn't do well, I'm going to get to make another movie. And that's my pot of gold at the end of the day. You know what I mean? I think just based off the fact that people,

it's continuing to create conversation. I'm much more interested in conversation happening than everyone. It's everyone's favorite movie. If no one was engaged engaged but everyone loved it i don't i don't think it would be the same feeling for me jordan we end every episode by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen so obviously you just saw us but what's the last great thing that you've seen that isn't us um you know last week i saw eighth grade oh yeah what did you like about it um you know that uh it that what that's that story it was very simple and it's in the story it was telling and just real very emotionally connected i mean frame one you are your heart is linked to this this really pretty fantastically uh conceived

character um so i i loved it i was in the plane like crying every scene but also laughing i thought that's a great one jordan thanks for doing this thank you Thanks again to this week's guest, Jordan Peele. Check out us later this week. Maybe we'll be talking about it more at TheRinger.com. And stay tuned to The Big Picture, where we'll have more great episodes coming soon.