JULY 14, 2022
When the pandemic sent us into lockdown, Daniel Kaluuya watched a film a day. He opens the Notes app on his phone to show me the film diary he created. There are dozens of titles logged, along with notes. Juice. The Game. Interstellar. He tells me about falling back in love with The Prestige and watching every film Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records produced, including Paid in Full and Paper Soldiers, in order of release. It was the first time he’d really slowed down, and a much-needed reset after the intensity of spending the past five years on film sets.
It’s a sweltering June afternoon and we are at Cara, a posh boutique hotel hidden in a congested pocket of Los Feliz. We’re seated in an airy courtyard adorned with olive trees, warm minimalist furniture and a serene reflecting pool. The vibe is low-key, and the hotel is within walking distance from his crash pad. For years Kaluuya has split his time between Los Angeles and his native London at varying lengths, depending on mood and his work schedule.
“I got some dough, I don’t got kids. I can go back and forth,” he says. “People make big moves out here. That’s really inspiring to me
Dressed in black jeans and a loose black T-shirt adorned with an image of legendary soul singer Al Green, Kaluuya is affable and charming. At 33, he’s built a career that could very well set him up to be the perennial leading man of his generation if that’s what he wants. Get Out. Black Panther. Widows. Queen & Slim. Judas and the Black Messiah. And those are just a few years’ worth of big-screen highlights for an actor who has moved across theater, television and film since he was a teenager growing up in northwest London.
“Even though Daniel’s a friend — he’s like a brother at this point — I still think of him as an artist that I admire,” says Lena Waithe, the writer of 2019’s Queen & Slim. “He’s very confident. He’s very clear. He’s got this sort of steel thing. He’s cool. He’s not easily rattled. Sometimes you can see a worry in his eyes, or a concern. But he’s always standing on his feet. He’s always ready to take on whatever that’s coming his way, and I think that’s what makes him such a leading man.”
Kaluuya’s barn burner of a performance as Fred Hampton in Judas earned him a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, a SAG Award and an Oscar in 2021. It’s the sort of victory lap that thrusts an actor into a new terrain of fame. More attention. More opportunities. More power. “It just blows the doors open … that sort of recognition,” he tells me.
“But my trajectory wasn’t really linked to accolades. The way I’ve designed it, I didn’t expect an Oscar to come around. I had this term ‘accessible excellence,’ because I thought a lot of excellence is inaccessible,” Kaluuya explains. “Whether I’m in nearly every shot, like Get Out, or if I’m [only shooting] for 11 days, like Widows, I cared about the quality of the film first. What did it want to say? What does the director want to say? Did they have a soul to it? Was it accessible? Was it excellent? I think you can have both. You can reach an audience and have the high level of craft. Either-or didn’t satisfy me.”
It wasn’t necessary to ask Kaluuya for an example of this accessible excellence he speaks of, given the number of billboards and displays for Nope I passed on the crosstown drive to meet him. The anticipation for Kaluuya’s reunion with Get Out director-writer Jordan Peele can’t be overstated. As with all of Peele’s work, the theories are aplenty online. Maybe the film is about aliens. Maybe it’s an allegory on the treatment of immigrants and refugees. Maybe it’s about surveillance. Or horses. Or parallel universes. Maybe it’s all those things. Maybe it’s none of those things. Part of the fun of Peele’s work is guessing, and then watching it repeatedly and interrogating what we think he’s saying — about us, about the world — through that work. “It’s about the spectacle and how alluring that is, even if it’s not reality,” Kaluuya says with a coy smile.
In the film, Kaluuya plays OJ Haywood, a Hollywood horse trainer whose father passes away under a mysterious circumstance. “His life is different, and he’s now living alone on his ranch, except he has a sister who also comes in and joins him. Together, they realize that there’s something in the area that is not leaving,” Peele tells me over email of the role he wrote specifically for Kaluuya.
“Daniel is my all-time favorite actor, and having worked on a couple of things apart and then coming back together, it just was a reminder of this special working bond that we have together,” Peele says. “He’s somebody who has an innate sense of his character — always asking the right questions to unlock things further. I utilized the fact that Daniel is just so immensely watchable, and he has this powerful stillness to him. Daniel’s the type of performer that doesn’t need words to communicate. He’s somebody that in these quiet moments brings the audience in more
Nope filmed in a gulch outside Santa Clarita last summer as we were all trying, and failing, to rebound amid the pandemic. Shooting a thrilling sci-fi horror blockbuster was a welcome distraction from the heaviness still enveloping the world. “I think we were both super grateful to be working and also into the film we were doing,” says Keke Palmer, who plays Kaluuya’s sister, Emerald — making Nope the rare summer blockbuster centered on Black siblings. “Daniel and I actually hung out often while filming, having barbecues at his house [in L.A.]. Our dynamic is like brother and sister. I have a true admiration for him that comes off as teasing most times. He’s very gracious as an actor. He truly has incredible instincts and trusts them.”
Though Kaluuya can’t say much about Nope, I ask if he’s feeling any of the pressure that comes with reuniting with the director responsible for launching him to a global audience. Get Out was a groundbreaking comedy-horror satire that had so much to say about race in contemporary America, and Kaluuya’s portrayal of a young Black photographer visiting his white girlfriend’s liberal parents for the first time is etched in our collective consciousness. The film has lived on through memes, continuous homages and critical discourse. Kaluuya and Peele are fully aware that we are already putting a lot on their reunion and will be searching every frame of the film for some meaning or social critique.
“I don’t take the pressure. I like accomplishing the goals that we’ve set,” he says as we snack on charred shishyto peppers. “It was more [about] working with Jordan. Coming back and doing this with him. We had a lot of conversations building up to the shoot, and when I got to the set, I was like, ‘Oh shyt, this is a fukking action film. Holy shyt.’ The most daring thing to do is go for it, [so] let’s do Bruce Willis then. Let’s go for this shyt. I really care about original films and original content, and to even be making a film like this with Keke Palmer as a lead, me as a lead, Jordan as a director on this level of budget and it be original — it’s so important that this film connects
When the pandemic sent us into lockdown, Daniel Kaluuya watched a film a day. He opens the Notes app on his phone to show me the film diary he created. There are dozens of titles logged, along with notes. Juice. The Game. Interstellar. He tells me about falling back in love with The Prestige and watching every film Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records produced, including Paid in Full and Paper Soldiers, in order of release. It was the first time he’d really slowed down, and a much-needed reset after the intensity of spending the past five years on film sets.
It’s a sweltering June afternoon and we are at Cara, a posh boutique hotel hidden in a congested pocket of Los Feliz. We’re seated in an airy courtyard adorned with olive trees, warm minimalist furniture and a serene reflecting pool. The vibe is low-key, and the hotel is within walking distance from his crash pad. For years Kaluuya has split his time between Los Angeles and his native London at varying lengths, depending on mood and his work schedule.
“I got some dough, I don’t got kids. I can go back and forth,” he says. “People make big moves out here. That’s really inspiring to me
Dressed in black jeans and a loose black T-shirt adorned with an image of legendary soul singer Al Green, Kaluuya is affable and charming. At 33, he’s built a career that could very well set him up to be the perennial leading man of his generation if that’s what he wants. Get Out. Black Panther. Widows. Queen & Slim. Judas and the Black Messiah. And those are just a few years’ worth of big-screen highlights for an actor who has moved across theater, television and film since he was a teenager growing up in northwest London.
“Even though Daniel’s a friend — he’s like a brother at this point — I still think of him as an artist that I admire,” says Lena Waithe, the writer of 2019’s Queen & Slim. “He’s very confident. He’s very clear. He’s got this sort of steel thing. He’s cool. He’s not easily rattled. Sometimes you can see a worry in his eyes, or a concern. But he’s always standing on his feet. He’s always ready to take on whatever that’s coming his way, and I think that’s what makes him such a leading man.”
Kaluuya’s barn burner of a performance as Fred Hampton in Judas earned him a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, a SAG Award and an Oscar in 2021. It’s the sort of victory lap that thrusts an actor into a new terrain of fame. More attention. More opportunities. More power. “It just blows the doors open … that sort of recognition,” he tells me.
“But my trajectory wasn’t really linked to accolades. The way I’ve designed it, I didn’t expect an Oscar to come around. I had this term ‘accessible excellence,’ because I thought a lot of excellence is inaccessible,” Kaluuya explains. “Whether I’m in nearly every shot, like Get Out, or if I’m [only shooting] for 11 days, like Widows, I cared about the quality of the film first. What did it want to say? What does the director want to say? Did they have a soul to it? Was it accessible? Was it excellent? I think you can have both. You can reach an audience and have the high level of craft. Either-or didn’t satisfy me.”
It wasn’t necessary to ask Kaluuya for an example of this accessible excellence he speaks of, given the number of billboards and displays for Nope I passed on the crosstown drive to meet him. The anticipation for Kaluuya’s reunion with Get Out director-writer Jordan Peele can’t be overstated. As with all of Peele’s work, the theories are aplenty online. Maybe the film is about aliens. Maybe it’s an allegory on the treatment of immigrants and refugees. Maybe it’s about surveillance. Or horses. Or parallel universes. Maybe it’s all those things. Maybe it’s none of those things. Part of the fun of Peele’s work is guessing, and then watching it repeatedly and interrogating what we think he’s saying — about us, about the world — through that work. “It’s about the spectacle and how alluring that is, even if it’s not reality,” Kaluuya says with a coy smile.
In the film, Kaluuya plays OJ Haywood, a Hollywood horse trainer whose father passes away under a mysterious circumstance. “His life is different, and he’s now living alone on his ranch, except he has a sister who also comes in and joins him. Together, they realize that there’s something in the area that is not leaving,” Peele tells me over email of the role he wrote specifically for Kaluuya.
“Daniel is my all-time favorite actor, and having worked on a couple of things apart and then coming back together, it just was a reminder of this special working bond that we have together,” Peele says. “He’s somebody who has an innate sense of his character — always asking the right questions to unlock things further. I utilized the fact that Daniel is just so immensely watchable, and he has this powerful stillness to him. Daniel’s the type of performer that doesn’t need words to communicate. He’s somebody that in these quiet moments brings the audience in more
Nope filmed in a gulch outside Santa Clarita last summer as we were all trying, and failing, to rebound amid the pandemic. Shooting a thrilling sci-fi horror blockbuster was a welcome distraction from the heaviness still enveloping the world. “I think we were both super grateful to be working and also into the film we were doing,” says Keke Palmer, who plays Kaluuya’s sister, Emerald — making Nope the rare summer blockbuster centered on Black siblings. “Daniel and I actually hung out often while filming, having barbecues at his house [in L.A.]. Our dynamic is like brother and sister. I have a true admiration for him that comes off as teasing most times. He’s very gracious as an actor. He truly has incredible instincts and trusts them.”
Though Kaluuya can’t say much about Nope, I ask if he’s feeling any of the pressure that comes with reuniting with the director responsible for launching him to a global audience. Get Out was a groundbreaking comedy-horror satire that had so much to say about race in contemporary America, and Kaluuya’s portrayal of a young Black photographer visiting his white girlfriend’s liberal parents for the first time is etched in our collective consciousness. The film has lived on through memes, continuous homages and critical discourse. Kaluuya and Peele are fully aware that we are already putting a lot on their reunion and will be searching every frame of the film for some meaning or social critique.
“I don’t take the pressure. I like accomplishing the goals that we’ve set,” he says as we snack on charred shishyto peppers. “It was more [about] working with Jordan. Coming back and doing this with him. We had a lot of conversations building up to the shoot, and when I got to the set, I was like, ‘Oh shyt, this is a fukking action film. Holy shyt.’ The most daring thing to do is go for it, [so] let’s do Bruce Willis then. Let’s go for this shyt. I really care about original films and original content, and to even be making a film like this with Keke Palmer as a lead, me as a lead, Jordan as a director on this level of budget and it be original — it’s so important that this film connects