Landing that role is a big deal for up-and-coming actors and can be the make or break for their acting careers. Understandably, a lack of it can be a cause for concern as was the case for Get Out star, Daniel Kaluuya. The British actor first gained notable recognition for portraying Bingham "Bing" Madsen in Season 1, Episode 2 of the anthology TV series, Black Mirror. However, after that role which came in 2015, new roles were not forthcoming leaving the actor feeling frustrated and "disillusioned with acting."
Kaluuya, who is now an Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe winner, contemplated throwing in the towel for good until a certain Jordan Peele jumped to his rescue. After being out of a job for almost two years, Kaluuya received what turned out to be a career-saving Skype call from Peele offering him the role of Chris Washington in the 2017 film, Get Out which was Peele's first movie in the horror genre. The British actor revealed this in a joint interview of himself and Peele with Essence Magazine where Peele was learning of Kaluuya's past career frustration for the first time. “I’ve never told you this, but when you reached out to me and we had that Skype, I was really disillusioned with acting,” Kaluuya said.
Kaluuya added that racism among other factors was the reason why he was unable to land any more acting gigs. He continued; “I had stopped acting for like a year and a half. I checked out, because I was just like, this isn’t working. I wasn’t getting roles, because racism and all this kind of stuff — so you reaching out was like, ‘Okay, I’m not crazy. It’s proper. It’s going to be all right.'” Fortunately, Kaluuya's stellar performance in the Black Mirror episode titled 'Fifteen Million Merits' was good enough to earn him the attention of Peele who knew right after watching the episode that he wanted Kaluuya on his team for his next project Get Out. Praising Kaluuya's performance Peele said;
“I knew that as a performer you embodied the spectrum of somebody who could play small and subtle. Someone we would root for, but who also had an explosive side and an ability to access certain deranged elements in your psychology. “I already knew I wanted you for the film — but you blew me away in the audition, and now here we are.”
In what seems to be a lesson in why we should always put our best foot forward in every task we take on, Kaluuya, who is now unarguably one of the biggest stars of his time, can look back with gratitude that he didn't give up on a career he began as a teenager in 2006. Kaluuya earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in Get Out while Peele became the third filmmaker ever to earn a Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscar nod for a directorial debut. Years later, both have maintained a working relationship and have wrapped up work on their next project, Nope a science-fiction horror with Kaluuya in the lead.
Daniel Kaluuya has evolved into a huge star and has recently dabbled in screenwriting. He is combining his creative juice with that of Joe Murtagh to provide the script for The Kitchen, an upcoming dystopian drama with Michael Fassbender serving as executive producer. The Kitchen is a Netflix project that will release on the streamer but is yet without a release date.
Nope which also stars Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun will hit theaters in a few days on July 22. Check out the trailer below: