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Jordan Peele just hit a three-peat with Nope.
Peele’s third feature film follows his 2017 directorial debut Get Out and his 2019 sophomore release Us, which have both cemented him among the greats in the horror film genre—a claim he doesn’t yet agree with. It might be too soon to say but Nope, which hits theaters on Friday (July 22), is yet another indicator that he is well on his way to being one of the most innovative directors Hollywood has ever seen.
Get Out changed the game in a lot of ways. It carved a path for more Black horror films, introduced Daniel Kaluuya (who got his first Oscar nomination for the role) into the movie world, and showed that Peele had a promising future in filmmaking. Peele also wrote, directed, and co-produced Nope under his Monkeypaw Productions company so the film is 100 percent his brainchild. And after attending two separate screenings for the most anticipated film of the summer, the only question I was left with is, “What the hell is going on inside Peele’s mind?”
Image via Universal Pictures
Nope is an original story about UFOs, a tale as old as time, but it has never been done quite in this way before. The film follows two siblings, OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer), who are left in charge of their father’s ranch after his mysterious passing. They soon realize that their father’s death was caused by random items falling from the sky that dropped down from an unidentified flying object.
Down on their luck and struggling to keep the ranch afloat, the brother and sister aim to go viral by capturing the phenomenon on video with the help of a tech salesman named Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) and filmmaker Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott).
Complex caught up with the director ahead of the movie’s release for a chat about Nope, casting Keke Palmer, why he thinks people love his movies, and what his thoughts are on being called one of the greatest directors of all time.
I have already been asked if Nope is better than Get Out so I’m sure you’re already getting that question. As a director, do you feel pressure to top your previous work or do you treat them all as separate entities?
You know, I think you have to treat them as separate entities. Because I think even if people think they want you to do something similar, they really want you to break out of that mold and so that’s always the challenge I put on myself. How do I keep some essence of what people like about my work but give him something completely different and that’s how we got Nope.
I know casting Daniel felt like an easy choice here, he’s great as OJ, but I think the star of the movie is really Keke. She brought so much humor and joy to this otherwise really scary movie. Did you know right off the bat that she was going to be Emerald?
Yes, I did know off the bat that she was going to be Emerald. In fact, as soon as the character came to me it was Keke. We met early on and I just got a sense of her and got a sense of what she could bring to the role and I basically wrote it for her. I wrote it for her and Daniel and she is just everything you want her to be. She really is that wonderful and that talented.
People are already talking about needing to see this movie once or twice in theaters. What do you think it is about your movies that drives people to the theaters, even though it’s an original and it’s not a reboot or something that people already know?
I think people like to watch people watch my movies. So I think after they have seen it, you like to go and feel that feeling of the audience’s reactions again and there’s also layers baked into it and people can feel that. I think sometimes people like to watch the movie intently and really try to treasure hunt and figure everything out. Sometimes you don’t want to think too hard, you want to walk into a movie, you want to be taken care of, you want to be taken to a different place, you want to be put back in your car, and I think Nope can do either one of those for you.
There’s a lot of commentary about Hollywood within the movie, about animals in film, child stars, and the mention of the Purple People Eater. How much of your love for pop culture and film goes into the films that you create?
I basically try to take absurd premise, scary, comedic, however you view it, I’m trying to make it feel real, I’m trying to ground it because that is how you can help someone relate to it, right? Feel the fear or feel and understand the humor. So I have been putting more and more sort of things from my reference base that just kind of ground me in the world and make it feel real. And there’s a lot of that. For instance, the movie Kid Sheriff from the ’90s I reference in the film, which is one of my favorites.
You’re already in the conversation as being one of the greatest actors—I mean, directors— of all time, not just horror directors, but of all time. How does that feel for you? Do you feel pressure or were you prepared to become that?
You almost said I was one of the greatest actors of all time. And then you stopped yourself, appropriately, you backed it up and said, “Beep, beep, beep!” [Laughs.] We can’t let that sentence be out there, that Jordan Peele is one of the greatest actors!
You can be both!
No, not anymore, I can’t. I’m joking. [Laughs.] What a great, amazing compliment. I’m such a fan of film that I don’t know if I’ll ever take that compliment completely seriously but thank you.
Nope hits theaters July 22.