Left out of Get Out! Daniel Kaluuya, who portrayed main star Chris Washington in the 2017 film, never received an invite to the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, he revealed during a recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show.
“[During] the Sundance world premiere, I was in Atlanta because I was shooting [Black] Panther,” the England native, 31, recalled. “I was chilling, I cleared my schedule. I was like, ‘I really wanna do it.’ And then just didn’t get an invite. I wasn’t invited, so I was just in my bed. Someone texted me, ‘It’s done really well.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s cool!'”
When the host, 57, and his other guests started asking whether he ever brought this up to his costars or the film’s writer and director, Jordan Peele, he said no.
“I don’t ask questions,” Kaluuya noted. “You don’t really want to be in a place where you don’t feel wanted.”
Get Out premiered at Sundance in January 2017 before hitting theaters the following month and becoming a huge hit. The movie was nominated for five Critics’ Choice Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and two British Academy Film Awards. It also landed four Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture. Peele, 42, took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
The horror-comedy follows Kaluuya’s Chris, a Black man who is meeting his white girlfriend’s (Allison Williams) family for the first time in the suburbs. Upon arriving, he uncovers that the family isn’t only racist but are targeting Black men. Kaluuya was immediately drawn to the script.
“It was saying stuff that you shouldn’t say, but every Black person says in private. I like doing stuff that you know will piss people off,” the Judas and the Black Messiah star told W magazine in 2017. “I find it hilarious in interviews when people are like, ‘It’s really timely for racism!’ And I’m like, ‘Timely now? Are you alive? Have you been alive?’”
The movie also had a bit of comedy mixed in, something Kaluuya said only Peele could create.
“If the writing is funny, if it’s a funny situation, I shouldn’t have to amp up the funny, I should just be real,” the Black Mirror alum said. “Because real s–t is funny, daily. And real s–t is horrifying, daily. And racism is horrifying, daily. How Black people handle racism is kind of sometimes really f–king funny.”
