Way back in January (which, honestly, seems like three years ago), the Sundance Film Festival held a secret midnight screening. Amidst the growing tensions of Trump’s inauguration, with white supremacists feeling emboldened enough to openly march in America’s streets, Jordan Peele’s Get Out premiered.
Ten months later, Get Out is now mentioned in every Oscar conversation. Get Out feels more like a movement than a movie – which surprises Peele, at least a little bit, as he thought it would take 20 years for people to finally “get it.” In 2037 people would look back and think, wow, how did we miss this? Instead, it hit immediately.
On Wednesday, Peele tweeted that Get Out is “a documentary,” after some controversy that Get Out was submitted by Universal for the comedy category at the upcoming Golden Globes. When I asked Peele about this Wednesday at a luncheon thrown near New York City’s Lincoln Center, as it turns out, he’s not really kidding. But first, Peele explains why a scene of Ben Carson in Stuck on You reminds him so much of Get Out.
I tweeted a picture of Ben Carson from Stuck on You, and you responded, “I’d recognize that distant smile anywhere,” with a picture of Lakeith Stanfield from Get Out.
It really is that perfect. That expression is exactly it, right?
I didn’t even think about that until you said it. Honestly, I didn’t even know he was in the movie. Did you?
No.
You’d think that would be “a thing,” that Ben Carson was in a major motion picture directed by the Farrelly brothers.
Yeah, I thought that was such a funny find. And also begs the question, why were you watching Stuck on You?
It was on cable and I was flipping through channels.
Right on.
And then all of a sudden I hear the voice. And I look up and Ben Carson is performing surgery to separate Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear.
Essentially playing himself. Essentially.
Well, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.
[Laughs.] Yeah, nice interview.
You tweeted you’re running Get Out as a documentary.
I mean, it is. I think the reason this movie worked was because people can smell the truth. And this was a truth that I had never seen in a film. It’s my truth, I think it’s the truth of a lot of black people: that navigating the world as a minority, as an other, is a terrifying notion. A terrifying existence.
From this movie premiering at Sundance, then smash cut to now. Can you believe this? Maybe you can because you knew you had something really great. But it’s been nonstop.
You know, it’s really… it’s overwhelming.
But I think you knew you had something really special.
Yeah. I knew that. You know, I’m a cinephile, obviously, and I knew I created my favorite movie, to be perfectly un-humble about it. And I knew I could watch it and it continued to grow. What I am humbled by is the fact that the audience, the crowds, the fans of the film, instantly got it. You know, I thought it might be the type of thing where, you know, man, in 20 years, people will look back and see that I was doing something special.
Oh, you thought it would take longer?
I thought it would take longer to unpack, in a way.
That makes sense, because that happens to a lot of directors and classic movies.
I didn’t expect people to be watching it as intensely as they did.
But when you were making it, you didn’t know Trump was coming either.
Didn’t know Trump was coming.
Do you think that’s a big factor people got it right away?
Obviously, it was a perfect environment for the movie to come out, but I can’t really venture a guess if Hillary won how the movie would do. When you have a truth, as I said, that hasn’t been represented, when it comes out, it is an explosion no matter when it comes out. But it may have been true that the silencing of racial conversation could have remained. You know, I wrote it when Obama was president. I wrote the movie in the Obama era, when people seemed to think that we have a black president, so why are we talking about racism anymore?
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