Hey, what's up, guys?
This is Jordan Peele. I'm the writer/director of Get Out.
And this is a surreal honor to be doing the director's commentary
on the DVD/Blu-ray.
There's many spoilers here,
so, obviously, this shouldn't be the first way you're experiencing the movie.
And it's a movie that has many layers to it.
So, yeah, I'm gonna try and do my best commentary possible,
give you as much of the breakdown of what I was thinking as possible.
But there... I won't be able to catch all of it.
I won't be able to get all of it in one sitting. So, here goes.
Okay.
So, this first scene, I kind of started with this idea of Halloween. Right?
Subverting the idea of the perfect white suburb,
and, in a moment here, Lakeith Stanfield, who plays the character, Andre, will enter.
He is talking on the phone to his girl, who has somehow...
She's having a party, or meeting a friend,
and somehow, he got drawn out into this white suburb
and he's totally out of his element.
A sort of hidden question you might ask yourself is,
"ls the girl he's talking to Rose?
"Is she part of this trap?"
A couple of moments ago, Andre... You know, he said "suburb."
He used, like, the sort of stereotypical white voice.
And that, of course, is a foreshadowing to when he actually has a white voice later on.
What was that? Peacock?
Little Shining shout-out with the "hedge maze" line there.
So, this is the Porsche that...
I sort of wanted this Porsche to be like Jaws.
Like, it has this music coming from it. It has this menace.
And also pulling from the movie Christine a little bit
with just the mask that is a car.
Also, Duel, Steven Spielberg's first film.
Not today. Not me.
Right here, Andre makes the right decision.
Any self-respecting black man knows you just start walking the other way
if you're being followed by a car.
And, one of the first little reveals here.
Now, if you'll notice, Jeremy is wearing a black Templar helmet.
You only get to see it for a second.
But that is in reference to this secret society he's a part of
Which... You know, I've got a whole mythology and lore about
how they are descended from the original Knights Templar.
And I'll talk a little bit more about that later.
That this operation that they've perfected is a way of
channeling the Holy Grail's original power of immortality.
I should talk about Michael Abels and his amazing score for a second.
First of all, you can... You notice the...
The credits are in that light blue like The Shining.
I totally ganked that,
but it also foreshadows the font that is used in the Coagula video you'll see later.
But Michael Abels was a first-time film composer
who is a classical composer.
He's versed in jazz, tribal...
Just about every kind of music you could want.
I chose him because I really wanted the soundtrack here and the score
to have this new, different sound. Something we've never heard before.
I sort of described it to him as like,
"If you can give me black voices with a sinister sound, that's not voodoo.
"Maybe something that almost sounds like a disembodied,
"or Satanic Negro spiritual."
And so, he rose to the challenge.
Okay. So, this is the Childish Gambino song, Redbone.
It's an amazing track.
It's talking about "Stay woke," which...
I needed the whole audience to understand
that the lead character, Chris, who we see is an urban photographer, is woke.
He's not an idiot. He's alert.
He's gonna be making the right decisions to an extent.
This song fit perfectly, and was originally meant to be scored.
But the score just ended up feeling so heavy,
and it didn't bring us this sort of chill groove.
So, the first time we see Chris, he's putting white on his face.
This is foreshadowing, of course, the nature of the operation.
Mirrors and glass are also a big motif in this movie.
So, you'll...
You can look for any time there's a reflection,
or somebody can see through the glass, or that, so...
Yeah, of course, he cuts himself shaving.
Another kind of motif, foreshadowing of the danger he's in.
Of course, when we meet Rose for the first time,
you see that little smile,
which means something different the second time you watch it.
You realize her smile when she's selecting the sweets
is the same sinister smile we see in the pictures towards the end.
So, there was originally a little bit of dialogue here,
but it wasn't needed.
And here we are.
So, we shot this in Mobile, Alabama.
It's meant to feel like Brooklyn without being too specific.
Check.
This scene... It was very important for me to shoot this hand-held,
first of all, because I feel like there's something...
Hand-held can achieve many things.
One of them is a sort of romantic feeling.
Like we're almost in this relationship with them,
in the room with them in this intimate scene.
And then the way Allison Williams and Daniel Kaluuya play the scene,
it's just so pitch perfect. They came in...
When they first met, and we were discussing how these characters interact,
and why they're together,
why we have to root for this relationship,
the sense of humor seemed to be the thing that
I think any audience can relate to
as something that will draw these two people together.
So, you know, they're flirty, and they're funny,
and they obviously share this sense of humor, and this sort of natural chemistry.
You know, I don't wanna get chased off the lawn with a shotgun.
Okay. So, of course,
"I don't wanna be chased off the lawn with a shotgun,"
is a line that comes back later when Rose literally has a rifle
in her front door and is chasing him off the lawn.
But that's because he's a lame dad more than anything else.
So, this was just an interesting point in the scriptwriting,
to make Rose woke enough that she knows her dad might be sort of racially clumsy.
This is, you know... Hiding the Rose reveal turned out to be the...
That is the toughest part of this whole movie because she's bringing him there.
It's almost a feat I doubted I could ever really pull off.
And...
But, you know, to do that, Allison Williams,
she just did such an amazing job of isolating the mentality of the Rose character
from the bad version, who we called "RoRo."
So, when she's acting in these scenes,
I believe she's not even thinking about RoRo, or the bad part.
The character is as good an actor as she is, is the whole idea.
So, here's Rod. This is the...
Actually, the Rod side of this was the very first thing we shot.
We shot this in Los Angeles
at a cruise ship terminal, actually.
So, that was the very first scene I ever shot as a director.
He's got IBS.
And, Rod's character, Lil Rel Howery...
I mean, as you know, he comes in, he just slays this entire film.
He's meant to give the audience a little bit of a release valve,
but at the same time, further ground the entire project.
So, you know, even here,
where, you know, we're sort of setting up that he's kind of a...
He's suspicious of people. He's kind of a conspiracy theorist.
But most importantly, he knows he makes Chris laugh.
And that's kind of his job.
He's gonna try and crack his friend up.
Some of his theories, he kind of..
You know, I don't think he fully believes
the theories he comes up with all the time.
Part... It's very much to make Chris laugh.
- I'm not jealous of Rod. - It's Rod!
And, of course, Rose and Rod's connection comes back later.
So, we did that deer with VFX.
And it was...
You know, we took a little monofilament, pulled that tree,
so it moved practically,
and then using as sparing VFX as we could,
we sold the idea that this thing hits, and we kind of can't make it out.
Here we go.
So, I probably...
It probably would have had a better effect if I didn't have a red car,
for the blood to splatter on.
But, you know, that's...
I think the red car still is so graphic, that it's okay.
You know, here, in the theater,
you can already hear people start to be like, "Come on, man. Where you going?
"No, no, no! Why are you going out there? Why are you going out there?"
So, I wanted Chris to be, you know,
the guy in a horror movie that makes the right decisions.
Or if he didn't make the right decision,
like right here, he should just get in the car and go.
There's no need to fuck with anything in the forest.
But emotionally, we'll later understand that this is a...
Hitting him on a deeper level.
And I don't think he quite even understands it yet.
That's the shot of him crossing the threshold from the city into the country,
and the wild.
You know, part of the theme of this story is that
Chris has built these constructs around his own soul,
and his own feelings of guilt,
and his primal nature.
The city is a sort of..
And concrete is a sort of symbol for that construct
that is being broken down in this movie.
And this little inciting incident sort of plants the breakthrough he's gonna have later.
We're just heading up there for the weekend.
Sir, can I see your license, please?
You don't see it in this cut, but the idea here in the script was that
Chris, not wanting to leave something dying by the side of the road,
takes it upon himself to call the cops.
Rose would not have called the cops,
because, of course, she does not want the cops involved.
And this little stint where she's defending her man
and sort of winning over the audience as a protector,
when you watch it the second time, you might realize
that she's actually keeping the ID from this cop
because she doesn't want any record of Chris,
and where he's going, and all that.
So, that's just one of her little perfect, brilliant sociopathic moves here.
This is like...
You know, part of the story with the Rose character,
forgetting about what she actually is...
But we realized part of the story is about her getting woke.
Basically, that racism and race is something that black people,
certainly this character, Chris, has dealt with his entire life.
But up until now,
Rose has not been aware of racism in the same way.
Here's Walter, played by Marcus Henderson brilliantly.
I wanted to deny the audience the chance to really get a good shot at him,
because I thought it would just...
The mystery would play well with the awkwardness of realizing,
"Shit. They got black help here. This is just uncomfortable."
This scene, too, we shot, you know, the interactions here
in closer coverage, just to be safe.
Which, you know, ended up being a first timer's mistake,
because this is always the way I wanted to cover the shot, in the wide.
I just doubted myself enough that I thought, "Well, I better get coverage."
So, you know, basically, that's a third of a day...
A third of a day I blew getting coverage I would never use
out of this tight 23-day shoot.
But I learned that lesson, and now, I'll trust my instincts.
So how was your drive in?
It was fine.
This shot here almost got cut.
It was one of these sort of stylistic shots
that felt like it may be style over substance.
But then when I lost it, I just realized, "You know what? It feels right."
I think, partially because
we're delaying seeing Dean and Missy's faces.
Which the audience wants to see, and they're kind of pulled in.
And it also sort of suggests some kind of stalker cam.
Like somebody else is in the house, or some kind of spirit.
Okay. So,
Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener, two of the greats.
They are sort of "liberal elite" god and goddess.
I wanted them to be just the perfect family to come and get relief ..
"Okay, great. These people are not racist."
And, you know,
sure, Bradley uses words like "thang" or "my man" often,
and kind of..
You know, he has these little microaggressions that pop up.
But, you know, as any black person
who's been in any kind of similar situation like this knows is,
that's actually good news.
You know, racism and prejudice comes in such...
More uncomfortable, sinister forms,
that somebody who's just kind of harmlessly
a little ignorant here is a victory.
So, here goes the tour.
You know, this tour scene was very much based off of..
Another one of these things based off of my love of The Shining,
and the sort of importance of
just the initial sequences of
discovering the geography of the Overlook.
It just helps with tension. It helps with the terror.
And you're sort of imagining, "Okay, what's gonna happen here?
"What's gonna happen here?
"What context are we gonna see this house in later?"
You know what I'm saying?
You're gonna love this.
You know, Brad Whitford, of course, is just such a...
Commanding this scene, he just totally got it.
I think in the original script, the character was more of a,
like, a bear hug of a man.
Sort of, you know, just a bigger, barrel-chested, sort of hearty guy.
And when, you know, I finally landed on Brad,
we developed it into this, sort of, more relatable, friend...
Best friend's father figure.
We got some black mold down there.
The black mold down in the basement foreshadowing...
Okay. So much is going on. I'm just trying to keep up here.
So, that shot where we reveal Georgina for the first time,
is basically, you know, seeing The Shining twins down the hallway.
Or when we first meet Hannibal Lecter.
Just the whole vibe of coming up
on somebody waiting for you patiently is creepy.
So, I used that.
And then, of course, there's the whole Jesse Owens...
You know, Dean's father was beat in the qualifying round
for the Berlin Olympics by Jesse Owens.
As we'll find out later, that's Walter, who actually is Dean's father.
And, you know, within that,
we find sort of a motive for the...
You know, why the family has it in for black people, so to speak, is,
back in the day,
Roman Armitage was physically beat by a black man on the world stage,
and he never got over it.
He became obsessed with this idea that
black people have more God-given advantages.
And that combined with the white man's determination,
you could make the perfect being.
Obviously, very important to me for this movie
to poke fun at the liberal elite,
and not the sort of more typically...
Stereotypically racist red state crowd.
And then this scene was tough.
We had, like, planes going by. There was an Air Force base pretty close.
So, we had planes going through in this entire scene,
and the whole audio team had to really dig it out.
Here, Catherine, who is doing an amazing acting job and looks beautiful,
begins to plant this device she's later gonna use in hypnosis
by connecting Chris' story about...
Anecdote about his mother to this, clinking the tea.
You should have Missy take care of that for you.
So, this is all carefully planned dynamic from this family.
You know, the whole lore of this movie sort of goes that
Rose and Jeremy were...
Were basically raised to do this purpose.
From a young age, they were groomed into these wranglers,
so to speak.
So, every step here is very calculated.
You know, Missy is the master of the plan, of how to get them there.
And how to maintain the illusion.
She just... She understands psychology.
Of course, Dean is the master of the science of the operation.
It's Rose's grandfather's party.
My dad would throw a shindig...
All right, so, you know, Georgina,
very much based on this sort of Stepford Wives idea.
I often describe the movie as Stepford Wives meets The Help.
Because there is this interesting and uncomfortable dynamic sometimes
when you interact with,
or, you know, someone in Chris' situation would interact with
someone in a service position like this,
and not know if he should,
you know, essentially, help a sister out somehow,
or if that boundary should be kept...
It's just an interesting dynamic.
And, you know, a way to put Chris
in an uncomfortable situation that later has sort of different implications.
This little interaction between Missy and Georgina, by the way,
is meant to be, on the second viewing, a...
Just a wife and a mother-in-law interaction.
So, just kind of annoyed,
and it's like the mother-in-law is not the greatest at keeping the secret.
So, Missy sort of excuses her passively-aggressively.
I'm sure they hate each other.
Caleb Landry Jones is an amazing actor as well.
His performance is just so riveting.
And I can't stress enough how many times he did this scene
completely different, but equally menacing and fascinating.
He's just really an interesting guy to watch, and a really passionate, passionate actor.
where are your manners?
Our guest wants to hear the stories...
So, this, we wanted to put them in the sort of
slightly uncomfortable, but relatable scene of when...
When somebody brings somebody else into a family, or a new situation,
it really becomes about, like, airing the person's dirty laundry,
and sort of connecting on how much we can sort of expose Rose.
And this just felt very real to me.
So I'm upstairs hooking up with the hottest girl in class, Jean Deely.
Oh, God.
You realize you're coming off as, like, the world's biggest douchebag, right?
So, yeah, just trying to keep this family feeling as real as possible.
And, you know, I think Jeremy's character here is menacing, and...
Because he's sort of flirting with the lines
of the whole ruse here.
I think he's probably the member of the family
that actually has had the most rebellious stage
against the whole grooming and everything,
and the way he was raised, I think something in him knew it wasn't right.
But he was turned into a monster.
Now, we see him sort of in front of his parents...
Not in front of his mother, because now she's gone, but...
Pushing a little bit further, because he can.
You'll notice he's the one character
that when the reveal about the family's intentions comes,
he's the same guy.
Everybody else sort of changes their characters a little bit.
But he is being himself
He's actually not very good at lying,
or withholding his rage,
which is why his wrangling method is not to seduce,
but to grab off the street.
I did judo after school, first grade.
You should've seen me.
"Judo?" I love that. The way he does that line.
And he's just... It's so scary.
Even the way he's moving here is just so freaky to me.
It's like he's imagining riding this guy.
I think Jeremy, you know,
secretly wants Chris' body.
Like he's into this idea that he might be able to get that body
and become better at jiu-jitsu. Of course, he won't get it.
A whole bunch of nothing.
Just talking about sports. Right?
Yeah.
That sounds good.
"So, the thing about jiu-jitsu..."
Just so condescending, but...
You know, I don't know how he manages to sort of be strangely charming in this scene.
But he's so fucking hateable,
and at the same time, I'm like, "This guy is just so crazy.
"I can't even deal with him."
Cool.
I mean, Daniel... I can talk all day about how amazing Daniel is.
You know, at some point, we realize,
"You know, Daniel... Chris doesn't have very many lines in this."
And it's true. That's not... You know, his role is to just kind of get out of here
without the shit hitting the fan.
You know, even in these scenes here,
I think he's just trying to minimize the awkwardness,
and make it through the weekend and get out.
So, that's why, you know, he's not gonna pop off,
and of course, he's in love.
So, we understand why you're on your best behavior at your love's parents' house.
Okay. So, this scene was extremely important.
I don't think I had it in the original draft.
But, you know, I was sort of adding this idea of Rose's continued wokeness.
Because... Yeah, I think, like, this scene, for example,
is pivotal in our not suspecting her.
Or shelving our suspicions of her.
The fact that she's more turnt up about this than he is,
sort of suggests that she's not trying to pacify him,
she's not trying to calm him.
There's no, you know, I think... You know, if.. Maybe...
Probably, in an earlier version of the script, she was doing some version of like,
"I think it's gonna be okay, sweetie,"
and he was the one who was getting weird.
Well, this switch
in energies was crucial,
crucial, crucial for the film, because,
you know, obviously, the audience, I think, subconsciously presumes
that if she was in on it, she wouldn't be wiling out like this.
Chris has to bring her back down to earth.
So, I think it's... I think we really win her...
She wins our trust in this scene, as well as his.
And as Chris is saying now,
"Look, you're seeing race for the first time,
"so, yeah, it's pretty...
"That's pretty shocking to you. To me, this is the best case scenario.
"Your family's only slightly uncomfortable,
"and maybe your brother's a psychopath, but that's okay."
Fuck. The party.
And these guys had such amazing chemistry.
And they are just such good actors.
At one point, Allison told me
she wanted to practice the love scene, that she was uncomfortable and nervous.
So, I went all the way out, very nervously...
I went all the way out to the house she was staying
to literally rehearse the love scene with her and Daniel.
I was so uncomfortable.
And then, of course, I got there, and it was a surprise party for me.
At which point I realized,
"Of course Allison Williams is not fucking nervous
"to do a fucking love scene after what she's done on Girls."
Right there, that was...
The shot was Chris' perspective.
He's still thinking about that deer laying in the middle of the road.
Of course, you know, really, that's his subconscious telling him,
"You know, the last time you left something in the middle of the road,
"it was your mother, and..."
The stuffed lion is
partly a reference to this...
The predator.
You know, I had some of a motif going on that...
You know, white people are lions, and black people are tigers.
Sort of two types of the same...
Two species in the same animal kingdom, or something.
But whatever... That's a little bit of a stretch.
But the lion is also symbolic of Christ
and of course, the Knights Templar is the group here.
The Georgina sting right there, this scene originally didn't have it.
And literally on the day, I had this realization
that Georgina needs to creep by.
And so, we called Betty in, Betty Gabriel...
In at the very last minute,
and we orchestrated that sting.
And it's another one that if I hadn't
made that audible on the fly, I think,
the momentum of the movie would just be really struggling right now.
But... Okay.
So, this is...
You know, I think one of my favorite things
is using depth,
inspired by things like North by Northwest, with the classic plane scene, you know.
Somebody running at you, or towards you,
just creates a very visceral and physical reaction for the audience.
Of course, upon second viewing,
you realize the reason he's running is because
with his new black body, he's trying to beat Jesse Owens' time.
So, he's jogging and trying to... He's obsessed.
We also see Georgina, Betty Gabriel, of course,
admiring her reflection,
which is preventing her from seeing Chris outside.
And we know she's admiring her reflection.
Second viewing, we understand why she wants the black body.
She believes that it's exquisite.
Yeah.
Come in and sit with me.
So, this is one of my favorite scenes in the film.
It's partially based off of
some of The Silence of the Lambs
Lecter-Starling scenes,
where he just shows a certain mastery to be able to get inside of her head.
And that's what I wanted to happen here.
I wanted Chris and the audience to know that this was a trap,
that this was a set-up.
That, you know, there's no way you can allow yourself to be hypnotized,
and no self-respecting black man would in this situation.
But even with that,
for Missy to be one step ahead of Chris and the audience.
And already now, when she's clinking the tea, she's...
They're talking about the pocket watch,
but she's already getting him with this little tea motion down there.
That's right. That's right.
So, there, she's getting him. But he doesn't know.
It's also very important for me to make this not,
you know, a hypnosis scene, where the guy just starts talking,
"I'm a baby now, I'm 11."
I wanted him to keep his composure and to be sort of grounded
and continually be resistant
against the idea of being hypnotized.
So, even here, where it feels like, "No, brother, don't, don't, don't.
"Okay, okay. All right, he's not going for it. He doesn't want to talk about his mother."
But she's got him.
Home. Watching TV.
Do you hear the TV?
So, this is Chris' worst memory,
the thing he doesn't like to think about is when he was paralyzed by fear,
watching this TV screen and wishing
that reality wasn't what it was.
His mother hadn't come home,
and instead of going out and helping,
or calling somebody, he was petrified.
This kind of starts getting into the greater themes of the movie
of neglect, of marginalization,
paralyzation by fear,
and by a system that Chris, and, I think, all of us are in,
specifically in regards to the racial conversation.
Another piece of what's happening here is,
Chris is part of a system, as we said earlier, his father was never really around.
It's a small line, but it's very powerful.
Fathers not being around is an epidemic in the black community.
My father wasn't around.
I think Chris' father, whether he was literally in prison or not,
I think, there is a relevance
with the idea of the disappearance of black men.
And Chris, of course, as a child,
is facing this crippling guilt
because he didn't do what presumably another adult,
a father figure, would have been able to do.
So, just by him being the man of his household at a young age,
he was dealing with too much responsibility.
How do you feel now?
I can't move.
You can't move.
Why can't I move?
You're paralyzed.
Just like that day when you did nothing.
You did nothing.
Okay, Missy's sinking her claws in here.
And we sort of lowered her voice to really...
We just emphasized the bass there.
And here we go.
So, this is the Sunken Place.
We put Chris on some wires
and VFXed the particles on the screen.
This is meant to be
a construct of Chris' mind.
And it is a representation of his own worst fear, right?
This place he was...
This time he was powerless
and confined to this constraint,
and all he could do was watch this TV.
But, as you will find out,
the Sunken Place is really a tool
that Missy uses to sedate her victims,
and also to prepare them for the brain surgery.
Which, of course, you have to be awake for brain surgery.
So, here she comes and...
Now you're in the Sunken Place.
which I always hoped would become a classic line.
'Cause it's just so weird and twisted, the Sunken Place.
Part of that idea for me came from, you know, when you're about to fall asleep
and you feel like you're falling, but you catch yourself and you wake up.
Well, what if you never caught yourself? Where would you fall?
Where would you go into?
Just to blow your minds for one second,
in my mind, the Sunken Place
is experienced differently for everyone else.
It is a state of mind
that is created by your own brain.
Based on Missy latching onto your deepest fear,
or your darkest moment,
so that Andre, the woman who is Georgina, or Walter,
all live in some sort of marginalized state
where they can see through the eyes of their captor,
but they can't do anything.
But everyone's room in the Sunken Place would look different.
So, Chris, he doesn't really remember what happened last night,
maybe it was a dream. He's out here taking pictures,
which, in some ways, Missy's hypnosis did help him face that fear.
He's creatively inspired.
But he's also now... He's in detective mode.
He knows something's wrong, he just doesn't know what.
And we see Georgina about to take off her wig, but getting caught.
You know, obviously, anyone that's
a post-Coagula operation character in this
has to have either a wig or a hat to hide their surgical scar.
So, here's Walter.
We sort of invented a little hymn
for the Red Alchemist Society
that Georgina and Walter both sing at different points in the film.
And I just love this performance from Marcus Henderson.
It's almost like Walt Disney is in there, or something.
Just so unnatural to see this big dude,
and that's the voice and mannerisms that come out.
I didn't get to meet you, actually, up close. I'm Chris.
I know who you are.
You know, Marcus came in and he just... He nailed his audition so hard.
You know, we knew we wanted this to just feel unnatural,
and like the last thing we would expect.
And he just delivered.
Also, top of the line was
an improv he did in the audition, that I remember saying like,
"Remember when you said 'Top of the line'? You gotta say that.
"That's so fucking weird and old and creepy."
- And did it work? - Did what work?
This is an interesting scene, and sort of a tough one,
because we've seen Chris go through this kind of extreme experience,
and now, he's not running.
So, we're sort of grasping over these last couple scenes
that, "Yeah, he can't quite separate dream from reality."
You know, Walter's helping him put it together.
Just one more reason that the family has told Grandma and Grandpa,
"You know what, guys, just stay on the outskirts.
"Just be the help. Trust us.
"You're not very good
"at dealing with these vessels."
And Grandma and Grandpa are like, "What are you talking about?
"This is... Of course, we are. We invented this operation. It's my house."
"No, Gran... Dad, just stay... Just chop wood."
That's my feeling of how that works.
Another important but tricky scene as far as the...
Hiding the character of RoRo.
I can't believe she did that to you.
And I had some fucked-up dreams.
What'd you dream?
Chris is coming to terms with what happened last night.
But Rose's reaction is...
She's kind of pissed at her mom, but she also kind of thinks it's funny.
She just sort of helps imply,
"You know, maybe what's going on is more in your head.
"From the...
"From your own personal state of paranoia with all of this."
But she does that without saying it. She just kind of..
Just by virtue of her sort of joking this off.
And in this interaction with Walter,
you know, she's sort of correct that he's wrong.
Chris' presumption that Walter is into Rose is wrong.
So, I think the audience knows that.
And the fact that Rose also helps emphasize that,
helps put her on our side and Chris' side.
She's helping him figure this out as opposed to hindering him.
Oh, boy.
So, here comes the party guests.
This is what I've called the "Red Alchemist Society," all coming.
And, of course, they're all old friends of Grandpa.
And here he is, greeting his old friends.
And here we are. Okay, so, these scenes were some of the hardest scenes, I swear.
When you have... The more people you have, it just gets exponentially harder.
Now, here, we have John Wilmot and Caren Larkey.
Two fantastic actors.
I believe they're New Orleans-based.
But I may be wrong about that.
And they just got this thing. You know, this...
I wanted this first couple to be kind of cute
in the most unassuming, least offensive, and most relatable...
And, of course, you know, John Wilmot's character, Gordon Greene,
was a golfer, but now, his hip is messed up.
He loves Tiger so much, he wants...
He's convinced he needs a black body with a great stroke
to reinvigorate his golfing career in his new life.
I don't know, are you handsome?
Okay. This is Ashley LeConte Campbell, who is a...
You know, I just instructed her to do a very vampiric performance.
I also like, you know, bringing in some... A little bit of an international flair.
So, we have this sense that whatever this group is, it's big.
This actor's name is Rutherford Cravens. Yes, you got that right.
Rutherford Cravens.
And his wife, played by Julie Ann Doan.
They are sort of pitch perfect,
and have that quality like they'd be perfect in a Roald Dahl movie.
Rutherford Cravens is a pretty fantastic actor,
but also the best name in the industry.
All right, so, another little kind of awkward interaction
between Mom and Mother-in-law.
But then, over here, we see the uncomfortable attention,
and, you know, Chris is sort of escaping into his camera.
You know, he's using it for investigative purposes.
But more than anything, he's using it as a shield.
As a barrier between...
'Cause he's just fed up with all this attention.
And of course, the woman in the background, checking his butt out,
you know, "Is this the...
"Is this the body I want for my husband? Or the body I want for me, for that matter?"
There's no gender in...
Requirements in the Coagula procedure.
This is that moment really many...
All black people, any minority recognizes
when you feel isolated and you see another brother,
it's like, "Let's go. I gotta connect with this brother real quick."
Of course, he can't connect with him,
because Andre is now Logan.
I'm Philomena. And you are?
And a lot of people don't...
Or I should say some people don't realize that
Logan is the same guy from the first scene, just different.
I think that's a testament to Keith's range in his acting.
And also that, you know, we're not necessarily trained to differentiate
black people as a culture and a society.
But that's just me trying to be woke up in here.
This element of Chris...
Chris' fear that he might be abandoning his black side, so to speak.
And part of that is this fear that,
"Hey, if you are a husband,
"or a partner to this white woman,
"there is this dynamic where..."
You know, the gentleman's role is that of a...
Of a provider.
Of someone who can offer services, who can hold things for you.
And there's a little bit of uncomfortableness and awkwardness in Chris' subconscious.
And of course, that couple is so bizarre, he's just totally thrown.
Here we go. This is Jim Hudson, played by Stephen Root, the blind art dealer.
Which was a character I realized was maybe a little over the top,
but ultimately, realized it's just over the top enough.
All of 'em.
This is the guy that is meant to bring us some relief for a moment.
First of all, because he's not only color-blind, he's literally blind.
But he's also in the art world.
He is an apparent ally to Chris.
He understands that people focusing on race or color,
there's an ignorance to them.
How'd you do it?
You know, the fact here as Hudson's about to discuss that...
You know, he wanted to be a photographer.
He tried. He just didn't... He didn't have the eye.
You know, this is the character that ultimately ends up protesting too much
that he doesn't see race, he doesn't care what color Chris is.
He just wants that eye.
He's got a more twisted, perverse agenda.
But even though I don't say it,
I believe that Jim Hudson does think
that if he is a black photographer, he will get more attention.
So, even where...
Even when the character seems
as woke as you possibly can be for a white man trying to steal a black man's body,
he's still got a shade
of straight-up old-fashioned prejudice.
This scene was very much based on scenes from The Stepford Wives,
where the husbands are walking around rooms silently,
and sort of exploring her belongings.
It's just such a creepy image.
It's also based on a dream of mine,
where I was walking through a lobby that was a bustling lobby in a bank,
and I turned the corner, and just the... All the noise stopped.
And when I turned back,
everyone that was bustling around was just standing, looking at me silently.
And then I woke up. And I put it in this movie.
All right, so, this is like, you know,
phones are something that need to be dealt with in the modern horror universe.
Why don't you just call somebody?
So, I wanted to make this constant threat that
someone's unplugging her phone... His phone.
Obviously, Georgina unplugged it,
because, you know, the less batteries he has,
the less help he can call for, the less contact he can have.
So, it's all part of the great plan.
Who?
Georgina.
This is another important scene with Rose.
I'm helping disguise her involvement,
because instead of pacifying him, she's actually coming at him.
And she's pissed.
She's not trying to make him feel more comfortable.
But when he assumes that Georgina is pissed
because he's dating a white girl,
which, of course, we know is not the case, she makes fun of him for it.
And I think that's another point where she endears herself to the audience.
Because, hey, if she's gonna call out his prejudice, and...
She's actually helping him get closer to the truth
because she's right.
It's not because he's so damn sexy. Which he is. He's a very sexy man.
Especially when he goes into his real accent, which is British.
Then he just... This dude cleans up.
What?
I got hypnotized last night.
Nigga, get the fuck...
All right, so, Lil Rel Howery is amazing.
We shot two days with him. I believe I...
I believe with both of these scenes, I was the other character on the other side.
I don't think they were in the same room, but it works pretty flawlessly.
That's one of the advantages to being a sketch performer, as a director,
is you can sort of do half-assed versions of these characters.
flying around like you're a fuckin' pigeon,
lookin' ridiculous, okay?
I think "Flying around like a pigeon" was Rel's improv. There's, you know...
Every actor kind of got to do their own process with me.
And every actor has very different processes.
Rel's process...
You know, I very quickly realized that,
you know, he was very funny reading my lines.
But if I ever said like, "Dude, just do it, like, in your voice.
"Like, give me...
"Get into your stand-up mode, and play with it,"
he would just come up with some amazing details.
And amazing details that are different in different takes...
You know, that Jeffrey Dahmer business is not in the script.
I thought that was so funny.
I'mma tell you this. I think that mom...
So, the important thing here is, Rod is...
He's right, but he's not so right that Chris should be just listening to him.
He's talking about sex slaves and shit. Chris knows that's not the case.
So, at the same time as being a sort of wild conspiracy theorist,
who is making Chris feel like
maybe his paranoia is just that. It's paranoia.
Of course, Rod is saying what we all wish somebody would say.
And he's getting closest to figuring this out.
to wipe down the dresser,
and it accidentally came...
Betty Gabriel. This is I think one of the most classic scenes in film history,
horror film history, myself
And I'm a tough critic.
Her performance here sums up the entire movie.
I mean, really.
And this, I knew this was such a pivotal scene,
because it has to be even creepier, it has to be more than we've seen so far.
And, of course, Toby Oliver, the amazing cinematographer,
here, picked the perfect lens for right up close, you know.
Basically, all I told Toby is like,
"Look, this scene has to feel more menacing, more creepy, more in-your-face."
And Toby picked the perfect lens, as he always does.
So, this is the moment where Georgina, inside,
she starts to fight her way out of the Sunken Place.
But Grandma puts her in check,
and kicks her back into submission.
And that was...
You know, I told Betty... I was like, "Say no as many times as you want.
"Like, literally, it's just the more times you do it, the crazier."
And so, she gave me 10.
Not at all.
The Armitages are so good to us.
They treat us like family.
Total Stepford Wives moment.
It's like, "What the hell?"
She's so into her role as being a servant,
she has no... Her soul... What happened to her soul?
What happened to her "blackness"?
Her... She's docile, she's obedient, and she's also aggressive in this weird way.
Hey, hang on. Chris.
Chris, I wanna introduce you...
This was a very tough scene to shoot,
'cause we just didn't have very much time.
These extras are... Really were just...
There goes Georgina in the back.
And if you listen closely, you can hear her singing the hymn I was talking about.
has more advantage or disadvantage in the modern world?
Okay. So, this is Yasuhiko Oyama,
who is actually a friend's father of mine.
I found it very difficult to find a Japanese actor in Alabama.
And Mr. Oyama is not only a fantastic actor here,
but he is a karate master, and he is also Ken Marino's father-in-law.
A little piece of trivia.
All right. So, here is Logan,
and Chris sort of puts the question to Logan to sort of get out of it,
and maybe put this guy on the spot.
And, you know, Chris' idea here is, "You know, I'm gonna take a picture.
"I'm gonna send it to Rod, so Rod can see what this guy is wearing."
And as you see in Logan's eyes, the sort of..
The light from the... His portal into...
His own personal Sunken Place sort of fades, and some sort of synapse...
Whatever happens when a strobe effect creates a seizure,
I figured that there was a similar sort of synapse happening here
that affected the operation.
But, you know, as soon as Andre gets out of the Sunken Place,
he yells at Chris what he's been yelling from the Sunken Place,
"Brother, get out! Get out the house!
"Come on, man... Come on, man..."
So, you know, basically, the Sunken Place, amongst other things,
it is a metaphor for the marginalization of the black horror movie audience.
"We are a loyal horror movie fan-base,
"and we're relegated to the theater, not on the screen.
"We don't have representation of our skin in horror films,
"nor do we have the representation of our sensibilities,
"and our ability to observe trouble before it happens,
"and our ability to excuse ourselves."
It also, of course, you know, conjures the Eddie Murphy routine
where he's talking about The Amityville Horror,
and that a black family would deal in that situation differently.
"Get out. ""Too bad we can't stay, baby."
One of the great comedy bits.
But yeah, this movie, for me, was an answer to the lack of representation.
And I think as a culture, as a country,
I feel like our lack of ability to talk about race,
specifically, the prison-industrial system,
and complex, and the disproportionate amount of black people...
Mostly men, who are literally abducted,
thrown into a hole, and tossed to the back of our minds.
These people are tossing black men to the back of their minds,
literally and figuratively.
And the Sunken Place is a metaphor for that particular marginalization.
And that's what he said it was. I'm inclined to trust...
- That wasn't a seizure. - What was it then?
How long have you known that guy?
I met him today. Why?
Man, this is gonna sound weird...
Now, it's at this point where it's like,
"Leave, brother, leave! Don't be an idiot. Leave!"
So, I had to make him... Yeah, he's trying to leave now.
He's trying to leave, and I think that is a relief to us.
At least this stupid dude isn't... He's not trying to stay around,
he's trying to figure out...
He's not a dumb-ass. He knows that wasn't a seizure.
He's trying to break it to this woman that he loves
why he has to leave her house.
Which, you know, may be the...
You know, may end the relationship.
And Chris is in love. He is.
And especially out here,
where she is his only security blanket.
I think he...
He connects to her at his sort of all-time high,
but he can't describe to her what's happening,
where his suspicions are coming from.
Which, of course, is in itself, a metaphor for,
you know, what I think a feeling a lot of African Americans will have,
is that we're perceiving something,
and being told that we're not actually perceiving it correctly.
All right. So, here's, of course, the big reveal.
This bingo scene is actually an auction.
You know, I wanted to keep the
sort of particulars of how this auction works pretty mysterious.
Like, "What are these? What are the numbers?
"Are they millions of dollars? Billions of dollars?"
In my particular lore, which is the one we should go with, I think,
you know, the Knights Templar, who this group is descended from,
were collectors of antiquities and treasures.
So, I have it in my mind that they trade amongst each other,
these relics and artifacts,
and that the numbers that he's holding up are the amount of relics, somehow.
So, you know, Chris realizes he's just told the woman he loves
that he's going to leave without her.
And based on her reaction, I think he channels
his internal demon.
He realizes that once again in his life,
he is risking
the abandonment of his family.
And, so... Basically, I wanted to...
I knew I had to keep Chris in this situation. I couldn't let him just run yet.
So, I didn't want this to turn into a chase movie.
So, I dug into the core of what makes him him.
And one of the darkest building blocks of his psychology
is this traumatic moment where he left his family.
And he has been hiding this truth from Rose,
that he actually could have saved his mother.
You know, when we shot this,
Daniel was having a hard time getting there, originally.
And he was like, "Hey, Jordan, Jordan, Jordan.
"I need help. There's a block. There's a block. There's a block."
And we discussed it, and at some point, I said,
"You know, Daniel, the reason you haven't told her this
"is because you don't want the woman you love to know
"that you are the type of person who abandons your family."
And he goes, "Yep, yep. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it."
He went, and he knocked this out of the ballpark.
This scene was so emotional for me.
I mean, I was looking at it not like RoRo existed.
I was looking at it like Rose and Chris.
And I remember just being on set, and after we shot this,
kind of just crying, really.
Because, first of all, we were chasing the sun,
which means we were running out of daylight.
And it's such an important scene,
because if we don't understand why Chris is staying in this situation,
the whole thing topples apart.
It's like we hate him. It's like, "Nah. Nigga, no, no, no.
"Ain't fuck... I'd be out... Let me..."
I wanted to satisfy that dude, who at the very least could understand.
"You know, but I see... I wish he wasn't in love!
"I wish he didn't... I understand... He's got his mother. He's seeing his mother."
All right.
So, here, we got Jeremy with his little Deliverance ukulele.
This scene... A very interesting little piece where it's in the in-between world.
Chris is still suspicious, but he's kind of pacified.
The audience, though, we know, "Oh, my God, he's in for it."
And it's a very tricky moment,
this whole upcoming sequence, storytelling-wise,
because you don't want the audience to be so frustrated
that we're so far ahead of this character who can't see what's going on.
So, very quickly, I'm gonna have him catch up.
And not only catch up, but get a step ahead of the audience,
so we can trust our protagonist again.
So, he's sending the picture to Rod here,
just as a, like, you know, "Look at this brother, man.
"Look how he's dressed," kind of thing.
And Rod gets back at him pretty comedically quick.
That's Dre.
Once again, Rod's drinking. That's his vice.
Veronica from what?
Teresa's sister, that worked at the movie theater...
You know, here, I'm playing off of the cliché
that all black people know each other.
I really wanted, in, you know, a lot of ways,
the stereotypes and clichés about what it means to be white,
and what it means to be black to aid this film.
So, along with the...
Oh, shit!
Chris, you gotta get the fuck up outta there, man!
Of course, he still thinks it's sex slaves, so he's not completely right.
You gonna be a... Hello? Chris?
Oh, shit. His battery must've fuckin'...
Anyway, I wanted, you know,
along with the perception that black people have
about the social dynamic of..
Where race is concerned, you know, I wanted...
I wanted different sort of stereotypically black qualities to help Chris figure this out,
and also set him back from time to time.
Now, we're gonna see that little sixth sense...
That black spidey sense kind of come in.
And Chris is... This door has been nagging on him.
He knows there's more to this story than he knows,
and he's gotta figure out.
That becomes a number-one priority for him.
And in my mythology of this,
Rose is so sick and twisted,
that she always leaves the door a little bit open
just in case they want to find.
A part of the thrill of the hunt is leaving a tantalizing opening
for Chris to find these pictures.
That's a part of her character.
Her flaw is that she's sort of, like a cat and mouse...
Okay. So, here we see that not only...
Rose has dated black guys before. And here's proof
And maybe she's just lied to him.
But I think we all know that it's more than that.
And now we see she's got a full-on fetish, but, "Oh, my God, it's Walter."
So, I think here, you know, the audience is meant to know that this was a trap,
but maybe doubt in the back of their minds that,
"Okay. Or is it somehow, she's just had relationships with all these people?
"Or is she...
"Maybe she's evil, but she's hypnotized by the mother, or something?"
Either way, Chris is gonna have to do the smartest thing he can.
I think a lot of people's instinct is just, "Run, motherfucker, run!"
I wanted Chris to make the smart move.
Try and just calmly get the keys. He's gonna go...
When he gets outside, he's gonna get into the car,
he's gonna hightail it, but he just needs those keys.
So, if he gets the keys, it's all good, we're out.
He's gonna... He's not showing that he knows anything,
so there's no reason that they would doubt that he would come back.
"What, you can't find those keys?"
That was a line that I added on the day that is one of my favorite lines
just because, you know, Chris' like...
Chris', like, inner man comes out. "You can't find those keys?
"I see you. I see you."
Just putting the bags in the car, man.
Would anyone like tea?
Here we go. So, this was like the trickiest scene
to wrap my head around, to get everyone to wrap their head around.
It was an instinct I had
that the audience would be with us on the edge of our seats
throughout all of this.
Even though on paper, there's...
The tension is sort of dissipated by the fact... We know Rose is evil.
So, the sleight of hand I had to pull here was keep us just in enough doubt
that maybe she's hypnotized,
maybe we're in a misunderstanding.
So that the second reveal, the final reveal,
that Rose isn't...
It's not even that she's just luring him in,
but she is a completely different person than we've ever met, will hit home.
So, now, Dean's going into some of the mythology of the Red Alchemist Society.
They believe that they are destined for immortality and deity status.
And over hundreds of years,
they have worked to figure out, through science,
a way to achieve the power of the Holy Grail.
Rose! Rose, give me those keys!
This performance from Daniel is one of my favorites.
And we really pushed, we really pushed,
and I remember having to really work him into that state,
and then finally, when he did it, it was the last take,
and it was exactly what this movie needs,
is like, "You know what? He's been holding it in for the whole movie."
Where are those keys, Rose?
It's time to let it out.
You know I can't give you the keys, right, babe?
And that's just like...
I love it. I just love that. I love the way this scene unfolds.
I love that he... He knows it, and she's right. He does know it.
But he had one little, like,
"Girl, if you tell me it's all a mistake, and I'm so sorry,
"and let's go, and let's run...
"I know you won't, but if you do, we'll go."
But all hope is lost.
Oh, shit.
Is he hurt?
RoRo immediately starts putting her annoying hair
into the more perfect and pristine ponytail.
We're transfixed with her character right now,
because we've never met this person.
She's completely cold, chill, blasé.
She is precise, and, obviously, an absolute psychopath,
but we don't know anything about her.
Because of that, this quality,
I think this RoRo character is probably my favorite character in the movie.
It's like, this is some crazy, sick bitch villain shit. I don't even know.
You hear that, Chris? Huh? You're one of her favorites. Chris?
So, to make this scene, we actually had this rig
that was kind of like a stretcher we put a camera on.
And that's that wide shot that shows us how fucking expansive the Sunken Place is.
All right. So, this is the part of the movie where it couldn't get any worse,
and much like Hallorann in The Shining, or the sheriff in Misery,
I wanted to have the character on the outside offer us some hope,
and we love Rod, so I felt like...
In the darkest moment of the movie,
we can begin a new chapter, begin a new momentum,
and I think it's exactly what the audience needs.
Yeah.
So, yeah, Chris hasn't come back,
and Rod realizes this could be serious.
I think when he was originally talking to Chris about "Leave, motherfucker,"
I think he still didn't completely believe that this was a sex slave situation.
Like, in reality, even if shit's getting weird,
you're not quite all there, but now that Chris hasn't come back,
he really is suspecting it.
And further looking up Andre,
finding out that, of course, Andre has been missing,
just goes to validate everything.
And it all comes crystal clear in this moment.
Oh, shit.
All right. So, this was this crazy room we found in Mobile, Alabama,
that had these amazing lights and it just had this uncanny quality.
I always talked about this room as being like some kind of evil feng shui
that Missy had come up with.
Like it was meant to fit in with the stereotypical white rec room vibe,
but just have this real David Lynch-ian off-ness going on.
We set up the bocce ball, the perfect weapon for later.
The room is actually designed to keep him mentally confined.
And here, the buck is, of course,
not only a word used when describing
strong black men in the past,
but it is a symbol,
it's the male version of the doe that he hits.
So, I also imagine that the deer is
a symbol used by the Red Alchemist Society.
ls there anything more beautiful than a sunrise?
Hi. I'm Roman Armitage.
And if you're watching this, you're probably...
Originally, this scene was just...
He was being forced to listen to You've Got a Friend by James Taylor
over and over again.
And when I realized I couldn't afford that song, I invented this thing,
which, I think, works better.
Especially saying it out loud, it definitely works better.
Richard Herd is the actor here,
and he just had this wonderfully, both totally pleasant quality,
but also, you can imagine he's capable of really devilish things.
And Grandpa loves his garden, that's why he's always out there gardening.
He loves being outside, he loves working with the greenery.
And here, we see where the picture from earlier came from,
the entire family together.
Full disclosure,
I did not realize that the actor playing young Jeremy was that much shorter
than the actor playing Rose until we got them on set.
And, yeah, I mean, it's just...
First movie, you can't really fire a little kid for not being tall enough.
It's just not done.
Okay, the "Behold The Coagula," I love this idea.
This is also kind of ripped from
J.J. Abrams, the videos in Lost, the DHARMA Initiative,
where you just get this sense of, like, "Oh, my God, there's this produced thing,"
it goes so deep, we're just at the tip of the iceberg.
And so, I wanted to play with that idea, put my own spin on it.
Williams. Rod Williams.
Okay, Erika Alexander, who just came in, just killed this with her audition.
She brought this character from what, on paper, felt a little bit like
a stereotypical black woman police officer character,
and she just brought a reality to this character and a depth
that I felt was so needed for my...
Talk about enhancing the script.
His name is Chris Washington.
He left on Friday with his girlfriend, Rose Armitage.
This scene is meant to give us a break and give us a safe space and a relief,
but I didn't wanna really tell any jokes,
I just wanted to let the scene be what it would be in real life,
which is this dead end.
Now, I realized it would get laughs,
but there are several moments in this
where I really let Rel just go off and improvise,
and he just delivered so hard.
That's 'cause we found him, right? But Chris said he's acting real different.
Different how?
This dude is from Brooklyn.
He didn't dress like this.
I also wanted to make sure
that we had a little bit of the safe...
I didn't wanna make these cops white cops either,
just to create this mythology that all cops are white.
I wanted this to feel like, "Okay, this is racially and logistically a safe spot.
"We got a black female cop. This is great."
But where some people in the audience might say,
"Okay, I see. They're gonna start figuring this out together,"
of course, no.
That's not the way it works when you walk into cops'...
Detectives' offices talking about
sex slave cults and secret societies with no actual evidence.
But that's a totally different story.
So, look, I go do my detective work, right?
And right here, on the left, we've got LAN Casselberry,
and on the right, we've got Jeronimo Spinx,
two of the best names in Hollywood, as well.
You might recognize LAN from the first scene in Keanu,
where he plays the drug lord.
they already got two brothers we know,
and there could be a whole bunch of brothers they got already.
What's the next move?
I mean, Rel is so funny to direct.
Also, the other thing about Rel is, every time he does it, he gets better.
So, if you don't have what you need, you can just be like, "Give me another one,"
and you know it's gonna be closer or far outshine your expectations.
He's such a fun actor to work with.
And now, this scene, this was the second day,
the last thing we shot with Rel,
and as this scene goes on, you'll see he gets sweatier.
My dude got sick in the middle of the day.
And by the end of the scene, he was like, had a fever. He had to go home.
And he had been touring for a while, so he was in a bad spot,
but it actually works with the performance.
Chris?
This is one of my favorite scenes just because
my two favorite characters are hitting full force,
just grand-slam performances.
Just to give you an idea of how amazing Allison Williams is,
I came to her in the beginning, a couple of days before we shot this scene,
and I said, "Look, I'm gonna ask you to do something
"that I don't know, or think is necessarily possible,"
and she was like, "Yes?" That's her shit, if you tell her something like that.
I was like, "Can you give me RoRo's face and expression,
"but Rose's voice, with all the inflection and character?"
And she was like, "I'll see what I can do."
And then she came back and just absolutely clipped this scene off
like five times in a row, like just a master.
I mean, if there's any doubt
about anything that she can do, I mean, this is proof
Like, I think you would normally need somebody to...
You would normally need her to come in
and record the voice separately to pull this off.
"That TSA shit tingles." That's one of my favorite parts.
Yes, a lot of this movie was created
to get favors from the TSA moving through the airport.
That was the point.
"Speaker. Unmute."
So, this is where you can see he's starting to get sick.
So, yeah, I wanted... Rod is good, he does have TSA skills,
but he's totally out-planned, out-crazied.
She's a professional at this. She's been doing this her whole life.
And she knows he's recording it.
She knows he's recording it,
and that she starts digging into their little flirtatious past,
which makes Rod completely uncomfortable.
He doesn't want that recorded,
and he's just totally threatened by it.
And, of course, this is a veiled threat.
On the recording, it sounds like one thing,
but, basically, what she's saying to him is
"You're next, motherfucker, if you keep going."
So, Rod gets defeated.
And we are back in the belly of the beast here.
And Allison, basically, she would prepare for this side of the character
for like 45 minutes before we would shoot.
And if you got near her when she was in RoRo mode,
you would be creeped out.
She's not warm, I think her own dog was like...
Chris, once again, wakes up from the Sunken Place.
Every time he goes there, he's in the space embodiment of his worst fear.
"Space embodiment." The mental state.
You can answer. There's an intercom in the room.
Okay, so, now, Jim Hudson comes back, the art dealer, all right.
We know we're gonna get answers in this scene,
and I really wanted this scene to play like the scene
at the end of the first act of The Matrix
when Morpheus just simply tells you what the Matrix is.
I thought it was such a great device
because, first of all,
I think at this point in this movie, we want answers,
and I just love the idea of telling the audience the answer in some ways.
I think it's so direct and unexpected that it would come like that.
And like in The Matrix, when the answer is satisfying,
you feel like you've been just given a gift of information.
Pre-op?
For phase three.
The transplantation.
Okay. So, now, we and Chris start to realize what's really going on here.
This is mad science. This is brain transplantation.
This movie is meant to be my take on Frankenstein,
and you realize that now,
that, in many ways, the African-American experience
is this country's Frankenstein monster. I mean...
what your body is doing,
but your existence will be as a passenger.
So, there was one point where the idea was
they were just gonna do a brain transplantation,
and then you would die,
but I realized we could tie in this Sunken Place sedation device
and say that "You are in there."
And that, of course, was the big revelation for me, writing,
that brought everything together,
is that your will is taken and your body is used.
This is a modern form of slavery.
Why us, huh?
Why black people?
And now, the question everybody wants to know,
"Why? Is it 'cause you hate us? Is it 'cause you're KKK?"
"No. There's a variety of different reasons.
"Everyone has their own different thing. It's not one.
"But the commonality is that
"you're being valued for your skin and your culture,
"and what you bring that enhances our lives,
"but you're not being valued as a soul that is equal, as a human being."
And, yeah, I don't think I'll ever write anything as cool as that
for the rest of my life. That's about as good as it gets.
"So, good night, folks. And thanks for watching."
All right. No, here we go. Let's get back into it.
I went on a little spiral tangent, realizing that it's gonna be hard to beat this one.
So, give me a little rope, guys, to make a worse movie, please.
Here we go. Chris sees the cotton that we've been planting,
that he has this nervous tic when he's facing his fears,
that he scratches.
Now, for the second-time viewer,
you already know that the cotton's already in his ears.
He's pretending to fall asleep.
And for those of you who are hip to it, you're right.
I was intending the irony of the picking of cotton
being what ends up saving this African American from slavery.
All right, so this is my, sort of, Cronenberg's operating room.
Described it as a dark, ceremonial operating room.
I wanted this thing to feel like we can feel the history of the cult.
If you want me to really ruin the movie for you,
that prop is pretty much...
I think it was a poker chip box that we converted,
so, there you go.
Sorry, you can't un-hear that.
Once again, just like, Michael Abels, with the score...
I wanted this to feel like a ritual.
Like this is something they've been trying to do for hundreds of years,
and finally, they've figured it out.
And there's this religion aspect.
My production designer, Rusty Smith, made this incredible hallway.
I just wanted all the pictures and imagery,
the implications of the depth and history of the secret society.
But I knew I would only give the audience little glimpses,
just so you know how deep it goes.
And trust me, I know the entire history of this secret society.
It goes deep, but you only get little pieces.
On another DVD,
I'll take you through the history of the Red Alchemist Society.
All right. So, this is obviously the turning point in the movie.
I debated whether or not I should just sneak up on the audience with this,
but I wanted to give you that little grab of the bocce ball,
just so we can be with Chris and have that same sense of anticipation.
Okay. And the actor, Caleb Landry Jones,
laid there as we pumped blood
for this upcoming overhead shot of him.
We pumped blood for about two and a half minutes straight.
He laid there. He didn't blink once.
He's a psychopath, and I love him for it.
That shot.
So, now, Chris looks at his, sort of, spirit animal, right?
The stag, the buck.
He is becoming the man that he always should've been.
He's becoming the lost father figure for himself in this moment.
And then, of course, the father figure of the Armitages realizes something's wrong.
And so, I wanted to use the footsteps here.
'Cause there's something effective to me
about giving the audience a little bit of notice
right before you hit them with something.
It's almost like they get distracted,
and it helps the effect of the jump scare
or the surprise, and I think it did there.
A lot of the deer,
the antlers, at least, are VFX.
We had an antler-less deer that we used.
Okay, now, you hear Grandma's little hymn.
The Red Alchemy hymn.
And she is in her kitchen, as we planted earlier in the movie.
Grandma loves her kitchen, so we keep a piece of her in here.
Now, she's just knitting,
but she wasn't really doing housekeeping services as a servant,
she was doing it, as in, she was keeping her own house.
Okay, so the standoff.
Missy, who has the power of the mind and hypnosis
is reduced to a physical altercation
that she won't win.
This, for me, was a particularly edgy scene.
You have a black man, young black man killing an older white woman.
A beautiful woman.
And so, I knew it had to be justified.
She had to attack him here. It has to be in self-defense.
This is about escaping, not about vengeance or anger.
So, he's in another zone.
I think I wanted the audience to connect with this fact
that, almost, his inner king is coming out,
really, his inner blackness is coming out.
His survival instincts and ability.
I think that that's a satisfying notion to me,
that if I was ever in a real physical pinch,
I would have some kind of instinctive advantage,
however ridiculous that may actually be.
All right. So, of course, Jeremy is putting him in a virtual noose and saying,
"One Mississippi, two Mississippi."
But Chris has set the trap.
This altercation is happening, actually, in the exact same place
Jeremy tried to put Chris in a headlock the first time.
That's the dining room right there.
And when Jeremy's talking about three moves ahead,
well, Chris just did three moves ahead.
He noticed that Jeremy was kicking the door shut,
so he set him up to stab him
'cause he couldn't stab him from his position.
All right, so, here's my favorite scene in the movie.
Yeah, she's in her complete regression.
We're getting a sense of..
Another little peek into this crazy character
that we've been watching this whole movie, and yet, we still haven't met.
And she is crazy.
She's eating her comfort food from when she was a kid.
The white milk, the colored cereal,
eating 'em separately, black straw.
Everything's now in order.
I think the Rose character was messy. She couldn't find anything, and her keys...
This character knows where everything is at all times.
And, of course, if you notice, she has the pictures of her conquests
framed on the wall behind her, like a collector.
All right, Chris is out.
You saw the helmet from the Knights Templar that Jeremy had,
and now we're in Run Rabbit Run mode.
And boom. I wanted to just get this feeling,
like anything could happen in this scene. It's total chaos.
It's completely sloppy, spontaneous, anything-can-happen action.
And my stunt coordinator, Mark Vanselow,
who does a lot of stunts for Liam Neeson in the Taken movies, he's amazing,
and he really got into this whole idea of this brutal, primal, survival horror
as I wanted to make sure we did not go with action-style horror,
which feels kind of unrealistic.
Here she is, chasing him off the lawn with the rifle.
And the Grandma reveal.
So, this moment was basically...
I was trying to do, like, when Spielberg does,
"Well, unless the Velociraptors know how to open doors,"
he gives the audience that piece of information
and then he lets us experience the door knob opening, and the audience...
I just remember seeing Jurassic Park, the audience going like...
And so, I wanted to let the audience
watch Grandma emerge from next to him,
and I love Betty Gabriel's performance there.
Chris is getting bloodier and bloodier.
Now, he's in this weird zone, trance,
where he's in survival mode, but he's in total shock.
And remember, for a couple of days, he's been in the Sunken Place,
so he's in a crazy mental space.
It couldn't be more of a helpless feeling, having a limp,
and then here comes Grandpa, who's got that Jesse Owens speed now.
And, yeah.
So, here, now, we're dealing with Roman Armitage.
We see his scar for the first time.
And I wanted Chris to defeat
this final threat, not with his strength, but with...
He's a photographer, and his smarts, and his wit,
and he knows he has this weapon in his pocket.
Let me do it.
The audience, here, knows what's coming,
and they're frothing at the mouth for it.
In an audience, it's a really palpable feeling, and satisfying.
Right there, we did a squib with some VFX enhancement.
A lot of the blood from the nose is done with VFX as well.
Here, I wanted to give a little misdirect, like, "Oh, my God, is he gonna shoot Chris?"
No. He took care of himself
Whether or not he's out of the Sunken Place, he's an atrocity.
He's got most of Grandpa's brain in there, a little bit of his original brain, which is...
And there's Rose.
So, yeah, the partial brain transplantation, by the way, is theoretically possible.
It was achieved on mice in 1982. New York Times article, look it up.
All right.
So, now, this is like my Othello moment.
I wanted the romance of it to play,
and, obviously, I realized that this was also the type of thing
that, 10 years ago, would've gotten this movie an NC-17 rating.
A black man choking a white woman, and the audience loving it.
So, he doesn't need to do this.
He's succumbing to the rage, the revenge and the monster.
And I wanted to make this clear line with this character
that, first of all, Rose simply out-crazies him right there,
but her smile is reflecting this perverted sense that
she'll win if he loses his humanity.
And Chris realizes he doesn't need to sacrifice his own self
And in fact, he can...
Okay. So, this moment is,
I think, the most powerful moment in the movie,
because, obviously, the audience is meant to think they know what's happening.
Any time you can do that...
You let the audience do all the work of the social implication that...
Whereas, in most horror movies,
the cops showing up at the end is a good thing,
in this movie, it means something different.
And I wanted the audience to have to face that before the end of this movie.
But we wanted to give them a hero,
and Rod coming back,
again, the technique of showing the airport
to give the audience just enough space to figure it out
before I actually reveal Rod, I think that worked effectively.
I mean, I told you not to go in that house.
Really, we... This, we...
I had about 20 different options of lines for him, and we shot 'em all,
and this was the one that felt like...
Once again, Rod is saying what we all wish he would say,
or we've all been saying, "Just get out of the house, Chris."
"T-S-motherfuckin'-A."
"We handle shit."
That's what we do.
Now, this,
"Consider this situation fuckin' handled."
I think that part was improvised, and I love that so much.
"Consider this situation fuckin' handled."
Yeah, so, Chris wins, not only because he keeps his own soul,
but he gets the full karmic justice of Rose
dying alone in the street, just like his mother did.
He is probably changed,
but he survives.
And...
And Michael Abels' score, the Sikiliza,
that's actually Swahili.
It means "Trust your ancestors, run away,"
just sort of warnings to Chris.
So, I wanted to bring this back again.
Yeah, I'm so happy with this movie.
Directing it was the dream of my life. It really was.
And it was the hardest thing I ever had to do, I've ever gotten to do.
And I cried a lot when I went home,
just because the pressure is so intense, and people are counting on you.
With a movie like this, if I got it wrong,
it could fuck with people's careers.
You have Whitford and Keener signing on to play villains in a race movie,
and if you don't take care of them
and make sure that their characters are just so diabolically quirky enough,
that you got to love 'em,
then it does them a total disservice.
So, it was a lot of pressure, but every morning, I got up, and was like...
Took a deep breath and just pretended I was a captain of a pirate ship
where I was on an adventure.
Had to be strong, had to be sure, had to know where we were going.
And I was surrounded by just the most amazing crew,
the most amazing talent.
A lot of real geniuses that trusted the vision
and trusted that it would pay off,
and so, that's the most humbling thing about making a movie.
Let's see what else to say. There's a lot...
I could probably do this whole thing again and talk about completely different things.
There really is so much that went into it.
But that's for you guys to talk about and theorize about.
I'm totally going the full director blabbermouth route.
In the beginning, I was thinking like, "Hey, should I try and leave it like Kubrick,
"so, like, for years to come,
"people are trying to piece together the mysteries of fucking Get Out?
"Or should I just totally nerd out
"and tell you guys every detail I could possibly fit in?"
Which is exactly what I would want in a director's commentary.
So, I did the nerd route.
Yeah. Thank you for listening. Thank you.
If you took all the time to listen to this, you're a true fan.
And I'd love to hear what Get Out theories you think I may have missed.
Thanks, guys. All right. I'm gonna end it now.