SEEING DOUBLE Nyong’o (as Adelaide) fights for freedom against her counterpart Red.
didn’t understand the depth and the breadth of it in my first reading.” What Peele explained he wanted to explore with the doppelgängers and their shadow world, was, Nyong’o says, “us being our own worst enemy, and the monster sometimes coming from within.” And given his intricate knowledge of the genre, Peele asked Nyong’o to watch a catalogue of horror films, including Dead Again, A Tale of Two Sisters, Let the Right One In, Signs, Martyrs, The Babadook, Annihilation and The Shining. I explain how Sarah Paulson once told me her conjoined twins role in American Horror Story was the hardest thing she’d done to date. Nyong’o’s face lights up at the mention of Paulson, with whom she worked on 12 Years a Slave. “She’s amazing,” she
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says. Does Nyong’o relate, given the Adelaide/Red situation? “I can only imagine”, she says with reverence.
UPITA NYONG’O HAS A NEW APPRECIATION FOR THOSE CHARACTERS in costume at amusement parks. Mainly because a few days before this interview, she was playing one of them at Universal Studios. It’s not what you’d expect for an Oscar-winner, but such is Nyong’o’s up-for-it attitude, she told Universal staff she’d be happy to throw on a boiler suit and reprise her Us character, Red, for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.
Nyong’o’s publicist shows me a
There was, of course, undeniable difficulty inherent in playing both Adelaide and Red. “I had to flip back and forth,” Nyong’o says of the shoot experience. “For the most part I wouldn’t shoot the same character on the same day. So at least I’d have a Red day and then an Adelaide day. On some rare occasions I had to do both.”
Wilsons, an apparently ordinary fam-
can affect and afflict one,” she says.
video of her in character at the park.
ily on a beach vacation, are confront-
“In Us, it’s class and privilege, and
opposing sides of the same coin. “I
Onscreen, a passing girl looks care-
ed one night by their doppelgängers,
the fact that we have a Black fam-
was the offender and the offended;
fully at the actress’s face before real-
or ‘shadow’ selves—flipside versions
ily taking us through the story is a
I was the hero and the villain,” she
izing who she is, then literally bend-
of them who have somehow busted
matter of circumstance. It’s not the
says. “I was playing both sides of an
ing double in shock, her hands to her
out of an underworld dimension.
exceptional thing. And that in itself
argument, coming for each other.
mouth. But mostly, the park-goers
Although Nyong’o was faced with the
I find radical and refreshing. People
That was the conflict. The conflict
shuffle through the spooky exhibit
grueling task of playing two versions
of color don’t always see the world
was between these two people. So,
unnoticing, passing by Nyong’o and
of the same self—Adelaide Wilson
through the color of their skin.”
it was very complicated in my head.”
her creepy paper cut-out Us prop.
and her counterpart, Red—her re-
During that initial read of the
spect for Peele was tough to resist.
script, while she found the idea of
was the fact that towards the end
playing both Adelaide and Red “in-
of the story, a twist reveals that
“I realized in that moment, when I was doing it, I was like, ‘Yo, this job is
“I already had such a big artistic
The main challenge was playing
What made things even worse
really hard,’” Nyong’o says, “Because
crush on Jordan,” she says. “I had al-
timidating”, she was wholly intrigued
Adelaide and Red swapped places
not everyone that walks through the
ready expressed to myself after seeing
and went to Peele for further expla-
when they were young children, and
door is into it. They’re just like, ‘Yeah,
Get Out how I’d kill to work with him.
nation. “Jordan writes in a very layered
mind-bendingly, their roles are actu-
this isn’t really for me, it’s not scaring
Then, by the time I was reading the
fashion and he writes with symbol-
ally the reverse of how they appear.
me.’ Or they’re out to break your con-
script, I was biased in his direction.”
ism,” she says. “Things aren’t what
centration. So, it’s hard to work in an
Us does not outwardly make race
“I had to prepare and develop a
they seem, and you can tell that this
roadmap for myself for their emo-
environment where not everyone is
a part of the story, which was part
is calling on something bigger, some-
tional and mental life,” Nyong’o says.
respecting the suspense of disbelief.”
of its appeal to Nyong’o. “In Get Out,
thing that has existed before, these
“With Adelaide for example, we spoke
the subject on the table was race
cultural references, political referenc-
a lot about her pursuit of normalcy.
and its paradigms, and how that
es, cinematic references. I certainly
She doesn’t want anything but to
Jordan Peele’s Us is a deliciously dark, deep dive into humanity. The
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