00:00 Yeah, yeah, it's been fun.
00:01 This is fucking crazy.
00:03 This is fucking crazy to me.
00:04 There's a lot to unpack.
00:05 Oh, yes.
00:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:07 Right here, you are going to witness
00:12 an absolute spectacle.
00:15 So what happens next?
00:16 I'm curious, did you have homework?
00:24 Did Jordan Peele give you specific reference points,
00:26 like as far as movies or books or anything?
00:28 Yeah, yeah, so before the film, I mean, I got the job right.
00:31 And there's no synopsis.
00:33 The only thing that I heard was,
00:35 this is Jordan's most ambitious film yet,
00:37 and it's going to be massive.
00:39 That's the only thing I got.
00:40 And then he texted me a couple of movies to watch.
00:43 He told me to watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
00:45 Jaws, Alien, No Country for Old Men,
00:49 and 2001, A Space Odyssey.
00:52 So he sends me all those films to watch.
00:54 I'm like, OK, great.
00:55 What the hell is he going to do?
00:57 I'm like, I don't know.
00:58 That's a weird concoction of films,
01:00 but I'm happy to watch them.
01:01 That's great.
01:01 And then he never told me what the movie was about.
01:04 On Christmas Day, he just sends me the script
01:06 and says, Merry Christmas.
01:07 And then I started reading.
01:08 And yeah, that's how he told me.
01:10 Nice.
01:11 Yeah.
01:12 Looking at the totality of Joop as a character,
01:15 this is a guy with considerable issues.
01:17 Like, he had a trauma in his past,
01:19 and he has clearly not really processed it.
01:21 And I'm just kind of just curious
01:23 how you just approach that aspect of the character
01:25 and the conversations you had with Jordan Peele about it.
01:27 Yeah.
01:29 Well, Jordan really opened up the door for collaboration.
01:32 You know, there was an idea of who Joop was on the page,
01:34 and then we really got to talking about him
01:36 and switched some things and altered certain backstory
01:39 things and really found a motivation for him.
01:42 I think for me, what was the most interesting
01:44 is that in the end, I feel like Joop is in all of us,
01:48 you know?
01:50 What does trauma do in your life?
01:52 What does being told who you are at a young age do to you?
01:57 And, you know, that might be in child stardom,
02:00 but it kind of is also in all of us, too.
02:02 So I thought about that a lot.
02:04 Was being a child star something that you specifically
02:07 talked about and just kind of looked into?
02:09 Yeah, you can look into it.
02:10 I think we have--
02:12 it was interesting.
02:13 When we were making the film, a lot of documentaries
02:15 were coming out about that.
02:16 And there's obviously, you know, the storied careers
02:21 that we all know.
02:22 I think for me, what I wanted to focus on the most
02:26 was really just the way in which our kind of selves
02:31 are formed.
02:32 Like, who are we?
02:33 Are we who we want us, ourselves, to be?
02:37 Or are we kind of like the sum of other people's projections
02:41 onto us?
02:42 And what does that do to your life?
02:44 And what does that do to your motivations?
02:46 And who are you in the end?
02:48 So yeah, it was a very existential, isolated exercise.
02:53 Well, I think a fascinating extension of that
02:55 is the Gordy's Home Museum that he keeps secret.
02:58 Which, I mean, Jordan Peele is so great with details.
03:01 And I'm just curious, like, going through that museum,
03:03 did you have a favorite detail?
03:06 Yeah, I mean, I think there's so many things.
03:09 The fact that, like, he holds all these, you know,
03:13 epitaphs of his time there.
03:16 The fact that he owns them still.
03:18 The fact that he has them.
03:19 Did he get it from the very beginning?
03:22 Or did he have to search for it over the years
03:24 and, like, acquire them?
03:27 It's, you know, I think even just, like,
03:30 the secret compartment of it all.
03:32 You know, there's this--
03:34 all of Jupiter's claim feels like a big fever dream.
03:37 You know, it's really interesting.
03:39 You guys want to tell me what's going on?
03:40 Hell no.
03:41 When you actually first auditioned for the role of Angel,
03:44 you actually had a different interpretation
03:45 of the character than Jordan Peele originally had,
03:47 and he ended up changing the role for you.
03:49 I'm just curious, kind of, what the role was
03:51 before you came aboard and kind of your interpretation of it.
03:54 Yeah, my-- the first thing that he wrote, I guess--
03:57 and I just found this out yesterday.
03:58 I didn't really know the details of Angel
04:00 'cause it was pretty simplified.
04:02 It was, like, it used to be named Artie,
04:05 and he was just a kid that was clutch,
04:07 something like that.
04:08 And he worked at a retail store.
04:11 So I just saw that, and then it just seemed like
04:14 this kid was kind of happy-go-lucky,
04:16 and I found out he's very nerdy,
04:17 like, very, like, super, like, nerdy
04:19 in the sense of, like, quirky nerdy.
04:21 I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm a tech quiz.
04:22 Da-da-da-da-da-da."
04:24 And then--so I just found that out yesterday, funny enough.
04:27 But I just never saw it that way
04:29 when I initially got the script--
04:31 or the sides, actually.
04:32 I just thought about it. I brought it to a real place.
04:35 Jordan's very good at keeping his films grounded,
04:37 and you just think those humans are alive on Earth.
04:39 So usually when I walk into a retail store,
04:41 no one wants to be there.
04:42 No one's really happy to be there.
04:44 They're kind of just like, "Yeah, what do you need?
04:46 All right, cool. Scan that. Great.
04:48 All right, you need something else?
04:50 Cool. Do it."
04:51 So I kind of just went into it with that intention,
04:54 where I'm like, "This is kind of the feel that I get."
04:56 And he thought that was so funny,
04:57 kind of this dude who's over it.
04:59 - Sure. - And, yeah,
05:01 that made him laugh quite a bit.
05:02 So I'm so glad that I entered it with that.
05:05 And I just wanted to attack it differently
05:07 than I feel like others would.
05:09 There was another spin that I did where it was just--
05:11 and a shout-out to my reader, Chibu Ken Uche,
05:13 who's also an actor.
05:14 We worked together to kind of conjure up this idea of,
05:16 like, let's speak in code or something.
05:18 Like, I'm running, like, a drug operation through crypto,
05:21 and let's just do something crazy.
05:22 So there's just this tense energy.
05:24 - Sure. - And that ended up working,
05:26 and, yeah, now I'm here today, which is crazy.
05:28 There's something out here.
05:31 Maybe you're in a UFO hot spot.
05:33 And, like, he is such a detail-oriented guy.
05:37 Like, everything in his movies is just so spectacularly layered,
05:40 and it's really what impresses me about his films.
05:42 - Yeah. - I'm curious if that was something
05:44 that influenced just kind of your character building,
05:46 and also if there was just anything
05:48 either in your character, on set, in the costuming,
05:50 that just--that you found as a detail that just blew your mind.
05:53 Yeah, I felt like--
05:55 I feel like I'm usually really detailed as an actor,
05:57 so I can relate with Jordan in that sense,
05:59 not to say that I'm on the level of Jordan Bale or another--
06:01 no, I'm not saying that. All right, yeah, so don't--
06:03 don't eat me up for that one.
06:04 But, yeah, I just felt like our--
06:07 the way that we work complemented each other
06:09 very well. I love those details.
06:11 I love hashing things out in that sense,
06:14 and we had a lot of conversations
06:15 of building this character, and, like, wardrobe was a big thing.
06:18 We were doing a lot of fittings.
06:20 Like, originally, I'd walk in,
06:22 and it was kind of like the nerdy fits,
06:23 and it was like, "Okay, this is kind of changing
06:25 the way I'd play it, though."
06:26 And then I think the producers realized that.
06:28 Shout-out to Ian Cooper as well.
06:30 He was very hands-on when it came to making sure
06:33 Angel's wardrobe was crafted
06:34 and the music I was listening to was crafted,
06:36 and that's where we kind of got this metal feel
06:39 of, like, this grungy kid that's just, um,
06:42 kind of mad at the world type of deal.
06:44 So, yeah, it was very detailed,
06:46 and I appreciate the details,
06:47 'cause that's what I'd like as a performer.
06:49 I'm serving a character, you know?
06:50 I'm not serving me. I'm serving that, so...
06:52 - And as much material as they give you,
06:53 more--all the more to work from, right?
06:55 - Yeah, exactly, exactly.
06:56 So really crafting the backstory was key for me,
06:58 'cause I'm like, "Why is he in this space?
07:00 What got him here?"
07:02 And that really crafted all the intention that I led with.
07:05 - And I am curious.
07:06 Did you guys talk about the shoe at all?
07:08 'Cause it's an interesting mystery.
07:10 - Yeah, what did you-- what did you think about the shoe?
07:12 - I honestly don't know.
07:13 Like, I have to think about it more.
07:15 But I'm curious just--yeah.
07:16 - You know, the first interview I had yesterday,
07:19 I flipped that question back on to him about the shoe,
07:21 and he said something that I was like, "Whoa."
07:23 And he was like, "I think the shoe represents
07:25 that anything is possible."
07:27 - Mm-hmm.
07:28 - And I was like, "I like that.
07:31 I like that a lot. Yeah, I'm gonna use that one."
07:33 - There you go. Nice.
07:34 - Thumbs up!
07:36 - Should I do it?
07:37 - Thumbs up! Thumbs up!
07:38 [dramatic music]
07:41 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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