It’s no secret that Jordan Peele literally knocked down doors and rewrote the narrative of Black people starring in horror films.We went from always being killed off first in horror films to our stories and lives being centered thanks to the director’s twisted imagination.
Still, the Oscar-winning screenwriter whose pen has created the critically-acclaimed films Get Out and Us, is also interested in creating a film that’s better reflective of his own experience, growing up biracial.
“As you’ve observed, I discussed that a lot on the comedy side. Yeah, I have some ideas for movies about, or involving, mixed families. Of course,” Peele told ESSENCE earlier this year.
Peele’s mother is White and his father is Black.
In his comedy, especially with his Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele, which ran for five seasons ending in 2015, the director often explored being biracial and the idea of code-switching that most Black people are sooo intimately familiar with.
Peele counts himself privileged to grow up biracial.
“I really do feel like, growing up, I was lucky enough to be in a great town and great schools that had a certain amount of diversity. All of this goes into our work,” he told NPR back in 2013.
But it did come with challenges, especially as he straddled the line between the two communities and cultures.
“When I was a kid,” he began, “every now and then you’d come up on somebody who would question how I spoke and whether or not I was trying to be something I wasn’t.”
“It cannot be a coincidence that I decided to go into a career where my whole purpose is altering the way I speak and experiencing these different characters and maybe proving in my soul that the way someone speaks has nothing to do with who they are,” Peele said.
