Jordan Peele

0:02Hi, my name is Jordan Peele. and I feel honored absolutely fucking honored about being on Conan O 'Brien's oh no sorry I fucked it up it was going so well let me just take it back you should change it so hi my name is Jordan Peele and I feel good about being Conan O 'Brien's we had it so you guys edit and stuff Not that. Particularly. As you were.

0:58Hey there. Welcome to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend. and I'm starting with an observation here, sitting with my pals, Sona Mavsessian, Matt Gourley. And this is a complete happening that we just realized as we all sat down. I am wearing uncharacteristically a green kind of hoodie, olive green sweatshirt that I never wear. And I just put it on, waltzed in. Sona, you are wearing the exact same color in like a, what is that? Like an overcoat. It's like a trench coat almost. Trench coat. And then over here, Gourley just walked off the set of M.A.S.H. And he's wearing, I guess, thinking the role of Radar O 'Reilly.

1:38And you are wearing the exact same green. Me too. And then I'm noticing that we're sitting on the exact same green pillows. Mm-hmm. And that the chairs are the exact same color, olive drab green. Yeah. And it's almost as if, I think when this airs, it will just be faces floating. Yeah, zip up your jacket. we're going to look like three floating heads. Three floating heads just doing a podcast. I mean, of course, yes, this is an audio medium, but I know that people look at the clips. So if you want to check out the clip of... Now, what could we do? Don't we have to... Is anyone actually going to key us out?

2:16We don't need to. Because we look stupid. We're just swaying back and forth. No, we look smart. No, I worry... Hold on. I worry that there's probably more technology needed here, that the background also has to be all green and then some kind of, does anyone here understand the technology? Eduardo, do you understand it or does Blay understand it? What do we need to do to make our head just float? I understand it. I mean, basically it would be, because there's a black background, we would key out the green. So it would just be your heads on a see-through box. So we could make, we could key out the green.

2:50Is this going to cost us like thousands of dollars? No, not at all. I could probably do it on my phone. Yeah, I'm going to cover up. Yeah, if you cover up your arms. I can't do it. I can't do this. Put them under the table. This jacket is very small on me, so it's already up half my arm. That jacket doesn't fit you. Did you steal that? Did you steal that jacket off a corpse? Did you steal that? No. Did you steal that jacket off a corpse? Off a corpse? No. I didn't steal things from corpses. I think. I bought this a long time. I love getting people. I love getting people. I don't steal things from corpses.

3:20You know what I love about Sona? She has standards. She has standards. That's the only time she could say I didn't steal something. If they're breathing, then I'm leaving. Yeah, keep doing whatever that is. Well, listen, I'm just saying we're trying to create. We don't have a big budget here, but we're creating a cool, spooky optical image of our heads. Yeah, three days after Halloween. This is great. Yeah, and it'll probably air long after that. Grim grinning ghosts, come out to socialize. What? I don't know. Haunted Mansion? The three heads in the Haunted Mansion? Yeah, not all of us did time professionally at an amusement park.

4:00You act like, come on guys, you with me? Come on guys. The song you hear 75 ,000 times a day when you work at an amusement park. You gave it your all to in that performance. You know what? I bare my soul for you two assholes. And this is what I did? Well, anyway, we should probably quit doing this. It seems dumb. What do you think? We should move on with the show. We should, but you know what? Everybody should head over to YouTube. Oh, for a visual treat. Do you mean head as in pun head over to YouTube? Because we're floating heads? Grim grinning ghosts, come out to socialize. Oh my God, you're right now.

4:38I hate you so much. You are the worst. I usually love you, but I hate you so much. Oh no, you guys haven't heard? I'm a little great guy. All right, well anyway. I'm saying just go to YouTube. I'm not saying to watch this. I'm just saying go to YouTube. Yes, go to YouTube. Switch away from this shit. Yeah, don't listen to this. Go on YouTube right now. Certainly there's something you would wanna watch there. Look up a great Olympic skiing fail. Do not look at any of this shit of our floating ads. All right, let's do it. Okay. Yeah, one more transition, because we were all laughing. Like, okay, my next guest.

5:13All right, everybody. Okay, enough of your giggling. Let's get to it. No screwing around today. My guest is an Academy Award-winning writer and director behind such films as Get Out, Us, and Nope. He also starred in the hit Comedy Central sketch series Key and Peel. To say I'm excited is just not adequate. I'm thrilled. I'm overjoyed. I admire this gentleman so much.

5:41I'm so glad he's here today. Jordan Peel, welcome.

5:47Can I say something to you? I have been dying to have you on the podcast, and this is a huge delight for all of us. But I didn't I didn't know that, you know, sometimes offers come in and they just don't sort of penetrate the wall of, you know, of advisors. No, I went to your house and I rang the bell and you answered. And I said, hey, Jordan, would you want to do the podcast someday? And you said and it wasn't convincing. You said I just had drops for glaucoma surgery and I can't see who I'm talking to. And then you did that bit every time I came by. And the truth of the matter was, and I want to say this on the record, this is such, it is such an honor.

6:30It's always an honor because from us comedy people, you are the goat. Oh. You know what that means? I can get up hard, rocky mountains easily. I can digest in cans. This one's like within the last 20 years. That is so nice of you to say. Okay, I'm going to say when I first discovered you, as a lot of people did, watching Key and Peele sketches, and I would watch these sketches and I would say, okay, these are so well written. These are such great ideas. These are such perfect sketches. I mean, some of the sketches, I've spent years relating them to people. Like, you know that one? You know that one?

7:12there's the burn victim in the insult comic that one a lot of comedians really connect with this one yes yes and I mean that one I mean there's so many great sketches but that one comedian insult comedian going around the audience and then respectfully passes over someone who clearly has been in a horrible situation burns all over them and is just but passes over tries to start heckling you know doing crowd work with the next guy and the guy goes, do me. Do me. And he says, no, no, no, sir, I wouldn't do you. And he goes, I can take it.

7:53And you make him do it and then he does it and you're like, too far.

8:01I thought I could take it, but I can't. I was crying when I first saw that. I've watched it multiple times And you guys have many sketches like that. But I was like, okay, that's up there with, you know, take your favorite SCTV pieces. Take your favorite, you know, your favorite sketch from SNL ever. Take your favorite Monty Python. I mean, just the whole pantheon. You guys have a bunch of sketches that slide in there. Thank you. God damn it. They're amazing. I believe Alex Rubens was the writer on that sketch as well. And we had an amazing team of writers. So if I'm wrong about that, I'm desperately mortified.

8:40But look, I. But also the commitment, it's the it's the ideas and then the performances. I was raised on Warner Brothers cartoons and my sense of humor has always been very cartoonish. And when you guys would go into that cartoon world where reality bends in this beautiful way to to frustrate the expectation, I was just over the moon. Thank you. Yeah, I have to. And I have to bounce that right back. at you so much of this i mean so much of this is born from your your work um and your your heightening your sort of textbook you're the the simpsons yeah this you know and and it was a type of sketch comedy that you see in the best sketches where it's just kind of an aggressive and ridiculous heightening and mr show did it um and so we were just like okay we have this opportunity to do this thing yeah it's so it's yeah and then i'm you know one of the reasons i've always you know i've chatted with you we've talked but i've always thought okay if i get you in this format because i've spoken uh to keegan and i'm now it's like you're here and i'm one as i know like i always want to find out where does where do these minds come from at what point do you realize i think of very strange things and i really like comedy or was was your first true love film or was it comedy or both or Horror.

10:04Where does it all start? I probably fell in love with comedy at the same time I was getting really scared by shit. And I mean scared as a kid. A kid growing up in New York. I grew up next to a building called the Stratford Arms that was a hotel for transients is what it said on the side. And it was basically very interesting characters. Let's just put it that way. And so I had a very blessed Upper West Side upbringing. I was cultured and that whole privilege. But it was also, it's just like, there's a creepiness to it as well. So those two things, I think, developed side by side. But at some point, they collided for me.

10:48Yeah. And they did in film. So you start, what are the movies that you're watching that terrify you when you're a kid? Well, so, you know, if I'm, first thing out of my gate, this is a lot of people would say, but Nightmare on Elm Street. was that imagery for my specific generation that was like too young when that came out or too young. It was more seeing the posters and the thing that it just evoked such terror. And so that's a formative boogeyman. But then falling in love with cinema and stuff, it's stuff like The Shining. I know you've referenced Rosemary's Baby. What I see in that film that I think the best directors, you know, try to harness or a similar feel is slowly turning the dial, you know, because I always loved about Rosemary's Baby.

11:40And you can relate to this because it was filmed, you know, it takes place in the Dakota, Upper West Side blocks from where you grew up. Something's, it starts out and everything's fine. And it's the slowly turning of the knob where things are less and less fine, but it's hard to identify the exact moment when things is that is does that ring true for you i love that style and i love that location i do have this real nostalgia and connection with that of course that's where john lennon was shot yeah and so there's uh there's all sorts of uh connotations right with that area um that are so uh dark but i also think that's such a big part of the horror, kind of with comedy, is the grounding character.

12:29You know, the person that ropes us in and reacts. You know, with horror, it's the toad in the pot theory, right? If you throw a toad into a boiling pot, then that person's going to leave the scene. That character needs to get out of there. And you don't want that as a horror film. You've got to keep them in this isolated spot. So you slowly turn up the heat on the character. Yeah, the idea being the toad gets in it's like lukewarm kind of feels okay and the temperature's slowly rising things are getting more and more uncomfortable and you can kind of believe why the character would convince themselves oh well maybe it's just me you know it's so it's so interesting because there's like a i haven't thought about this at all but there are their close brothers or their their related comedy and horror there's a similar thing going on it's just because you need to acclimate somebody to something that's very normal.

13:26My favorite comedies are, let's acclimate to something very normal. And then you slowly start to bend things and twist things. Of course, you get to this insane place, but a lot of comedies that are most effective work that way. They get you to buy into a reality and then you have to start accepting a few premises here and there along the way, but you get sort of spoon fed them. And I think it's the same thing with probably really good horror or the kind of horror I respond to. Yeah, and just like the comedy, it's like the heightening, the pushing, the fantastical and the imagination. That becomes a certain type of project and exercise.

14:07But the exercise of grounding it is always what makes it work. To me, in horror especially, is the hardest part because how do you ground this idea that your protagonist would stay in this situation very long. It kind of always comes up. How can they not solve this? And you're putting the audience in this angst of wanting your character to solve it, but you're not giving that to them. And so the only way to make that in any way satisfying is to kind of like honor the grounded experience as much as possible. When you did Get Out, it's very important, as you said, if someone shows up, goes away for a weekend with his girlfriend and goes to a house, meet the family, if things are fucked up right away, they're out the door.

15:01So you have all these reasons which I can relate to, which is, no, no, this is okay. This is all right. I'm going to stay here. I'm going to stay in this. Okay, I can handle this. And then things, you can, like you say, turn up the heat on the pot. But how you do it and how gradually you do it is really important. And that's the guest who's coming to dinner setup is one that everyone kind of like connects to, which is like that anxiety of meeting your in-laws for the first time, your potential in-laws. And you want to crawl out of your skin and leave, but you can't. You're there for a reason. So we all.

15:38I just left, too. There's like, is it Bradley Whiffer? He says, oh, man, Obama. Great. Greatest president. Right. And you just think, OK, this is. I would have voted for him a third time. But I was just thinking like, to me that's also a funny comedy situation too, which is this white person is way over, is pushing it. Do you know what I mean? Well, yeah, that was the element of it. And I'm sorry I said that to you when you came in today. Well, yeah, you should. Obama, man, right? A little tone deaf. It was tone deaf. A little tone deaf. There's just such a thing as being too color blind.

16:19I'm sorry. No, you're good. I was trying to get in good with you right away, and it was weird. You're good. We know each other. Yeah, but then I was saying he should be a Supreme Court justice, and you said, let's let it go. I like him, too. I don't need to be cast as your judge. I don't need to be president of the United States. No, but look, I mean, we're obviously joking, But it's this, you know, it is in its essence, it's kind of a Key and Peele sketch. It's an observation of being black in white spaces. And in that time, I don't remember it having sort of been said like that. And so I remember just writing that and feeling like it was the moment I realized I had to direct the film that I was writing.

17:10Because I was like, I don't know anybody who can do that, who can direct that movie. So that's a big leap. Yes. Okay, you write this screenplay, obviously terrific screenplay, and you're a known quantity writer, performer, and then you say, I'd like to direct this. What was the reaction? You know, it was surprisingly okay. Yeah. This was Sean McKittrick, this guy at QC Entertainment, who I was pitching to. By the way, I pitched it like, no one's ever going to do this movie, but here's the pitch. and pitched, you know, this crazy plot and started writing it about a couple months into writing it.

17:56And again, I knew the whole thing, but a couple months into writing it, I realized, made this call and he said, go for it. And it's just like a$5 million movie. So it wasn't like, you know, it was like kind of the perfect type of risk. A part of it was we can't afford anyone else. You know what I mean? This is like micro budget. I'll direct it and you can pay me$6. I thought it would be more controversial, but he said yes way too quick. He's like, well, let's negotiate. I tried to back check. Too late. Wait a minute,$5 million? Yeah. That was the budget. Now, supposedly, it got done for$4.5, but who knows?

18:36The way Blumhouse cooks the books. No one knows. Weirdly, I got a check for$500 ,000. And I don't even think it was supposed to go to me. You're not affiliated. No, I'm not affiliated in any way, but I cashed it. You did nothing. Oh, you cashed it. Yeah, I bought a lot of cars and coats. I signed something when I did promotion on your show. You did. Remember when you did promotion on the show and you thought it was just a standard, I agree to be on this show? So that's what it was. Yes. You were the inspiration for Bradley Whitford. Yeah, well that's the other thing, right. Yeah. It's an obvious.

19:13His name in the movie is Cronin Orion. I just don't hear it that often. It's really weird.

19:31I feel like I've produced a film with you. Let's talk about that. Do you feel that way? Well, you and I had an interesting, and I don't know where this is going or what you're doing with this project. Yeah, I don't know. But I'm just going to say that I got this invitation to go to your office and I didn't know anything about what was going to happen. And then you had this, it was absolutely fascinating. I think it was over two hours, you and I, and I think you've done this with a bunch of other people. But you just presented me with a bunch of decks of cards and I would select different cards that would lead us towards the making of a movie.

20:12And so, okay. And I would, so I'd pick a, you know, you'd start out with genres and I would just pick three genres and you and I would talk about them. We produced it together. And this is your life. Your life is making films. That is your life now. and you're making these films and you think about it and you're clearly extremely gifted at it and this is what you've been put here to do. And then there's me and I'm just firing all these ideas at you about how we could make this movie. It was really fun. So I'll give you a little comment. Do you think we ever got close to making a movie together that could be made?

20:50Be honest. Yes, yes. Our premise was solid. Okay, okay. And you were a big part of that. Now, wait, can I backtrack for just a second? And because this is something that these are a bunch of sessions I've been doing with people whom I admire. The Ryan Cooglers, the Paul Thomas Andersons of the world. I don't know what's going to happen of these, but they really are amazing at sort of like learning about how other creative people think about the filmmaking process. Right. The Daniels, some just incredible filmmakers. and then con it.

21:30Well done. You gotta break it up every now and then. You know, every now and then it's like, this is this amazing French meal, V.C. Soise and you know, just perfectly baked, you know, steaks and everything. And then every now and then you gotta just have - New perspective. Yeah. Fruit loops. Some fruit loops. Fruit loops with a big, with a lot of almond milk. And so the whole thing was we did a, we ended up, it's kind of like D &D, but making a movie. And it's a fake movie. And we ended up making a Christmas movie. Yeah, we ended up making a Christmas movie that I remember thinking at the time, I absolutely think this could be a Christmas movie.

22:12Yeah, that's the fun of it. I think this could be a Christmas movie. And we're not, you know, I don't want to get too much into it because we did record it, so you never know. This could be something. I don't know what you're doing with all this. It could be a movie. But spoil away, I don't care. Okay, well we had, it was really fun. It was a lot of fun and it was really fascinating because my thing is to just pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch. And I threw so many bad ideas at you and my favorite part was watching the light go out of your eyes. When I'd be going down a really bad road and I'd see you go, okay, uh-huh.

22:50Yeah, Conan. maybe and we were really had to act like we're going to pitch this in a meeting with executives so sometimes you'd say just don't do that whole run in the meeting with the executives yeah yeah that's right that was really fun we had to well yeah and you had to you had to talk some actors off of some ledges and stuff because that's part of part of the game is every now and then you'd say okay now it's time to pick a disaster like there's a right uh there's a there's a kerfuffle there's a problem so you'd splay out other cards because there are all these different decks of cards and I'd pick one out and it would say, you know, your actor has lost his mind and run off set.

23:24Who was the bad egg? Woody? Woody Harrelson was causing us some problems. Yeah. Anyway, it's. Which just, you know, I think the minute you draw the Woody Harrelson card, you know he's going to be causing problems. Trouble. How many were shooting on location? And but you sent me in to deal with Woody a bunch of times. Yeah. And to deal with Woody and his issues. And then also Jen Aniston was part of our, because that was one of the cards we drew. Right. And I was not allowed to speak to her. That's a wise choice. As a producer, we made some early decisions. That was really funny. Wise choice. I remember it.

24:04I was just not allowed to. It's very real. You were so good. I could see why you're very good at what you did, because you were very gentle with me, but you were like, Jordan, Jordan. I was legitimately honored. I just knew if I could mine that gold in this way. Yeah, it's like, okay. And I think also Charlize Theron is in there and you were saying like, yeah, Lala, I'll talk to them. I'll talk to them. Now, why don't you go talk to Woody?

24:33Woody's in the trailer. Go hang out with Woody and I'll deal with the ladies. And I'm like, all right, okay. I still don't understand why I can't have dinner with them. but i mean all uh you know just out from the in the context of the of of all of these sessions i've done it's just i mean that one is just gonna live forever for me it's like holy shit i just got to like it movie improv with conan basically it was fun it was really fun we had a very good time um you know i want to kill momentum with another compliment that's okay we we play those he always fast forwards them or takes them out i take them right now yeah um it's funny because i think uh you asked me about the movie halloween while we were there and i know that this is one of your all-time favorites is the movie is the movie halloween and i remembered you asked me a question about it trying to think if it was about was it about mike myers on sign out live mike myers and michael myers and the connection between the two yeah that probably yeah doesn't exist but i i just asked you about the rumor about him having a poster poster up in his office okay i remember i remembered what we were i remembered we mentioned halloween at one point so i don't remember but i do love how we can clean that up you love the movie halloween that is one of your favorites and what i love is you're it's so specific but i've heard you talk about there's a way that mike myers uh there's something about his physicality and the way he kills that you find really fascinating well i mean you know the thing about michael myers is i i think of him as a truly minimalist uh villain which i i just love that you know i think that's that's always the scariest i mean the master class with him you know the story about the mask that it was a william shatner mask i've heard that that was painted the prop guy just went to the store was like fuck we got a It could be this whatever, this clown mask, or check this out, and it all clicked.

26:33And Carpenter's a genius. So what I love about that film is how Carpenter tailored this monster in all of the choices. The mask, the way he moves, the stillness shot from across the street, and the Where's Waldo aspect. it's just all very elegant for what what's ultimately you know meant to be a brutal kind of killing tale and that's kind of like that's why i think horror is you know such elevated cinema when done right i've noticed something that i was watching the movie that came out a number of years ago uh the witch and it's uh is it eggers who made that film and i noticed that there was one thing that to me i love a movie that creates such an eerie environment things that aren't otherwise scary are frightening to me so there's one shot early in the witch which just shows a bunch of it's a tree line it's just a tree line and the wind's moving through it it's a new england tree line and the wind's moving through it and the leaves are rustling and it stays on that shot and there's the music and i remembered feeling like the the the hair on the back of my neck standing up and i thought that's to me i like films i don't necessarily need blood flying everywhere constantly i love this idea of something's amiss and otherwise normal sort of harmless looking objects or environments suddenly scare the shit out of me and i can't tell you why i mean so much is the music right i mean like the same moment can go so many different ways and if the music is scary then it'll be scary if the music is too happy it's even scarier you know it's it um uh i yeah i'm all i'm all about tone as well so what's what is your all-time favorite if you had to do?

28:42Wow. Horror. Horror? God, it's so hard because I don't know, I don't think I'm qualified to say because I don't know the genre as well. Sure you do. Come on. I mean, I see Three Men and a Baby as a horror film. It has that ghost in the window, that famous ghost. No, I'm always, a comedy that hits me the wrong way is to me the ultimate horror film. You know, if there's a comedy and I feel like, nah, I didn't like that, that's more horrifying to me than anything. It's like, really? You guys were going for comedy? That's horrible! Well, you know that ghost behind the curtains in that one scene of Three Men and the Baby.