Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/877064
F O C US PHOTO: CULLIN TOBIN/UNIVERSAL DGA QUARTERLY 7 FOR FIRST-TIME DIRECTOR JORDAN PEELE, LAUGHS AND GASPS ARE INTER- CHANGEABLE BY JOHN ANDERSON I N H I S B R E A KO U T hit Get Out, director Jordan Peele threw his audience Keyser Söze-sized curve- balls and a lead character who might have said, "I see not-quite-dead-peo- ple" if he hadn't been trying to avoid zombie-fi cation himself. But Peele's personal plotline got an unanticipated twist when Donald Trump was elected president: The "wake-up call" he'd been trying to deliver with his movie had largely been made. The audience for which he'd been directing his fi lm was suddenly in another place. "I was writing the movie under Obama, about what I called the 'post-racial myth,'" he says. Ironically, Peele adds, "I think the climate that infl uenced this movie also laid the groundwork for Trump's election to be possible." Get Out ended up being one of the biggest critical and commercial sensations of early 2017, grossing north of $252 million worldwide on a shoestring budget. The fi lm, Peele the director's fi rst feature, stars Daniel Cheers for Fears G E N N E X T