When Jordan Peele was casting his soon-to-be horror classic Get Out, he planned on hiring an American to play his hypnotized hero, Chris Washington. After all, Get Out is a story about the racism faced by African-Americans. But then he watched an episode of Black Mirror titled "Fifteen Million Merits," where a British actor named Daniel Kaluuya played a young man trapped in a dystopian society where worker drones dream of escaping their miserable lives by auditioning for a popular talent show.
Sure, this wasn't Kaluuya's first role. He'd starred alongside Dev Patel in the British teen drama Skins, acted across from David Tennant in an episode of Doctor Who, and played in a BBC TV movie called Shoot the Messenger with David Oyelowo. And after his starring role in Black Mirror, he went on to work in bigger films like Sicario, Kick-Ass 2, and Johnny English Reborn. But when "Fifty Million Merits" wound up on Netflix, that's when Hollywood came knocking, with Peele offering Kaluuya the chance to star in 2017's biggest sleeper hit.
And just like that, Kaluuya became a bona fide star. He earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as Chris Washington, and at the 90th Academy Awards, he found himself up against legends like Denzel Washington, Daniel Day-Lewis, and eventual winner Gary Oldman. He would also join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Black Panther, and it seems like the future is full of possibilities for Kaluuya, thanks to the horror movie that helped him get out of playing smaller roles.
