'Nope' - Cast Interview
“Nope” stars Steven Yeun and Brandon Perea call the project Jordan Peele’s “most ambitious film yet,” while talking to CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg. Watch as they discuss working with the acclaimed director, including “homework” they were given ahead of shooting, how they formed their characters, some of their favorite details on set and more!
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00:00 - Yeah, yeah, it's been fun.
00:01 This is fucking crazy, dude.
00:03 This is fucking crazy to me.
00:04 - There's a lot to unpack.
00:05 - Oh yes. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:07 - Right here, you are gonna witness
00:11 an absolute spectacle.
00:15 - So what happens next?
00:16 [upbeat music]
00:19 - I'm curious, did you have homework?
00:24 Did Jordan Peele give you specific reference points
00:26 as far as movies or books or anything?
00:28 - Yeah, yeah, so before the film,
00:29 I mean, I got the job right, and there was no synopsis.
00:33 The only thing that I heard was,
00:34 this is Jordan's most ambitious film yet,
00:37 and it's going to be massive.
00:38 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,
00:53 I'm like, okay, great, what the hell is he gonna do?
00:57 And I'm like, that's a weird concoction of films,
00:59 but I'm happy to watch them, that's great.
01:01 And then he never told me what the movie was about.
01:03 On Christmas Day, he just sends me the script
01:05 and says, "Merry Christmas," and then I started reading.
01:08 And yeah, that's how he told me.
01:10 - Nice.
01:10 [laughing]
01:11 Looking at the totality of Joop as a character,
01:14 this is a guy with considerable issues.
01:16 Like, he had a trauma in his past,
01:18 and he has clearly not really processed it,
01:21 and I'm just kind of just curious
01:22 how you just approach that aspect of the character
01:25 and the conversations you had with Jordan Peele about it.
01:26 - Yeah.
01:27 Well, Jordan really opened up the door for collaboration.
01:32 There was an idea of who Joop was on the page,
01:34 and then we really got to talking about him
01:35 and switched some things
01:37 and altered certain backstory things
01:39 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 What does trauma do in your life?
01:51 What does being told who you are at a young age do to you?
01:56 And that might be in child stardom,
01:59 but it kind of is also in all of us, too.
02:01 So I thought about that a lot.
02:04 - Was being a child star
02:05 something that you specifically talked about
02:07 and just kind of looked into?
02:09 - Yeah, you can look into it.
02:10 I think we have, it was interesting,
02:13 when we were making the film,
02:13 a lot of documentaries were coming out about that.
02:16 And there's obviously the storied careers that we all know.
02:21 I think for me, what I wanted to focus on the most
02:26 was really just the way in which
02:28 our kind of selves 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
02:38 of other people's projections onto us?
02:41 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?
02:47 So yeah, it was a very existential, isolated exercise.
02:52 - 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.
03:00 And I'm just curious, like, going through that museum,
03:03 did you have a favorite detail?
03:05 - Yeah, I mean, I think there's so many things.
03:08 The fact that he holds all these epitaphs
03:13 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 acquire them?
03:26 It's, you know, I think even just the secret compartment
03:31 of it all, 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 wanna tell me what's going on?
03:40 - Hell no.
03:41 - When you actually first auditioned for the role of Angel,
03:43 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.
03:50 I'm just curious kind of what the role was
03:51 before you came aboard and kind of your interpretation
03:54 of it.
03:54 - Yeah, 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, 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 in the sense
04:19 of like quirky nerdy.
04:21 I was like, oh my gosh, I'm a tech quiz.
04:23 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 or the sides, actually.
04:32 I just thought about it.
04:33 I brought it to a real place.
04:34 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.
04:43 They're kind of just like, yeah, what do you need?
04:45 All right, cool.
04:46 Scan that.
04:47 Great.
04:48 All right, you need something else?
04:49 Cool, do it.
04:50 So I kind of just went into it with that intention
04:53 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 And yeah, that made him laugh quite a bit.
05:01 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.
05:08 There's another spin that I did where it was just,
05:10 and I shout out to my reader, Chibukai Muche,
05:13 who's also an actor.
05:13 We worked together to kind of conjure up this idea
05:16 of like, let's speak in code or something.
05:18 Like, I'm running 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 And that ended up working, and yeah,
05:26 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.
05:32 [EXPLOSION]
05:33 [LAUGHTER]
05:35 And he is such a detail-oriented guy.
05:37 Everything in his movies is just so spectacularly layered,
05:40 and it's really what impresses me about his films.
05:42 I'm curious if that was something that influenced just
05:45 your character building, and also if there was just
05:47 anything either in your character,
05:49 on set, in the costuming that you found as a detail that
05:52 just blew your mind.
05:53 Yeah, I feel like I'm usually really detailed as an actor
05:57 so I can relate with Jordan in that sense,
05:58 not to say that I'm on the level of Jordan Bale or nothing.
06:00 You know what I'm saying?
06:01 [INAUDIBLE]
06:02 Don't eat me up for that one.
06:03 But yeah, I just felt like the way
06:07 that we work complemented each other very well.
06:10 I love those details.
06:11 I love hashing things out in that sense,
06:13 and we had a lot of conversations
06:15 of building this character.
06:16 And wardrobe was a big thing.
06:18 We were doing a lot of fittings.
06:20 Originally, I'd walk in, and it was kind of the nerdy fits.
06:23 And it was like, OK, this is kind of changing
06:25 the way I play it, though.
06:26 And then I think the producers realized that.
06:28 Shout out to Ian Cooper as well.
06:29 He was very hands-on when it came
06:31 to making sure 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
06:38 feel of this grungy kid that's just kind of mad
06:43 at the world type of deal.
06:44 So yeah, it was very detailed, and I
06:46 appreciate the details, because that's
06:47 what I'd like as a performer.
06:48 I'm serving a character.
06:49 You know, I'm not serving me.
06:50 I'm serving that.
06:51 And as much material as they give you,
06:53 all the more to work from, right?
06:54 Yeah, exactly.
06:55 Exactly.
06:56 So really crafting the backstory was key for me,
06:58 because I'm like, why is he in this space?
07:00 What got him here?
07:01 And that really crafted all the intention that I led with.
07:04 And I am curious.
07:06 Did you guys talk about the shoe at all?
07:08 Because it's an interesting mystery.
07:09 Yeah.
07:10 What did you think about the shoe?
07:11 I honestly don't know.
07:13 Like, I have to think about it more.
07:14 I'm curious just-- yeah.
07:15 You know, the first interview I had yesterday,
07:18 I flipped that question back on to him about the shoe.
07:21 And he said something that I was like, whoa.
07:23 He was like, I think the shoe represents
07:25 that anything is possible.
07:28 And I was like, I like that.
07:31 I like that a lot.
07:31 Yeah, I'm going to use that one.
07:32 There you go.
07:33 Nice.
07:34 Thumbs up!
07:36 Should I do it?
07:37 Thumbs up!
07:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]