Daniel Kaluuya is, undoubtedly, the star of Get Out. Stars go to their film’s premiere. It’s simple Hollywood math. But when Get Out had its world premiere at Sundance in 2017, Kaluuya wasn’t there. Why? Well, as the Oscar-nominated actor revealed Tuesday in a virtual Graham Norton Show interview, the answer is simple: “They didn’t invite me.”
The actor was in Atlanta at the time shooting Black Panther, but cleared his schedule so he could trek up to Park City, Utah, for the high-profile festival. “And then, I just didn’t get an invite. I wasn’t invited,” Kaluuya told Norton, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. “So I was just in my bed. Someone texted me, ‘It’s done really well.’”
“That’s the industry, Graham!” he continued. “This is the game.”
“Somebody fucked up!” Norton declared—a likely explanation for that mind-boggling situation. When the host pressed Kaluuya to make a complaint, the actor demurred. “You don’t want to be in a place that you don’t feel wanted, you feel me?” he asked. Vanity Fair has reached out to Universal for comment.
Get Out was a breakout film for both Kaluuya and writer/director Jordan Peele. The film starred Kaluuya as an unsuspecting photographer who visits his white girlfriend’s family and discovers their horrifying secret. The film debuted at Sundance in 2017, placed in the lineup as a surprise midnight screening, with a post-screening Q&A with Peele. It hit theaters the next month, instantly smashing the box office and capturing the zeitgeist, and later earning Peele a best original screenplay Oscar and Kaluuya a best actor nomination.
Though his Sundance invite was bungled, the actor did attend later screenings of the film, including its Los Angeles premiere and multiple showings during awards season. And there seems to be no love lost between Kaluuya and Peele despite all this. The actor is reportedly signing on to star in Peele’s next secret movie for Universal, starring alongside Keke Palmer. When that film premieres, something tells us Universal’s army of event planners and publicists will be double and triple-checking Kaluuya’s invite.
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