Jordan Peele Looks Back on Fateful Ninth Grade Field Trip That Inspired Love for Horror

Mercifully, it’s Us release week, meaning we’re all just days away from seeing where Jordan Peele is taking our minds following his universally acclaimed debut Get Out. Speaking on the difference in the writing process behind each film on The Tonight Show Monday, Peele was careful not to give too much away while saying just enough to keep us wholly invested.

“You know, it was, first of all, I knew I could get it made,” Peele told Jimmy Fallon of penning what would become Us. “That was a big difference. When I was writing Get Out, I’m like ‘They’re gonna shut me down any second’ and with this one I knew I could get it made . . . I had a lot of love behind my back and the wind beneath my wings and I knew I could just make a movie that I wanted to see, my favorite movie that doesn’t exist, and that’s what I did.”

Asked if he felt any pressure going into the Us sessions, Peele said he did but—above all else—he feels quite privileged to be able to tell these stories.

“Jimmy, I’m so privileged to be in this position where I can make a movie, say, with a black family in the center of a horror film, which is the type of movie that I always wished I had growing up, to have something in my favorite genre,” he said. “And unlike Get Out, this one is not about race. It’s about a lot of things. It’s about duality, it’s a monster movie. I just returned to this idea of: make what I wanna see, make what I wish somebody would make for me.”

Earlier, Peele looked back on his initial foray into horror-based storytelling during a fateful ninth grade field trip. “The best laugh you’ve ever gotten in your life, it’s nothing,” he said. “When you get an audience to shudder and give you that feedback, it’s, like, so powerful. And I just felt like, man, I am Freddy Krueger. I can be the monster. I can give the night terrors. My life from that point forward has been transitioning from, like, this goofy nerd to a complicated Rod Serling type.”

Peele also delved into his childhood fear of the Nightmare on Elm Street poster, a college Q&A session with Spike Lee, the Oscars, and more. Catch both clips from the Peele x Fallon discussion above.

Us, starring Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke, is out Friday.