Jordan Peele Doesn't See Himself Casting "White Dude" as Movie Lead

With Us opening to a $70 million weekend, Jordan Peele has another bonafide hit on his hands.

The hot-as-fire Hollywood director scored an Oscar for his last horror film Get Out, so it’s no surprise, especially to him, that excellently crafted movies with a diverse cast do very well.

Peele said that Us isn’t a film about race so much as it’s about the fact that he believes we’re our own worst enemies. It was important to him that the family in the film was Black, which is rare for the horror genre.

It’s “very important” for Peele “to have a Black family at the center of a horror film,” he told students at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Hollywood.

According to AV Club, the director went on to talk about casting choices for upcoming films: “I don’t see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie,” he said. “Not that I don’t like white dudes, but I’ve seen that movie.”

Peele, who is rebooting Twilight Zone next week on CBS All Access, is thrilled to be able to use his position of privilege in Hollywood to make more diverse horror films- a genre that has historically use people of color as no more than a body to add to the killer count.

“The way I look at it, I get to cast black people in my movies. I feel fortunate to be in this position where I can say to Universal, ‘I want to make a $20 million horror movie with a black family.’ And they say yes.”

Monkeypaw, the production company Peele owns is also behind the upcoming remake of the horror classic Candyman.