Jordan Peele’s Advice on Writing Thrillers

[Music] the power of story is that it is one of the few ways we can really feel empathy and encourage empathy built into the idea of story is the idea that you have a protagonist when you have a protagonist the whole trick that all of us are trying to do is bring the audience into that protagonists eyes behind their eyes and so this is you know a well-crafted story and a good story is one of the few ways we can really not tell somebody you have to feel for somebody else but make somebody feel because they're they're experiencing it through entertainment sir can I see your license please yeah no he wasn't driving I didn't ask who was driving I asked to see his ID yeah why that doesn't make any sense you know no you know I want to go back to the Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby as well both both are 11 stories and for me the those those movies were both extremely inspiring because what they did with in the thriller genre was this very delicate tightrope walk that sort of honored the protagonist in a way that he you early see and in the genre these days I guess what I mean is they the the characters in them ever the protagonists are are smart and they're investigative and they're on the trail and there's never a point that every step into weird town that those movies makes it doesn't equal there's an equal effort to justify why the character doesn't run screaming and that to me is that that that sort of danced between showing something weird and over-the-top and then showing how easily it can be placed with how weird reality is was that's you know that's the technique I brought to get out well it was nice to meet you Chris [Music] goodbye one of the things we achieved with Chris is like we understand why he's there even if we want him to even want him to leave we get it so I'm from you know comedy and when you do enough live comedy you're in a zone where you're trying to get the whole audience to react I have an audience in my head that I was like my best guess of how this will work for writing a joke on key and Peele I can sort of hear if it works or not and then so that moving into this this horror genre it was the same the same thing you know it's it's you just have to be very conscious of what the audience knows what the audience feels what the audience thinks is going to happen you know those things at every point Paris Kim has been in favor for the passport a couple of hundreds of years but now the pendulum is swung back black is in fashion you know what there was a draft or an almost draft in fact it probably wasn't even a drive was probably a outline somewhere in the outline process which the outline took me very long explored so many angles and there was a point where I was exploring what if Jeremy the brother of the the Armitage family also brought brought home brought him a black woman and that that would be a moment where Chris is like okay what's going on you know they're both you know why both siblings you know are bringing home black people it's like just one more kind of left and and that fat thing ended up turning into the Georgina that [Laughter] character Roman Armitage upon being beaten in the qualifying round for the Olympics went Matt and he's part of the secret society and he's the one who began working with this theory that the black physicality is is an unfair match that you know we have you know white people have the determination and the intelligence of me and the internal ability black people have this unfair body that's that's the only reason I could be me by Jesse Owens that's why the groundskeeper is always running as he's trying to beat Jesse Owens his time [Music] and by the way the you know we've got this character who's bringing him into harm's way and it's her family so the clues are there and it became that's why it will became extremely difficult to you know to extend audience to not suspect well maybe she's another she's bringing there it's almost impossible and so what it became about for me was people will suspect that I give the audience benefit the doubt they will go there they're going everywhere how do I take them back from that point and convince them but no that's not this movie though this movie would never do it and so you know there was a couple of scenes that in the original script after Jeremy the brother is like trying to put Chris in headlock downstairs we go upstairs and there's a scene between Chris and Rossum in the original script Chris was like you know the this is making me uncomfortable I don't want to be here this is what I was afraid of and she was kind of like pacifying she was like look no I know my family I see it now they're a little bit clumsy and they're a little bit might say the wrong thing but they really mean well and just give us a chance to do this for me baby and watching them in rehearsal I was like oh no I'm on to her right like the audience is feeling Chris what Chris is feeling which is like get out get out get out get out and for her to be the one that's you know taking away those arguments was just too much so we flipped it and that's where her sort of awoken Inge you know kind of came from she's the one who's like she's dating this black guy and she's seeing for the first time racism she's having this crisis and he's the one that's like actually it's this is kind of like normal races hope so all of a sudden now she is sort of representing what the audience is feeling but we're also at the same time going but you don't know what you really would you talking about and but she's definitely not trying to keep him she's not trying to pacify him she realized how dangerous smoking is yeah come in and sit with me please just please thank the trick for me was I needed to hypnotize Chris and the audience before they knew it was happening that's where the teacup comes in right she's just a teacup and she's talking about you know they're talking about pocket watches and that's not you know yeah it's a thing but whatever and then before we know it we sort of realized oh it's already happened I can't I can no longer judge him because I missed it it was that writing that scene was a little of everything it was it was all I knew just like that other scene all I knew was that I had had I've had the audience waiting for thirty five minutes for me to tell them what's going on and this was an opera seen needed to be scary so I went to this this idea of like you know what's worse what's what's worse than death and of course this this feeling of being trapped in your own body for you know eternity or or and I had always felt like you know when you when you're about to fall fall asleep and you feel like you're falling but you so you wake up and catch yourself I always thought to myself what if you didn't catch yourself [Music] [Music] well you know this this goes to you know really the conversation about genre as well because which I find completely fascinating that you know we we have we all think of we all have a structure in mind when we write a movie some three act structure for X direction or whatever it is but there's also conventions and ideas surrounding every genre and so you know it's you know genre does sort of dictate a lot of the rules in a weird way part of the reason the thriller genre to me is so alluring is because you're almost not doing it right if you're not pushing the boundaries of good taste and and darkness I had several appendix several endings in several stages of the the script writing process one of them was where it was it took place in a gated community at that point Chris is trying to get out and you know at the very end he sort of comes up against you know some final force or something and we go out we don't see what happens to him and then it cuts to like three months later and we see rod is breaking into the gated community he's walking down this sort of Main Street at the gated community he sees Chris looking in this mirror in the window as a reflection and rod goes Chris and Chris turns on he goes I assure you I don't know who you're talking I wrote the movie primarily during the post-racial lie so the Obama era when everyone was saying hey we're past racism right we did it we did and the the notion of sort of bringing up racism was almost thought of as like perpetuating it and so the movie was originally meant to be a more direct brutal wake-up call to say no the the horror movie guess what the horror movie with a black protagonist the cops showing up at the end is it different that's that's a different thing and it became very clear by showing people the movie that they want they needed a hero they needed they needed and the movie to be an escape what I love about the current ending is that moment you're talking about where the the police show up the audience does all the work of the original ending and then I have my cooking you know really [Music] [ __ ] Chris I would say you know with with writing you know everybody we all deal with writer's block we all get in our own way and my sort of mantra was follow the fun that means if if I'm not having fun I'm doing it wrong if you get to a point where you hate what you're doing it's up to you to figure out how to have fun while doing it to look at it from a different angle to let you know so I would be writing fun it's very fun super fun you know it's at a certain point you you know in the middle of questioning what am i doing this move no one's gonna want to sit through this awful sequence or is it and that's when I would say you know what put that down let's go and I get to design a secret society like that's the most fun way I can spend my afternoon work on that and eventually that gives me enough space to come back and deal with what the scene is and you have to feel the emotion of the character by the way if you ever working on writing something something you're not feeling that connection finding that connection could help you break through and solve a lot of problems for yourself yeah I got I got I got more thrillers coming you [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Top Development

Views: 398,854

Keywords: film analysis, movie review, tyler mowery, nerdwriter, lessons from the screenplay, every frame a painting, screenwriting, script breakdown, writing, workshop, writing course, teach screenwriting, oscar best screenplay, film school, us movie, us trailer, us, horror, thriller, jordan peele, get out

Id: lsxWMXj9Plc

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 16 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/keegzilla90]

"Follow the fun." - Jordan Peele

[u/DumontBlake]

That alternate ending would’ve really changed the feel of that film.

[u/NeverEnoughMuppets]

I’m glad he gave a shoutout to The Stepford Wives. Considering he basically reused the entire premise, it really is the least he could do.

[u/JaneEleven011]

Amazing thank you! Yes the advice about having fun also gave me something to think about. I just saw in cinema US really good movie i loved it so much only i didnt love the end at all... And here he was saying that get out have 2 ending REALLY???

[u/Squidwardo0435]

Wow, great resource. I did find it interesting that he found it so important to justify the actions of the characters, since the lack of that was one of my biggest problems with the "Nightmare at 30,000 feet" Twilight Zone episode. Why didn't he just show the podcast to the cabin crew, ffs. I wonder how involved he actually was the writing/direction of the show.

[u/WritingScreen]

Personally I wish he would’ve gone the route of the brother bringing home a black woman and the protagonist going to prison.

[u/Panicless]

That was great, thanks!

[u/NativeDun]

None of us should take writing advice from homie.