You usually wouldn't expect the lead actress in a home invasion slasher to be recognized by the Academy when awards season rolls around, as that's not the sort of movie the Academy tends to pay attention to. But expectations shift a bit when the home invasion slasher in question is US, the second film from writer/director Jordan Peele, who already won a Best Screenplay Oscar for his first film, the horror film GET OUT. Then when you take in account that the lead actress in US was Lupita Nyong'o, who has also already won an Oscar, the chances of an Oscar nomination increase even further… Add in the fact that Nyong'o did brilliant work in a dual performance as both the film's antagonist Red and look-alike protagonist Adelaide, and then it's no surprise that she's still in the Oscars conversation as the day for nomination announcements draws near.
Nyong'o's chances for receiving a Best Actress nomination are so strong that Deadline even invited her to speak at their "The Contenders" event in New York.
In case you need a refresher, US followed
Adelaide and Gabe Wilson as they take their kids to Adelaide’s old childhood beachside home in Northern California for the summer. After a day at the beach with the Tyler family, Adelaide — who’s haunted by a lingering trauma from her past — becomes increasingly more paranoid that something bad will happen to her family. As night falls, the Wilsons see four figures holding hands and standing silently at the bottom of their driveway…
The four members of the family quickly realize that these four strangers are their doppelgangers, and the leader of these homidical clones is Nyong'o's Red.
Speaking with Deadline's Amanda N'Duka, Nyong'o said that playing both "the offender and the offended" in the film was "very, very, very challenging", and she worked to understand the emotional landscape of both Adelaide and Red. It helped that Peele "writes with real specificity".
Red, he called her a queen, so there was something regal about her, but she’s also like a cockroach, so there’s something a little menacing and also resilient about her. And that governed how I went about creating this stylized character. Adelaide is a more naturalistic character. She’s trying to get by unnoticed, so there’s something more just more naturalistic about her, and when the two come head to head, it’s intense. But it was also really fun to be able to do such extreme things and really advocate for both perspectives."
Beyond playing two characters with different viewpoints and maintaining the unique voice she chose for Red, Nyong'o said one of the most challenging things about working on the film was
sustaining the fear. You know, fear is not an emotion that we’re supposed to experience all day long, and yet a lot of this film is about that — that kind of heightened feeling that anything could happen."
I don't think the Academy will give US a lot of recognition, but it would be awesome to see Nyong'o receive a nomination for playing Adelaide and Red.
If you'd like to pick up a copy of US, you can do so at THIS LINK.
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