Jordan Peele

Jordan Peele

Director
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Life Story

Jordan Peele attended Sarah Lawrence College as a member of the class of 2001. His mother is white and his father is black. Jordan is married to comedian Chelsea Peretti, with whom he has a son.

He is known for co-writing and starring in the comedy Keanu (2016), opposite his close friend Keegan-Michael Key, and for writing and directing the horror film Get Out (2017), which has been nominated for Best Picture, lead Actor, Screenplay, and Director at the Academy Awards.

Family

Chelsea Peretti (April 2016 - present) ( 1 child)

Trivia

He auditioned by playing Barack Obama for Saturday Night Live (1975) and was offered to become a feature player but when the Writer's Strike came to pass in 2008, he found out that MADtv (1995) would be continuing and lost the part and the opportunity to be on "SNL". "SNL" cast member Fred Armisen plays Obama on that show and Peele now gets to write and perform his own Obama sketches on Key and Peele (2012).
His father is African-American. His mother, Lucinda Williams, is white, and has English ancestry. She is the daughter of Earl Haworth Williams and Josephine Helen Taylor, and has roots in the U.S. going back to Colonial America of the 1600s, specifically Maryland and Massachusetts.
Both he and partner Keegan-Michael Key were dramatically featured in a series of comic-photo examples of fictional employees demonstrating "The Saintly Way to Succeed" in a cover story and lengthy article with that title in the March 31, 2013 issue of The New York Magazine.
Along with Keegan-Michael Key, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. [April 2014].
As a child, Jordan Peele appeared on a March 1994 ABC News special called "President Clinton Answering Children's Questions." The question he asked President Clinton, "Um, yeah, I was just wondering, how can you help the families where there's a mom, and she's taking care of a kid or kids, and the father isn't willing or isn't able to pay child support?," was inspired by his own family's situation.
He and comedy partner Keegan-Michael Key made cameos as 'gangstas' in the music video for 'Weird Al' Yankovic's "White & Nerdy".
His wife Chelsea Peretti are expecting their 1st child together in this Spring 2017.
After his feature film writing/directing debut Get Out (2017) debuted to near-unanimous critical acclaim and blockbuster box office earnings, Peele announced that he had up to four other films that would be horror features that, like his first film (which dealt with racism) would address social issues through a genre framework. Producer Jason Blum said separately that his Blumhouse production group would make all of those films with Peele.

Personal Quotes 

[Barack Obama] is the best thing ever to happen to black nerds. Up until Obama, it was basically Urkel and the black guy from Revenge of the Nerds - Lamar. Other than that, we had no role models. So he made us cool.
[on being biracial] Growing up, until really last year, I don't know that I would have readily brought up my white mother to anyone. It was not something I'm embarrassed by, but to announce that was synonymous to some black people to saying, 'I think I'm better than you.' This whole thing has felt almost like a coming out as biracial - saying this is a thing, we exist, and this is a future.
[on Key and Peele (2012)] I love dishing it out to everybody, and I love doing that on the show. But Keegan and I are usually perceived as African-American, and those characters are our bread and butter. Yes, we make fun of a lot of black people, but we make fun of a wide variety of black people because we don't like this idea that black people are a monolith, that there's only one type of black people.
Keegan and I go day to day: One day we're like in an almost racial utopia, and one day that feels like we're living in the 1950s.
[2013] I no longer answer to [the name] Key.
[on his Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay] You're not a failure if you don't get this, but I almost didn't do it. Because I didn't believe that there was a place for me. Whoopi Goldberg and her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress for Ghost (1990) was a huge inspiration to me and when I got nominated one of the first things I did was reach out and call her and thank her for telling young people who maybe doubted themselves that they can do it. So I hope that this does the same and inspires more people to use their voices.

Filmography

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