Lupita Nyong’o On How She Navigated The Challenges Of Playing Red in Us

Lupita Nyong’o is the rare actress in the conversation for award season for a horror role, and spoke about playing her roles in Us. Nyong’o is considered to be very much in the mix for the fifth Best Actress spot when the Oscar nominations are announced and spoke with Deadline about playing the role of Red in the film. A couple of highlights are below:

On the emotional challenge of the film: “It was very, very, very challenging, because in this film I had to hold down both sides of the argument, and I had to be both the offender and the offended. So it was about understanding the emotional landscape of each character, but it was also about having a very strict discipline [for myself] in terms of playing them, both physically and mentally — creating myself a road map.”

On Jordan Peele helping her navigate the role: “Jordan Peele writes with real specificity, so it was very helpful to get his input. 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.”

On the hardest part of the film: “[It 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 heightened feeling that anything could happen.”