I came up with this idea during the Obama administration, when we were living in this era of the post-racial lie, racism is real and it's not really represented in the horror genre, which is a genre that traditionally takes on social horrors and human demons.

Jordan Peele

Like comedy, horror has an ability to provoke thought and further the conversation on real social issues in a very powerful way.

Jordan Peele

issues powerful real

We need to break boundaries, so every time I feel like, "Oh snap, oh my God, I don't know how this is gonna be received," I also feel this validation, like, "All the greats, all my favorites have felt this."

Jordan Peele

validation boundaries needs

Sometimes blessings come in strange packages.

Jordan Peele

strange blessing sometimes

I look at racism as one of the social demons. And, in its worst, it's violent and it's a systemic commitment to oppression.

Jordan Peele

racism looks commitment

The conversation about race is inevitable. It's one that people know that we have to have and continue to have.

Jordan Peele

race conversation people

I can fathom anything, man. I love biting off more than I can chew and figuring it out.

Jordan Peele

figuring-it biting men

A greater truth that I think we are faced with on a day-to-day basis as minorities is: We are the color of skin first and people second.

Jordan Peele

color people thinking

How we act with each other really reveals our most animal instincts.

Jordan Peele

animal-instinct instinct animal

The audience's imagination will do a better, more personalized version of the horror than you can actually paint. So that just, you know, with something like "The Blair Witch Project," which is, you know, whatever, it's 89 minutes of people running through the woods and one minute of, you know, a guy standing in a corner.

Jordan Peele

imagination running people

[ When I met Barack Obama] He says, I do a pretty good me myself - he said something like that. But he's - he is a close talker. He's a touchy guy.

Jordan Peele

mets guy said

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else. My style of filmmaking happens to be give the audience what they know they don't want, but they want. Ultimately I have to write and direct in a way that let's just say, you don't want to regret making a choice.

Jordan Peele

regret successful writing

The scariest monster in the world is human beings and what we are capable of, especially when we get together.

Jordan Peele

together monsters world

I just think racism is within each and every one of us. It's everyone's responsibility to figure out how they deal with this kind of obsolete instinct.

Jordan Peele

racism responsibility thinking

I think that human beings are the most awful monster we have ever seen.

Jordan Peele

awful monsters thinking

Back when we were Neanderthals or whatever, we evolved to think along tribal lines. Survival was based on this idea of who are we and who are the others who will come and take our resources. I think it's an animal and a human thing that we all see in terms of us vs. them, and race is a very easy way to separate who is us and who is them.

Jordan Peele

race animal thinking

Nobody wants to see sketch comedy that's the same sketch they've seen time and time again, or that's just a rehash of that thing.

Jordan Peele

sketch-comedy comedy want

Certainly, black horror movie fans have, you know, been particularly vocal. I mean, there's the whole Eddie Murphy routine about, you know, black people in a horror movie wouldn't last very long. Right? They just walk in - you hear get out. Too bad we can't stay, baby.

Jordan Peele

baby long mean

With a horror movie, you want to know where the engine of the fear is coming from. Like in comedy, you want to know what the engine that's going to make the comedy - where that's coming from.

Jordan Peele

comedy horror want

If it's comedy, you taken an absurd comedic notion and you apply it to reality. If it's horror, if it's a thriller, you do the same thing.

Jordan Peele

comedy taken reality

There might be some sinister modern form of slavery going on.

Jordan Peele

modern slavery might