Daniel Kaluuya was inspired by Do the Right Thing and La Haine for his first production

The actor makes his debut behind the camera with The Kitchen: “We dream big, we think big, we see big”.

The spectators know Daniel Kaluuya as the favorite actor of Jordan Peele In Get Out And Nopehaving proven his playing versatility time and time again. He is equally capable of playing a revolutionary leader of the Black Panthers in Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King2021) which earned him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, than playing a shy young fugitive gradually transforming into a sort of modern Clyde in Queen and Slim (Melina Matsoukas, 2019). Of Black Mirror (season 1 episode 2, Charlie Brooker2011) to Black Panther (Ryan Coogler2018) Daniel Kaluuya has built a demanding filmography, constantly expanding its range of characters.

But today, he is taking a new step in his career, that of director. His first film behind the camera is called The Kitchen and was first shown at the London Film Festival. Co-produced with Kibwe Tavares (of which it is also the first feature film), Daniel Kaluuya presented his film to Empire (by revealing a first image) in these terms: “To shorten it, The Kitchen is going to be a bomb. A lot of British films are minimalist. We do maximalism.” Just that.

The Kitchen unfolds its plot in a dystopian London in which the social gap between the rich and the poor is at its peak. All social housing has been eradicated except for one neighborhood, called The Kitchen, from which the community refuses to move.

Fully assuming a social discourse, Daniel Kaluuya talks about the inspirations for the film: “We wanted to make a seminal London film, so we looked at the seminal urban films. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee1989), Hate (Mathieu Kassovitz1995), A prophet (Jacques Audiard2009), This is England (Shane Meadows, 2007). We were inspired by it all, and we wanted to build on the fantastic work done by others before us, and make our own version of it.”

“We dream big, we think big, we think big and see where we land, but let’s stay real about who we are and where we are”, he explains. A debut as a director, but not as a screenwriter, since Daniel Kaluuya had already fulfilled this function on the series Skinsbroadcast between 2007 and 2013.

The star affirms that his different experiences have allowed him to gain artistic maturity to deliver the best possible version of his first feature film: “My acting career now influences my writing. (…) Know what is true and what is not, and be receptive to that.” Daniel Kaluuya collaborated with Joe Murtagh to the script and The Kitchen which will be released in January 2024 on Netflix.

Nope: what does the chimpanzee scene mean?