It certainly surprised a lot of people when the first directorial effort from Jordan Peele, a man known almost exclusively for comedy, produced one of the best thrillers of the last several years. The movie wasn’t only a box office success, it was an awards season darling, garnering multiple Oscar nominations and even one win. It was something nobody saw coming, except apparently Get Out co-star Allison Williams.
Speaking with EW, Allison Williams reveals that only after reading the script, she told her publicist that she thought Get Out would become an Oscar-nominated film. Even she realizes that was a pretty bold thing to say, calling herself delusional, before the movie had even begun filming, but it’s perhaps fitting, considering the one Oscar that Get Out did win was for screenwriting. Williams explained…
Before I left to film it, I told my publicist that I thought it would be nominated for Oscars. She was like, this girl is delusional. Who says that? What kind of pompous weirdo goes to film a movie and is like, this film I have picked will be nominated for Oscars. Then, much to her shock, I happened to be right.
It sounds like even Allison Williams was a bit surprised that her own prediction came true, and to be fair, while Get Out wasn’t one of those movies that gets nominated for a dozen different awards, it was nominated for four of the biggest, including Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. It lost two of those to another genre film, Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water. In another year Get Out might have been a big winner.
In addition to Jordan Peele being a first time director, the other “strike” against Get Out was that it fit into the thriller/horror genre, which doesn’t often get the recognition it deserves when it comes to awards season. But in the end the movie really was that good and there was just no way it could be overlooked.
Allison Williams has built a solid career for herself within the horror genre. After her turn in Get Out she has appeared in James Wan’s Malignant and she also appears in this weekend’s M3GAN. While there has clearly been something in each of these scripts that appealed to her, she saw something extra special in Get Out.
There are people whose entire job is to find scripts that are going to be successful, either as box office hits, award winners, or more preferably, both. Perhaps Allison Williams should hire herself out as a script reader. I know a few movie studios that would love to have somebody with her talent on board.
