*Warning: Spoilers ahead*
After closing out a successful run at the box office this year, the horror film Us has finally been released on Blu-ray this week.
The Hollywood Reporter notes the release comes packed with featurettes, some of which include Jordan Peele and the cast contextualizing characters, symbols, and key moments in the film.
One thing Peele discusses is the composition of the family and how that may play a role in their respective motivations. "I always thought of the family in terms of a certain archetypal foursome," he said. "Adelaide is the leader, the captain. Zora is the warrior. She acts before she thinks and she kicks ass. Gabe is the fool, even though on the surface he looks like he might be the leader or the warrior. And Jason is the wizard. He’s the magician."
The Twilight Zone producer continued to discuss the character of Jason (played by Evan Alex), referencing a popular fan theory which suggests he is actually a Tethered. Peele, however, isn't so sure of this, saying, "I have this kinda concept of Jason that he can sorta see through the veil. You can see these moments where he’s observing his mother and he’s meant to be a little step ahead of us, the most clever of us that’s sorta figuring out there’s something more to Adelaide’s story than we see." With this in mind, the movie plays out a little differently.
Elsewhere in the featurettes, other tidbits movie include the inspiration Lupita Nyong’o's chilling movements for Adelaide/Red. "One of the words that Jordan used to describe her movement was the word cockroach," the actress said. "The thing about cockroaches is that they scurry and it’s so hard to hit them, but then at the same time they are so still that they can often go unnoticed."
Peele called the task of filming the characters and their Tethered counterparts "an enormous challenge, but a really fun puzzle to figure out." Each scene had to be shot twice, usually taking a day for the "regular" family and another day for the mirror family.
And what of the choice of creating the duality of characters? "The idea for this movie came from a deep-seated fear in doppelgängers and I love the doppelgänger mythologies and different movies that have dealt with them," the director said. "Throughout mythology doppelgängers often represent bad omens or a foreshadowing of one's death, so I just wanted to pinpoint and work off of that extremely primal fear.”
