Nope: Jordan Peele Reacts to His Old Tweet About Chimp Attack

Spoilers for Jordan Peele’s latest movie will follow! After the release of Nope, many fans of Jordan Peele were stunned to find a tweet from the filmmaker dating back to before he even directed 2017’s Get Out. Peele’s 2014 tweet revealed the Oscar winner had a dream that made him wake up crying, a dream that he appeared to adapt completely for his new movie Nope. Speaking in a new interview, Peele opened up about being reminded of his dream, revealing that he had forgotten entirely that he had it and was surprised by how deeply that idea had buried itself in his brain.

“I’ll just go ahead and spoil it, there is an animal attack at the center of this film,” Peele told Empire. “It’s funny because someone just recently retweeted something, a tweet of mine in 2014, where I was citing a dream that was very similar to this scene. I had forgotten about (it), the fact that I had forgotten about it tells you a lot about my process to be honest with you because here it’s the centerpiece of the film.”

He continued, “Most of the reference points of where I got something I remember. But (the scene) was a moment of catharsis I think, that had to continue to be pushed through this story. I think it’s about exploitation, it’s about feelings of rage at the industry and I think one of the things of power about that scene, most of us know how horrific chimp attacks are, or how horrific they’re meant to be, and yet there is something where we can’t look away. We fear Gordy but we don’t hate Gordy, and so I think there’s an interesting thing happening for the audience there.” 

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Tweeted on November 30, 2014, Peele wrote: “Dreamt that a baby chimp attacked some people then ran to me and hugged me all scared. I woke up with tears streaming down my face. #bruh.” If you read that tweet and then saw Nope, you’d likely know exactly where Peele got the idea for Gordy the chimp and his infamous attack scene. Now knowing that Peele had totally forgotten about this dream makes its resurgence in his latest screenplay all the more interesting. 

Nope is now playing in theaters with Peele already teasing what his next project might be, but he did reveal there are a couple of ideas percolating in his brain.