Warning: This article contains spoilers for Jordan Peele's Nope!
Jordan Peele's third movie Us, and as the characters try to make sense of the extra-terrestrial entity stalking the Agua Dulce ranch, they each leave a lasting impression.
The best characters in Nope aren't just stand-ins for social commentary on spectacle and the quest for fame and attention, but also have an impact on the plot, and drive the creative direction forward without being ciphers. The acting choices of the cast convince fans that what they're seeing is real, frightening, and above all, thought-provoking.
Otis Haywood
Otis Haywood receives very little screen time in Nope, but his presence is felt throughout the movie thanks to the shadow of grief from his untimely death in the first ten minutes. His son OJ, who bears witness to the unexplainable phenomenon that kills him, carries his pain like a saddlebag he never unpacks, allowing the burden to permeate his life in quietly self-destructive ways that damage his father's credibility.
Played by Keith David, who has a pedigree of working in The Thing, They Live!, and other distinguished movies about aliens like Nope, the senior Haywood has the distinction of being related to the first filmed human, a Black jockey on horseback named Alistair Haywood. Otis espouses the classically Western themes of stoic integrity and an unflappable work ethic, and when he dies, it mirrors the erasure of Black cowboys in the American West the Haywoods fought so hard to combat.
Gordy
The theme of trying to tame a wild animal takes on several different forms in Peele's film, involving everything from horses to extra-terrestrials, but the most salient lesson involves Gordy, the famous chimpanzee known for two things; starring in a '90s sitcom, and beating several of his costars to death. He is an integral part of his costar Ricky's formative years, one of the only actors to survive the ordeal.
Gordy represents what happens when humankind's desire to control something in the animal kingdom with human rules doesn't end well, and the sequence involving the massacre is both incredibly terrifying and twistedly fascinating. Gordy eschews being anthropomorphized by casting off the trappings (tiny birthday hat) that the humans insist he adopts, revealing himself to be the animal he always was.
Angel Torres
When the two Haywood siblings first begin their foray into UFO surveillance, they head to Fry's Electronics to get the appropriate equipment (fittingly, the location is themed for space invaders). There, they meet Angel, a sardonic tech who ends up out on Agua Dulce ranch helping them install their cameras, unwittingly becoming embroiled in their quest for the "Oprah shot" of the flying saucer.
As Angel, newcomer Brandon Perea brings a lively energy to the part and is an appropriate foil for the siblings' banter. He's not quite as extroverted as Emerald and not as sophomoric as OJ, and provides much of the Nope's comic relief. He has a wide range of emotions and his reactions, large and bombastic as they are, help ground the movie's more incredible scenes.
Ricky "Jupe" Park
Wearing pearl-buttoned shirts and a cowboy hat, Ricky "Jupe" Park is the peppy owner of Jupiter's Claim, a garish Western theme park specializing in horse tricks. Once a child actor who starred alongside a chimpanzee named Gordy in a popular '90s sitcom, the horrific on-set massacre left him emotionally scarred but with a strange obsession with combining family entertainment and wild animals.
Ricky seems to think he owes his survival of the massacre to the fact that he had a personal connection with Gordy, though it's more than likely because Gordy's eyes were obscured by the table he was hiding under, and therefore couldn't make direct (read, aggressive) eye with him. Steven Yeun is most known for dramas and comedies, and does a commendable job telegraphing Ricky's naivete and shrewd business acumen, making what happens to him later in the film both tragic and oddly satisfying.
OJ Haywood
OJ Haywood has the sort of even temperament that makes animals at ease around him. He doesn't try to control them - rather, he strikes an agreement with them. Never approaching them by human-defined rules, he earns their trust in ways that other characters don't think to. That being said, he doesn't inherit Otis Haywood Sr.'s sense of charm, and thus the family business of horse wrangling loses clients until a encounter with a UFO gives OJ a second chance at greatness.
David Kaluuya, Peele's frequent collaborator plays OJ with a solemnity that can sometimes border on tepid, and some viewers will be frustrated that his character is so inaccessible. Still, Kaluuya reminds audiences that a character doesn't have to be likable to be entertaining. Because OJ doesn't care about being famous and resists spectacle in his everyday life, he's the perfect person to confront the alien entity.
Antlers Holst
Antlers Holst is supposed to be one of Hollywood's greatest cinematographers, yet he's present when OJ and Emerald bungle a tawdry commercial job after their father's death, unprepared for how to fill the professional void he's left behind. Holst is a cantankerous creative who favors analog technology and lives for getting "the impossible shot," and after some convincing, he helps the Haywood siblings get their shot of the saucer.
Holst is played with a wonderful world-weariness by veteran character actor Michael Wincott, whose gravelly voice was a mainstay in '90s genre movies like The Crow and Alien: Resurrection. Though he doesn't get as much screen time as the leads, he makes every scene he's in a banquet with his scenery-chewing delivery. Holst has dedicated his life to chasing fortune and glory, and in the pursuit of his art, he's lived unfulfilled. His caution to his young cohort is this; the risks and cost are too high to be obsessed with the "impossible shot"; live in the here and now, or don't live at all.
Emerald Haywood
Spunky, extroverted Emerald Haywood inherited her father's flair but none of his responsibility, arriving late for professional business opportunities and not being there for her brother OJ when he needs her the most. Though their father's death brings them together, it's the mysterious object in the sky over their family ranch that makes them reform their bond.
Em is a breath of fresh air, and her character sparks the most momentum in the film. Not only does she insist on capturing the "Oprah shot" of the UFO, but she's also the one to enlist cinematographer Antlers Holst to get it. Played by Alice's Keke Palmer, a former Nickelodeon star who found her way into horror movies, she brings a dynamic quality to Nope that really sells its supernatural quality.
Jean Jacket
Movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Independence Day have all approached the flying saucer mythos in different ways, and it usually involves it as a ship piloted by sentient beings with a specific intention for Earth and it's inhabitants. Nope posits that the saucer isn't a ship but the entity itself and that the saucer isn't even its final form.
Like Jaws, Jean Jacket (named after one of the horses on the ranch) is the real star of this creature feature, and it has a truly awe-inspiring transformation over the course of the movie. Humans trying to understand the unpredictable chaos of a wild animal through prescribed laws of nature render Jean Jacket undefinable. Even its physical representation, which sometimes looks like a sand dollar with innards like a bounce house, is illusory (its true form is something almost aquatic, and it attacks similar to a corral), and it doesn't just embody the fear of the unknown, but the deadly nature of success, vanity, and spectacle. No matter how gruesome, spectators cannot look away, which ultimately is their downfall.
