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Jordan Peele says Spike Lee 'shut me right down' on first meeting

By Wade Sheridan
Jordan Peele (L) with his wife Chelsea Peretti. Peele detailed his first meeting with Spike Lee on "The Tonight Show." File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI
1 of 2 | Jordan Peele (L) with his wife Chelsea Peretti. Peele detailed his first meeting with Spike Lee on "The Tonight Show." File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

March 19 (UPI) -- Jordan Peele recounted on The Tonight Show his disastrous first meeting with filmmaker Spike Lee years before they worked together.

Peele, who would work with Lee on his Oscar-winning film BlacKkKlansman as an executive producer, detailed to host Jimmy Fallon how he met Spike Lee while attending Sarah Lawrence College while the director was giving a lecture.

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"It's clear that it was not his first choice of school to like visit," Peele said on Monday about Lee's less than enthused demeanor. "It's like 70 percent white women basically which is not his target demo."

"He's tough. He's got a tough exterior," Peele continued before explaining how Lee wasn't interested in answering his question and how he was told to sit down. "He shut me right down."

Peele also discussed his next film titled Us which stars Lupita Nyong'o and arrives in theaters on Friday.

"I knew I could just make a movie that I wanted to see, my favorite movie that doesn't exist and that's what I did," he said about the difference between creating Us and his first film, Get Out.

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"Unlike Get Out, this one's not about race," Peele continued. "It's about a lot of things. It's about duality, it's a monster movie."

Peele will be featured as the host of the upcoming Twilight Zone reboot that will debut on streaming service CBS All Access on April 1.

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