Jordan Haworth Peele is an American actor, comedian, director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the sketch-comedy series MADtv and Key & Peele, along with fellow MADtv cast member Keegan-Michael Key. He also gained a sterling reputation in his directorial debut in the 2017 horror film Get Out (in which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and received further nominations for Academy Award for Best Picture and Academy Award for Best Director). Additionally, he voiced Beta the wolf in the 2016 WAG animated film Storks, Melvin Sneedly in the 2017 DreamWorks adaptation of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, and Wild in the 2022 Netflix adult stop-motion horror comedy film Wendell & Wild. He also hosted the 2019 anthology series The Twilight Zone on Paramount+.
For Disney, he appeared in The Muppets episode "Swine Song". He also voiced Bunny in the 2019 Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 4. Additionally, he had approached Disney about directing and producing a live-action adaptation of the Gargoyles franchise, but Disney has currently declined the proposal due to the film having been shelved over the years.
Peele was born in New York City. His mother, Lucinda Williams, is white, from Maryland. His father, Hayward Peele, Jr., was African American, and originally from North Carolina. Peele last saw his father when he was seven years old, and was raised by his single mother on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He attended the Computer School in Manhattan, graduated from The Calhoun School on Manhattan's Upper West Side in 1997 after securing a scholarship to attend the private school, and went on to Sarah Lawrence College, where he majored in puppetry. After two years, Peele dropped out to form a comedy duo with Sarah Lawrence classmate and future Key & Peele writer Rebecca Drysdale. Peele had been a cinephile ever since he was a young child and decided at 12 that he wanted to be a film director, citing Glory, Edward Scissorhands, Thelma & Louise, and Aliens as films that had a strong effect on him.
Roles[]
(The Muppets)
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