From Camden to California (Inner-city poverty to Hollywood prosperity – the formula for success)
How did Daniel, black son of African immigrants, raised in Camden, London’s inner-city council estate to climb the dizzying heights of California – Hollywood and dominate one of the toughest professions ever. After becoming the first black Briton ever to win an acting Oscars in the award’s 93 history, he credits God, parents and guess what else?
By Professor Chris Imafidon – Even BAME actors who have attended posh schools with expensive traditional acting education do not achieve enough success to win a BAFTA. So the biggest question is how did a black kid of Ugandan parents, raised in poverty make his way through the very discriminatory and subjective process to land big roles in a white and middle class-dominated profession? The humble and unassuming Oscar winning actor, Daniel Kaluuya is quick to point his finger to God, Parenting and what is now regarded as the #GeniusFormula. SECRET OF SUCCESS is the Trinity of strategic parenting, God’s guidance and formula, which is widely publicised on early start with the Genius Formula, or Child prodigy.
CHILD PRODIGY
Multi-award winning Mr Kaluuya, who is the first Black British actor to win an Oscar reminds you of his childhood. Stating “When I was nine years old, I wrote a play that got performed at Hampstead Theatre with real actors and everything. That play was based on Kenan & Kel. And that play led me down a path that got me to this stage tonight” Daniel refers to the after-school programme, similar to the ExcellenceinEducation.org.uk that gives children the limitless opportunity to express themselves beyond the stale, inflexible, boring school curriculum. It was the same period that little 9-year old Daniel was expressing his talent that the likes of Samantha Imafidon and Irvin Bombo etc were also passing GCSEs at primary school age. This level of early success is a pure function of parents exposing their offspring to pursue their interests without any boundaries. Early success becomes the fuel for more achievements and attainment at a genius level or classified as a Child prodigy. This is irrespective of your postcode, race, or neighbourhood, your gender, or socio-economic or immigration status
RACISM vs POLICE
Daniel is always driven by a sense of fairness and righteous indignation. In 2013, Daniel won a suit against the London’s Metropolitan Police, after he was assaulted and racially profiled three years prior. This is despite his success, Daniel was pulled off a London bus and pinned to the ground by police officers, simply because he “looked like” someone who had been acting suspiciously. Daniel can be very vocal about the truth he is bold to state his views about society, and how people of colour, perhaps, have been excluded” from the media and from mainstream culture. Adding that “They’re trying to legitimise their own existences through this violence, and that’s one of the things I learned by playing Chris.”
He once said that when people hear my accent, they think I am not black, others think I am not British. And making light of the unfounded allegation of Duchess Meghan, He says, “I have the unwanted colour which some royals don’t want their baby to look” But on a more serious note, Kaluuya reminds his American audience that, “British racism is so bad, white people left the country, because they wanted to be free — free to create their own kind of racism. That is why they invented Australia, South Africa and Boston”
BEGINNING
Camden’s Daniel Kaluuya has every right to celebrate after picking up the best supporting actor Oscar for his portrayal of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in “Judas and the Black Messiah” The young Daniel attended inner-city London schools: Torriano Primary School in Kentish Town and all-boys, St Aloysius College in Highgate.
In his Oscars acceptance speech, he told of his admiration for Fred Hampton, who was shot and murdered by police in Chicago in 1969 when he was 21. He praised Hampton’s work in the black community and exposed the forces of the state and corrupt government that worked to bring him down. “When they play divide and conquer, we say unite and ascend,” Daniel said. Addressing the audience, he said: “There’s so much work to do guys and that’s on everyone in this room. This ain’t no single man job. We’ve got work to do. “I’m so happy to be alive so I’m going to celebrate that tonight.” He praised his character for the tireless attempt at social mobility via free education, breakfast and healthcare.
The actor first came to limelight as Posh Kenneth in the British TV series Skins, and has since appeared in films including Sicario, Get Out and Black Panther.
PARENTING SUCCESS
Mr Daniel Kaluuya’s mother is not impressed by her son’s successes. When the video-called mother in excitement to inform her of being nominated for his first Oscar, his mother didn’t understand his success. The mother who was on her way to work. It was “I was like, ‘Mom, I got nominated for an Oscar!’, and she was like, ‘Congratulations, does this mean you’re going to have a proper regular income job?’ Kaluuya said.
HISTORY MAKING JOURNEY or GOD-ORDAINED
For Daniel, the first Black Briton ever to win an acting Oscar in the award’s 93-year history, acting was NOT a given. London’s inner-city black kids don’t usually end up as actors. Kaluuya grew up in Camden with his mother and an older sister; his dad was initially in Uganda. Kaluuya jokes that his mother is from a very large family and that she is 1 out of twenty-two children …. But his father is from an even larger family as he is one out of Forty-nine children.
Poverty was a part of life: “I lived in hostels until I was two years old, and then [our family] got a home in a council estate in Camden, where I grew up. The family led by his mother was on benefits for a long while, which is what Americans call welfare,” Kaluuya wrote in a 2017 “Early Works” piece for Vice. When a primary-school teacher described Kaluuya as a “very busy” or “energetic” child and challenged the young boy. He wanted to prove the teacher wrong. “I am not an idiot”, so he invested all his energies into acting.
So in order to work off some of that extra energy, Kaluuya’s response was to write a play. He was nine years old. “The teacher said I was difficult,” So, “I thought, ‘I’ll show you.’”
Guess what? The play “accidentally” won a local competition, Kaluuya could not immediately move into the theatre. This is partly because Kaluuya and his family lived on a council estate, in London’s inner-city (This is what our American cousins call a housing project). “If you are from the estates, you don’t say [that you want to act],” according to Daniel. “Actually, the biggest problem is that you don’t know it’s possible. You don’t have the vocabulary, conceptually, to articulate that wish.” So for a while, he diverted his energy to sports and played football. Till date he supports Arsenal FC.
STADIUM VS STAGE
After his first play authored at age 9 got performed locally at Hampstead Theatre. There were not opportunities to nurture this talent. So, his mother had registered him for a program at the Anna Scher Theatre, a after school-club to get him out of trouble. And after four-years of waiting for a place, David, the “restless teenager” found an outlet for his creative energy via improvisation classes at the Anna Scher Theatre. The neighborhood facility or an after-school club offered affordable drop-in sessions, and improve was a revelation: “Being young, working class, and black, everything you do is policed,” Kaluuya said. “If someone hits you and you hit back, you are aggressive. If you cry, you are weak. You are kind of always pretending to be something. But in those improve classes, there was no pressure to be anything except honest, and that made me happy.”
Kaluuya continued his development as an actor and playwright through a youth program at Hampstead Theatre and took another step toward a career in show business by becoming an assistant at a shopping channel at age 16.
He started attending auditions, and when he was 16-years old, Kaluuya appeared in the BBC television play “Shoot the Messenger” in 2006. A role on BBC’s long-running series “Skins” followed, and for the first two seasons of that show, he was part of the writing team. Fans of the television show Black Mirror will also recognize Kaluuya from his appearance in the episode “Fifteen Million Merits,” in which his character, Bing, tries to help a crush transcend the artificial society in which they live.
GETTING OUT TO AMERICA
So, Daniel Kaluuya made his name in the U.K. on the hit series ‘Skins,’ before becoming a Hollywood star with his Oscar-nominated role in ‘Get Out.’ But it was Kaluuya’s star turn in the 2017 horror film “GET OUT” that proved to be his breakout performance.
In “Get Out”, Kaluuya plays Chris, an accomplished African American photographer who visits his white girlfriend’s family for the first time. If the visit is at first awkward, it eventually turns terrifying; throughout, “GET OUT” deliciously subverts horror tropes even as he underlines the microaggressions inherent in racism. “When I first saw the script for Get Out, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s raw,’” Kaluuya states. “I wanted Chris to be a character that black people would root for and identify with.”
For his role as Chris, Kaluuya received an Academy Award nomination for best actor. And In 2018, lined up some films, too: a heist thriller, Widows, and Marvel’s revolutionary, Afrocentric blockbuster, “BLACK PANTHER”. Kaluuya, no stranger to racism or the damning cycle of poverty, is thoughtful when he reflects on the path his life has taken. “That rage at the end [of Get Out]—I know that,” he once said. “I was fortunate that I had acting. If you [have] that anger on the street and let it out, you get arrested. I get applause.” After “GET OUT” Kaluuya has since established his big screen stardom with prominent roles in Black Panther, Widows, Queen & Slim and Judas and the Black Messiah. ‘Black Panther,’ ‘Widows,’ ‘Queen & Slim’
Kaluuya followed Get Out with the role of ally-turned-antagonist W’Kabi in Black Panther (2018). He assisted in making the Black-led superhero feature a universal success, and another memorable supporting effort in Widows (2018), as ruthless gangster Jatemme Manning. He then returned to leading man material alongside Jodie Turner-Smith in Queen & Slim (2019), their titular duo seeking refuge from the law following a date gone wrong.
‘Judas and the Black Messiah’
The most difficult role so far was in “Judas and the Black Messiah” He had to act as Fred Hampton, the Black Panther Party chairman who was murdered in 1969 by the notoriously racist law enforcement, in Judas and the Black Messiah. While he again faced harsh criticisms as a non-American actor portraying an iconic African American, Kaluuya had great reviews for his incredible performance, and won the 2021 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Critics Choice award for Best Support Actor and SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. He also won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role.
DIET AND DETERMINATION
He had to give up his mum’s food to star in Sucker Punch. Daniel received rave reviews for his performance in Sucker Punch at the Royal Court Theatre. But what most people don’t know is that he was required to lose three stone to play a boxer. This meant spurning his mother’s home-cooked food, much to her dismay! Kaluuya was born on February 24, 1989, in London, England. The son of Ugandan parents Damalie Namusoke and Stephen Kaluuya. His life is an inspiration to every African, young and old that success is possible if we apply the trinity of God, parenting and the #GeniusFormula.
Professor Chris Imafidon, is a multi-Guinness World record holder; world renowned adviser to monarchs, governments, presidents and corporate leaders; Mentor to New York Times Bestellers and a Sunday Times Op-ed author. [Twitter @ChrisImafidon; Instagram @CoImafidon; Facebook/Linkedln –Professor Chris Imafidon]
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