Daniel Kaluuya had to “get over” a bad horse-riding accident he suffered a few years ago in preparation for “Nope.”
The British actor, who stars as Hollywood horse trainer OJ Haywood in Jordan Peele’s latest film, spoke to Alex Jones and Jermaine Jenas on “The One Show” about the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) he suffered after the accident.
“I had a bad accident a few years ago on a horse riding job, and then I had three and a half weeks to prepare for this role,” Daniel said. “So I had a week to get over my PTSD in order to get ready and get good at horse riding.”
Looking at the positives of his accident, Daniel shared that he realized his experience was “a way to get through to the character” of OJ.
“My character OJ is very still, and he has this connection with the horses, so I had to get very still, and as I was getting better at riding, I was getting closer to OJ as a character,” he explained.
However, he admitted that “there was not enough time” to develop his character’s connection with horses during filming so he spent his days off with the animals.
“On Sundays and days off, I would go and do horse riding again, I would do trail rides with friends, my life was just horses, I had to cram it,” he shared. “It’s like you want to look at it and go, ‘He knows horses, he has a connection,’ so on Saturday mornings, I would go and clean the stalls, do everything that they would do, give them medicine because he would do that.”
“Nope” is in theaters now.
