Black Panther actor, Daniel Kaluuya, says living in Uganda taught him a lot about being grateful with whatever little you have.
At age 7, Kaluuya who was born in London to Ugandan immigrant parents, left the UK for the first time. Together with his mom, Damalie Namusoke, he came to Uganda.
He remembers it being a culture shock since he was witnessing for the first time, life characterized by loadshedding and no toilets.
“It humbled me. Every time I went there, I was humbled. I would change my mind,” Kaluuya who in 2021 won an Oscar, revealed while appearing on Winners Talking Podcast.
When he returned to London from his first visit to Uganda, he realized it was the first time he was cautious about race.
“I saw someone and I was like… ‘Oh. White person’. I realized I could see a white person. Before, I couldn’t. I saw that then, I would see myself. But I went to a place (Uganda) where everyone looked like me. I realized that I grew a level of self-esteem being there, and I felt like I belonged,” he added.
At age 15, Kaluuya returned to Uganda for a six-week visit.
He remembers visiting some woman who “lived in the bush”.
“I went in there and then she cooked for me, she cooked for us. And then it started raining and she put leaves over us and she mentioned. But it was her attitude. She was grateful for what she had. She didn’t want for more. And then I was like ‘Look at me. I’m in London, I got running water, I got electricity, I’ve got opportunities, and I’m bitching,” said the Get Out actor.
That moment fixed his attitude, he says. The realization that she had more than people in London had.
“The attitude leveled me up. I came back to London and my career started then because I then saw opportunities. I didn’t see blocks. I just saw anything was possible.”
He says he learnt a lot about himself in his formative years in Uganda, mainly because there were no distractions like TV and WiFi. All he had for his leisure were two albums (Biggie and Jay Z) and a CD player.
ALSO READ: Ugandan-British Actor, Daniel Kaluuya among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2021
Kaluuya grew up with his mother, Damalie and an older sister on a housing project in Camden, North London. Speaking about his upbringing previously, he said: “My mum is from Uganda. She came to London to give birth to me. I lived in hostels until I was two, and then she got a home in Camden, where I grew up. She was on benefits for a long while.”
The winner of two BAFTA Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe Award also attributes his humility and attitude towards life to similar experiences he was exposed to while in Trinidad and Tobago for a carnival. There, he slept on the floor and bathed from a bucket.
“This is 2012. It reminds you of how people are living and their attitude. Like do you actually need all this stuff?”
Kaluuya hasn’t been in Uganda since after Get Out (2017). A plan to have him host the African premiere of Nope, the 2022 sci-fi horror in which he stars, in August of this year never materialized.
A correspondence sent from his L.A office to the President’s Office in Kampala stated how having Kampala as part of the global premieres of Nope was “of utmost importance to all of us, especially to Mr Kaluuya”.
On the podcast, Kaluuya who played W’Kabi in the 2018 American superhero film Black Panther, also talks about her mom and how she has always known his son will be a star. Alluding to a time when he attended a red-carpet event with her (after getting a nomination for Get Out) and her mom commenting that she always knew she belonged at the red-carpet.
“She said to me ‘I used to see those people on TV and I said my son could be there’.”
The mom has always supported him. Even when at 18 he chose to pursue acting rather than join university. Whenever she got the sense that he believed in whatever project he was pursuing, she threw her weight behind it, he says.
At 32, Kaluuya won an Oscar for his portrayal of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah. This made him the seventh-youngest winner of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the first British actor of African heritage to win an Academy Award.
Recollecting the feeling when he won an Oscar, he says he is still getting his head around it.
“Imagine I come off stage and first person I see is Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda). We hug each other. Then you’re off from one (film star) and you’re meeting legends, you’re holding the statue. You got guys like Joaquin Phoenix (Joker), Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde) hailing you up. That was really surreal,” he said while recollecting events on the night he won the award regarded by many as the most prestigious and significant in the entertainment industry worldwide.
“Then you’re like where am I at? I’m 32. So, what does this (an Oscar) mean?”
Last year, Kaluuya made it to TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people (in the world) of 2021.
