Allison Williams, the actor who gave life to Rose Armitage in Jordan Peele’s horror filmGet Out, has shared that the original ending (the one included in the theatrical cut) is “perfect” and invokes a sense of “happiness.” Williams addressed this during a conversation at New York Comic Con 2024, whereshe spoke about Peele’s debutand its relatively happy ending.
The actorspoke to Comic Bookduring the convention, and she expanded on the general reception toGet Outafter test screenings. She says the inclusion of a single character during the conclusion was a very smart decision by the writer/director whose feature directorial debut earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Nevertheless, it wasn’t always like that.
Test screenings forGet Outran with an alternate ending, which put the main character Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) in prison after he strangles Rose (Williams). Rod, his friend from those very funny phone calls, visits him and asks him about the previous events, but Chris just assures him everything’s over. Peele felt this ending was more in tune with the reality of the situation as it showed the realism of racism. Williams speaks about the changes Peele had to make:
“Well, it’s interesting because we all signed on to the movie with the original ending. It felt really honest, we live in America. If there’s a black man over a dying white woman’s body, and then there’s a house full of dead white people, we all kind of know how that’s going to go. And so, Jordan was pretty clear that he wanted the ending to speak to the truth of the situation.
It ended with the Lil Rel [Rod, Chris' friend]character basically trying to get any last bits of information that Chris could think of. Like what? What? Is there anything else? There was film in the camera and there were all these things. It was basically like Chris or Daniel Kaluuya kind of going back into the prison and being like, ‘it’s over now.’
That’s good. Basically saying, ‘Yes, I’m in prison for the rest of my life, but I put an end to this thing that they were doing and that’s enough.”
InGet Out, Chris is a young Black man who’sconvinced by Rose, his girlfriend, to go on a weekend getaway so he can meet her family.The Armitages are the whitest family you can think of,but rest assured, because the father, Dean, would have voted for Obama for a third term if he could. The very first day, Chris realizes something’s off with the family. When more guests arrive, he becomes part of a conspiracy.The color of his skin is actually a valuable item in the most horrific science experiment you can think of.
Jordan Peele Felt Compelled to Change the Ending of Get Out in the Name of Realism
Williams remembers the reaction after the test screenings. Peele was convinced he had to change the ending because the change of tone was too dramatic and perhaps negative for the final result. Showing the reality of the country was not the best decision in the alternate ending:
“What happened was that when we tested the movie, audiences went from like, ‘I’m at a ten out of ten this movie’s awesome.’ To the ending, which was just like, ‘OOP!' Everyone was like, ‘I feel so darkly sad, and this is too real.’
Basically. What Jordan realized, which is so brilliant, is that the light of two of the police lights on, Chris and Rose on me and Daniel created this reaction in the audience of the fear for him of what the presence of the police was going to mean for his future…And then, you had the release and the triumph of it being, Lil Rel showing up, and it was like, Rod was this savior. He had been the worried one the whole time. And it’s just such a perfect ending.
People left the theater feeling triumph and happiness, instead of feeling deeply down. I think it helped create the life that the movie had. I mean, you may’t argue that it would have had the same life with the other ending.”
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It was certainly a tease that those lights shone on Chris' face, and the audience had a mini-panic attack. The police had arrived and no one would believe him and the extraordinary ordeal he had gone through. Fortunately, it was Rod in the police car, his very loyal friend who, as it turns out,had always been right about the Armitages.
