Halloween is months away, but we’re already on the verge of a new horror film premiering this weekend. It’s the second film of the genre from new horror maestro Jordan Peele, and stars Lupita Nyong’o, Elizabeth Moss, and Winston Duke. But what about those kids seen in the trailer? Who are these young stars who do such a great job bringing the scares to screen? Who plays Jason in Us? Evan Alex is a young actor you may not have seen before, but will surely see again.
Alex got his start as a child actor in 2016, according to his IMDb page, and is racking up quite a few credits in film shorts. He’s also known for a YouTube series of shorts called Mani and had an appearance on Sesame Street.
Alex seems to enjoy his career, and often posts photos on his Instagram of moments at awards shows, events, or from the set. On one occasion he posted a photo that he captioned, “Jimmy Kimmel green room. Grateful for every opportunity to keep doing what I love.” Though he didn't to note what he was on Kimmel's show for, his IMDb page lists the role as “Donald Trump Jr.”
Alex was chosen alongside Shahadi Wright Joseph as the child actors for Us. Together they play the children of the Wilson family, who accompany their parents on a vacation to a beach that their mother used to frequent when she was a child.
They end up being terrorized by a doppelgänger family who look just like them, and may I saw it looks terrifying.
Alex spoke with Mulderville at SXSW and commented on working with superstar Jordan Peele. “The best part about directing is that you can sit with him and he’ll teach you what to do and how he does it and its really nice to learn it from him,” he told the outlet. Since Peele himself started out as a comedian/actor, is it possible we’ll see a film from Alex somewhere down the line too? It seems like the sky's the limit.
As all the actors in Us played two roles — their characters as well as the evil doppelgängers — Alex also had a comment on what that process was like, as he told Mulderville: “That was the best part. Being able to play two different people, going back and forth, it was really exciting.”
Peele’s first directorial effort, Get Out, was a smash success and won critical and audience success. It still holds a 98 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. He told Rolling Stone that he found himself dismayed by the film’s label as a horror/comedy though. “I’m such a horror nut that the genre confusion of Get Out broke my heart a little. I set out to make a horror movie, and it’s kind of not a horror movie,” he told the magazine.
With Us, he went straight for the heart of the frightful, and the Rolling Stone calls the film “spill-your-soda scary”. And though he didn’t necessarily set out to veer away from discussions about race, he thinks the film is better for it. “It’s important to me that we can tell black stories without it being about race," he told Rolling Stone. "I realized I had never seen a horror movie of this kind, where there’s an African-American family at the center that just is. I feel like it proves a very valid and different point than Get Out, which is, not everything is about race."
With this one, it’s all about the scares, and good old-fashioned horror. Look for Alex — and doppelgänger Alex — coming to theaters on Friday, March 22.
