After winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2021, Daniel Kaluuya has starred in just one live-action film – but now he’s making a comeback.
Despite a couple of voice performances, the British actor, 37, has not featured on screen since 2022’s Nope, having won the Oscar the previous year for his turn in the acclaimed biopic Judas and the Black Messiah.
This week, the first trailer for Kaluuya’s new film, Misty Green, was released online. Directed by Chris Rock, the film follows a celebrated actor (played by Rosalind Eleazar) as she struggles with personal demons.
The trailer arrives a year after it was reported that Kaluuya had signed with the major US representation agency WME.
While his last live-action appearance was in Nope – a genre-bending sci-fi horror directed by Jordan Peele, who previously directed Kaluuya in Get Out – the actor has lent his voice to multiple projects, including the animated superhero sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and the Arsenal Football Club docuseries All or Nothing.
He co-wrote, produced and co-directed the independent film The Kitchen, released in the UK back in January 2024, though did not act in it.
Kaluuya also took on a role as associate artistic director at London’s Roundhouse arts venue in 2023.
After Misty Green, which will be released in cinemas later this year, Kaluuya is set to appear in the thriller Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel, directed by Together (2025) filmmaker Michael Shanks, and will reprise the role of Hobie Brown (aka Spider-Punk) in the forthcoming Spider-Verse follow-up.
He is also linked to a movie adaptation of the popular children’s property Barney the Dinosaur, reportedly still in development.
Kaluuya, who got his breakthrough on E4’s teen drama Skins, is widely considered one of the best actors of his generation, and is known for roles in films including Get Out, Widows, and Black Panther.
In a 2024 ranking of the greatest film actors of the 21st century, Kaluuya was placed at No 6.
Though he appeared in a supporting role in the smash-hit Marvel film Black Panther in 2018, Kaluuya did not return for the sequel, 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
At the time, he confirmed that the reason for this was due to scheduling conflicts with the production of Nope.