- Kaluuya was given the lead role in Get Out (2017) on the spot after nailing his audition. Writer/director Jordan Peele said Kaluuya did about five takes of a key scene, in which his character needs to cry, and each was so perfect that the single tear came down at the exact same time for each take. Peele told him he had the role right then, but Kaluuya later joked that since he was wary of people in Hollywood, he didn't quite believe it yet.
- While still at school he was recruited as a contributor writer and actor for the critically acclaimed UK teen drama series Skins (2007). Before long, and while still in his teens, he was writing full hour-long episodes for the show, making him one of the youngest people ever to write an episode of primetime drama.
- At age 32, he's the youngest black actor to have received two Oscar nominations.
- When he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Judas and the Black Messiah (2021), he became the first black British actor to win the Oscar (Los Angeles / 25 April 2021).
- As of 2021, he has been in 3 films that were Oscar nominated for Best Picture: Get Out (2017), Black Panther (2018), and Judas and the Black Messiah (2021).
- His parents, Damalie Namusoke and Stephen Kaluuya, are from Uganda.
- Is one of the first five people born in the 1980s to have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The first was Ryan Gosling (born in 1980), followed by Jesse Eisenberg (born in 1983), Eddie Redmayne (born in 1982), Andrew Garfield (born in 1983), and then Kaluuya.
- He loves grime music.
- Is a big supporter of Arsenal FC.
- Is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). Haley Joel Osment, for The Sixth Sense (1999) is the first male born in the decade to have been nominated in that or any acting category.
- First black Briton and second man of first generation African heritage (after Rami Malek) to win an Academy Award.
- Grew up in London's Camden Town.
- Has an older sister.
- Friends with Lil Rel Howery.
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