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From Comedic Genius to Horror Master: Retracing Scare Tactics EP Jordan Peele’s Career
Jordan Peele, the executive producer of Scare Tactics, has become the king of horror in recent years, but his career began in comedy.
Over the past decade, Jordan Peele has emerged as a new-age king of horror, finding inventive ways to frighten even the most fearless among us.
Whether it was his blockbuster smash hit Get Out and its terrifying examination of racism in America or his sci-fi-infused Nope, Peele’s out-of-the-box thinking has earned him a slew of devoted fans and even prompted legendary director Steven Spielberg to declare him “the hope for the future.”
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“One of my favorite filmmakers today is Jordan Peele because he has found a way to take a popular concept, right from the culture, and give it the Jordan Peele spin, kind of like the peel off the rind. And you find a really original thought inside every single one of his films,” Spielberg recently remarked.
Peele is set to do it again as the executive producer of USA Network’s new hidden camera series Scare Tactics, a spine-chilling and hilarious reality show that takes everyday people and unwittingly drops them into carefully crafted scenes worthy of a horror movie.
But Peele’s unique brand hasn’t always been horror. Fittingly for Scare Tactics — a perfect blend of humor and horror — the veteran actor, writer, director, and producer got his start in comedy.
Read on to learn more about Peele’s impressive career and how it led him to where he is today.
How did Jordan Peele get his start?
The New York City native grew up on the Upper West Side in a single-parent household before heading to Sarah Lawrence College, where he hoped to become a puppeteer, according to Biography.
While in college, however, Peele fell in love with improv and ultimately left the school and moved to Chicago to pursue his comedy dreams. Peele performed with ImprovOlympic and Second City while in the Windy City before finding his way to Amsterdam, where he performed with the comedy ensemble Boom Chicago, according to a PBS profile.
When did Jordan Peele Meet Keegan-Michael Key?
Peele first crossed paths with future best friend and frequent collaborator Keegan-Michael Key in 2003. As Peele once told Jimmy Kimmel, according to Mental Floss, he was visiting Chicago with his troupe Boom Chicago when he saw Key perform with Second City and admired his work. Key felt the same way when he saw Peele take the stage.
“He makes my heart giggle,” Key once told The Toronto Star of the long-lasting friendship, to which Peele added, “We’re each other’s funniest person.”
How did Jordan Peele get his start in television?
Both Peele and Key were also cast members on FOX’s sketch comedy show MadTV. Peele joined the show in 2003 and stayed for five seasons, and won an Emmy for writing the lyrics to the parody video "Sad Fitty Cent" during his run on the show.
After leaving MadTV, Key and Peele decided to bring their comedy talents to the next level as the co-creators of the successful Comedy Central sketch show Key & Peele.
The popular show, which earned Peele an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series, ran from 2012 to 2015.
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In 2013, the series won a Peabody Award for its ability to “tackle racially charged issues and ideas like no one else on television,” according to The Wrap.
By 2015, however, both of its stars were anxious to pursue new projects.
“This is our final season – and it’s not because of Comedy Central, it’s us,” Key told the outlet at the time. “It was just time for us to explore other things, together and apart. I compare it to Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.”
The next year the movie Keanu, starring both Key and Peele, was released. The crime comedy, which was co-written by Peele and Alex Rubens, followed two cousins as they battled some of Los Angeles’ fiercest criminals to save an adorable kitten.
Jordan Peele’s Transition to Horror
Peele made his directorial debut in 2017 with the critically acclaimed horror movie Get Out. The movie, which starred Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams, told the story of a young Black man who goes to visit his white girlfriend’s parents for the weekend and tackles racism in America in terrifying fashion.
"It was very important to me to just get the entire audience in touch in some way with the fears inherent [in] being Black in this country," Peele, who also wrote and produced the movie, told NPR. "Part of being Black in this country, and I presume being any minority, is constantly being told that ... we're seeing racism where there just isn't racism."
Although it was only made with a budget of $4.5 million, the film would go on to gross more than $250 million worldwide and received four Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture and another for Best Director, according to PBS. Peele took home an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film.
He followed up the success with the release of horror movies Us in 2019 and Nope in 2022.
Aside from his directorial projects, Peele launched his own film and television production company, Monkeypaw Productions, in 2012 to bring even more unique perspectives and underrepresented voices to storytelling.
Under the company’s umbrella, Peele produced the 2018 film BlackKKKlansman. The movie, directed by Spike Lee, was inspired by the true story of a Black Colorado police officer who wanted to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.
The company has also produced Tracy Morgan’s The LAST O.G. on TBS, Lovecraft Country on HBO, the true-crime docuseries Lorena, Amazon’s Hunters, and the 2024 film Monkey Man, just to name a few.
Now, Jordan Peele is rebooting Scare Tactics
One of Peele's latest projects is the reboot of the USA Network show Scare Tactics, a terrifying hidden camera show that puts real-life people in situations that could be pulled straight from a horror movie.
"Each episode will feature devious pranksters setting up friends and family, known as targets, in hilariously twisted scenarios that blur the lines of reality, horror, and comedy," the official synopsis explains. "From a casual dinner party that takes an unexpectedly cannibalistic turn to a pair of newlyweds that are the proud new parents of something ... less than human, the targets will navigate one unreal decision after another as audiences laugh, jump, and are left breathless for more."
Under the Monkeypaw banner, Peele and Win Rosenfeld will serve as executive producers of the chilling, hilarious reality show. Other executive producers on the project include Scott Hallock and showrunner Elan Gale.
This latest project is just one more sign that Peele isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
Peele teased on X that his next highly-anticipated directorial project will be released during the 2026 Halloween season.
Although few details have been released about the horror movie, Peele told fellow funnyman Conan O’Brien on the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast it could even be his “favorite movie” yet.
Scare Tactics will premiere on USA Network Friday, October 4 at 10 p.m. ET. The debut episode will simultaneously air on Bravo, SYFY, and E!.
