He is the first black British actor to win an Oscar and has been hailed as the ‘outstanding talent of his generation’.
But Daniel Kaluuya has become the talk of Hollywood again in recent weeks, not for his work but for a scurrilous old rumour which resurfaced on the internet about why he has barely appeared on the big screen since winning his Academy Award.
The Camden-born actor – who was swamped by movie offers after his 2021 best supporting actor Oscar win for Judas And The Black Messiah – has been conspicuous by his absence, leading many to speculate about why he isn’t a bona fide A-lister like Idris Elba.
And when one fan on social media site X lamented about why Kaluuya had appeared in so few blockbusters, another shot back: ‘He joined a cult.’
The post was viewed 24million times before it was finally taken down.
But the exchange sparked ‘Daniel Kaluuya and cult’ to start trending on social media – reigniting the rumours which began on the set of his film Nope, his first movie after winning the Oscar.
Back then multiple US outlets, including the New York Post and The Hollywood Reporter, linked him to a colourful New Age character called Heir Holiness, real name Vanylla Salimah Mahmoud – a self-described ‘spiritual adviser and life strategist’ who once identified herself as Kaluuya’s manager.
Daniel Kaluuya, winner of Actor in a Supporting Role for Judas and the Black Messiah at the 2021 Academy Awards
In the original stories friends and insiders told how Kaluuya had parted ways with powerhouse agents Creative Artists Agency, fired his publicists and claimed there were ‘concerns’ about the degree of influence Heir Holiness had on him.
Respected Hollywood journalist Matthew Belloni also said the crew of Nope were ‘afraid’ of the woman who called herself ‘a spiritual gangster’ amid ‘concerns she has taken over his life’.
Last week, after the rumours resurfaced, a Hollywood executive who knows Kaluuya said he ‘hasn’t ‘disappeared’ and is simply focusing on what he wants to do, adding: ‘Daniel has always marched to the beat of his own drum. He hasn’t followed the conventional route.
‘After he won the Oscar everyone assumed he would take on huge blockbuster parts but his next film was Nope and, since then, he’s focused a lot on smaller movies and on writing and executive producing.’
Indeed, Kaluuya is currently filming the third movie in the animated Spider-Verse series and is developing a live-action film based on children’s character Barney, the purple dinosaur.
He is now represented by another Hollywood powerhouse agency – William Morris Endeavor – and has several writing and directing projects in the pipeline through his production company 59%.
Next month the actor – who was raised on a north London council estate by his Ugandan single mother – will also host a theatrical workshop for young actors at London’s Roundhouse theatre, where he first started out.
His Hollywood break came in the 2017 film Get Out, a horror thriller about a black man caught in a nightmarish visit to his white girlfriend’s family estate.
Already a star in the UK thanks to roles on TV shows such as Skins and guest roles on Doctor Who and Black Mirror, Get Out earned him his first Oscar and Bafta best actor nominations.
Kaluuya as Chris Washington in the 2017 film Get Out
Gillian Anderson and Kaluuya attend the Burberry Spring/Summer 2023 runway show
Kaluuya has never denied his association with Heir Holiness but, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, he addressed the unfounded cult rumours, saying: ‘It showed me that I was in a paradigm of fame. An unnamed, unverified source has more credibility than what is actually said and the truth of the situation. Like, “Wow, so a bunch of people decided it’s happening, then it’s happened?” And it’s like, well, that’s not what happened.’
And what of Heir Holiness? When The Mail on Sunday approached her at her Las Vegas apartment last week she described the actor as ‘family’. When asked why she thought he had not followed a typical route to fame, she said: ‘Daniel is not the dish that you use every day and put in the dishwasher. He’s a different type. It’s unfortunate that people don’t understand that but Daniel’s not the type of actor that needs to do a film every year. He’s bigger than that.’
When asked directly about the cult rumours she burst out laughing, saying: ‘I don’t do any of that. They made it up. It was very shocking. Somebody played a lot of games and tried to do a lot of damage and they were unsuccessful.
‘There was a game in play. He’s a big commodity. They wanted to beat somebody up. They wanted to be mad about something. I wasn’t involved in Daniel’s business. They got pretty mad when he didn’t do what they wanted him to do. Pale people have a certain perspective on life.
‘Somebody on a movie didn’t like me. My main thing when I was there was to make sure he’s safe, make sure he’s fine, that he’s able to do his work.
‘He’s my family. All of it is fake.’
