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How Daniel Kaluuya’s experience with hard life in Uganda changed his work attitude

Ugandan-British actor Daniel Kaluuya said visiting Uganda and seeing firsthand how people were suffering gave him the attitude he needed to work hard.

Daniel Kaluuya

According to Kaluuya, on one of his visits to Uganda, he visited a woman who had no kitchen and she had to cover them with leaves when it started raining while she was cooking.

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Kaluuya, who grew up in public housing in London, said he stopped complaining and focused on working because he realised he was way more privileged than what he had experienced in Uganda.

"Six weeks holiday sometimes I will just go to Uganda. The first time I left the country. The whole six weeks. That was the first time I left the country. And imagine I'm there like, no electricity sometimes. There ain't no toilet. It's a culture shock. It humbled me," Kaluuya said while appearing on the Winners Talking Podcast.

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"I had been to a place where everyone looked like me. I grew a level of self-esteem being there and it felt like I belonged. We went to some woman's place and she lived in a bush, and back then I thought I was from the estate. I used to go, have that mindset, and I went there and she cooked for me, she cooked for us. When it started raining, she put leaves over us," he went on.

"It was her attitude. She was just grateful. She was grateful for what she had. And then I was like, look at me, I'm in London, I got running water, I got electricity, I got opportunities, and I'm bitching. It just fixed up my attitude. And that's something that you can just, you have to live to really understand. It just leveled me up. I think I came back to London and then I think my career started then. Because I just saw opportunities."

The 33-year-old Oscar-winning actor achieved a career breakthrough after starring in Jordan Peele's horror film Get Out in 2017.

He has starred in popular movies like Black Panther, Queen & Slim, and Nope.

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