Daniel Kaluuya: 'Playing Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton was a huge weight to carry'

Daniel Kaluuya had to accept the "huge responsibility" that came with playing Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah.

In director Shaka King's upcoming historical drama, the 31-year-old Brit portrays the deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party, who was shot by law enforcement agents in 1969 at the age of 21.

The Get Out star spoke with Deadline about the pressure he felt while playing the civil rights activist, and said he had to pull out a show-stopping performance in order to honour Hampton's legacy.

"If I’m being brutally honest, it’s a huge weight, a huge responsibility. And he’s a huge man, he’s a huge spirit. His words were big. The biggest version of me had to show up, in order for me to even hold the words in the way that they needed or were warranted," Kaluuya shared.

The film focuses on the story of the informant who helped the FBI kill Hampton during a raid on his apartment in Chicago, and Kaluuya said he had to simply accept the responsibility of playing the young activist, otherwise it would have affected his performance.

"I think you put it aside by accepting it, and going, 'This is real, this is a responsibility.' If you ignore it, it will just fester and manifest in a way that you won’t have control over," he mused, noting that he also spoke with Hampton's family.

"I just accept the conversation, accept the responsibility. Then you can put it to the side and do your job. And if I go, 'Oh well, there’s all these other factors that come in, that’s why I couldn’t do it, that’s why I couldn’t learn my lines,' no one cares. You’ve got to show up and do what I’ve been working for," he added.