Characters / Nope

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Characters in the sci-fi horror movie Nope.

Haywood Ranch

OJ Haywood

Otis "OJ" Haywood Jr.

"What's a bad miracle? They got a word for that?"

Played By: Daniel Kaluuya

A man trying to run his dad's animal training group for Hollywood, still traumatized from his death six months earlier. When it becomes clear that there might be an actual UFO on the grounds, he helps his sister try to catch a picture of it to save their ranch.

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• Almost Famous Name: Though his actual name isn't the same (OJ stands for Otis Jr), people wince and associate his name with that of O. J. Simpson.
• Ancestral Name: He is named Otis after his father.
• Body Motif: Eyes. This is emphasised in a roundabout way by OJ's tendency to avoid eye contact in general, and more directly by the "look into my eyes" gesture he employs a few times, as well as Daniel Kaluuya's large eyes being given prominent focus in close-ups. It's fitting, as OJ is the one who figures out the importance of making or avoiding eye contact for dealing with Jean Jacket.
• Chekhov's Skill: OJ grew up learning how to train horses, giving him considerable insight into how animals act. This becomes important once he realizes the UFO isn't a ship, but an animal.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: He tries to save Angel, Emerald, and a TMZ reporter from Jean Jacket, despite the great personal risk to him in doing so. OJ succeeds in saving Emerald and Angel, but he can't save the reporter (and he wasn't that invested in him anyway), and he falls victim to the UFO.
• Color Motif: Less so than Emerald, but his nickname is the same as a common shortening of "orange juice", and he wears an orange hoodie in the climax.
• The Comically Serious: While his sister puts on a bombastic performance to sell Haywood Hollywood Horses (and her talents) to the cast and crew of a commercial they're working on, he just idly stands by with a bored expression on his face. Most of his comedic moments are usually understated observations about the weird events around him.
• Foil: To Ricky.
  • Both want to exploit Jean Jacket for profit. However, Ricky simply wants to recapture lost fame and glory, while OJ wants to help his family’s ranch, which is struggling financially after his father’s death. Ricky also seems to have learned nothing from his experiences with Gordy, leading to his mishandling of Jean Jacket and his death; by contrast, OJ is more respectful of animals due to being raised in a horse training family, and that helps him ultimately survive and achieve his goals.
  • In terms of the film’s Western inspiration, Ricky is portrayed as a cowboy stereotype: he’s outgoing and folksy, dresses the part, and speaks the lingo. However, he essentially does this to play a character at his theme park, without any actual connection to the genre or knowledge of proper animal care. On the other hand, OJ is the film’s actual, realistic cowboy; he’s brooding and asocial, his clothes are ordinary yet functional for working on a ranch, and he demonstrates actual care for his horses and an understanding of how wild animals behave.
• Hero Protagonist: Most of the story follows OJ, from his struggles in handling the ranch after the death of his father, to performing the dangerous work in his and Emerald's attempts to capture footage of the alien.
• Heroic Sacrifice: OJ lures Jean Jacket towards Jupiter’s Claim, knowing full well that he might die. The film keeps it ambiguous whether he survived his encounter or if his reappearance after Jean Jacket explodes was just a figment of Emerald's imagination. Jordan Peele eventually confirmed that he survived the experience.
• Honor Before Reason: Jupe's offered to buy the entire ranch off him before, but OJ refuses, citing that his father changed the industry with their ranch and he refuses to give it up despite their money troubles.
• Meaningful Name: In a film about the ethics of and motivations behind spectacle, and one that frequently references 90s pop culture, it's fitting that the protagonist pointedly shares a nickname with O. J. Simpson, whose infamous 1995 trial attracted a media circus.
• Missing Mom: Even before his father died, his mother was out of the picture, and aside from a brief shot of (presumably) her photo, it is never mentioned where she is or what happened to her.
• The Nicknamer: He calls multiple characters by shortened versions of their names: Emerald becomes Em, Ricky (Jupiter) is Jupe, and Antlers becomes Ant.
• The Quiet One: OJ is a generally stoic and collected fellow.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When he finds a pair of aliens inside one of his buildings, OJ simply says "Nope" and leaves.
• The Stoic: He doesn't appear to react much to anything, and when he does, it's with a very collected demeanor.
• Straight Man: He's understated and stoic compared to the wild and zany Emerald, Angel, and Holst, which is the source of some comedy.
• Tragic Keepsake: He sleeps next to the nickel that killed his father.
• Uncertain Doom: The movie itself leaves it ambiguous if he survived the events, but Jordan Peele did eventually confirm his fate: he did indeed survive..
• Unfortunate Name: OJ shares his name with a certain infamous ex-football star (although in his case, the "J" stands for "Junior" rather than a middle name). Lampshaded on the commercial set he works on.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Selling some of his horses to Jupe leads to the latter keeping Jean Jacket in the area, which leads to the deaths of everyone in the Star Lasso Experience.

Emerald Haywood

Emerald "Em" Haywood

"This could be an opportunity. I'm talking rich and famous for life."

Played By: Keke Palmer

A kind-hearted, charismatic, and ambitious young woman who doesn't want to be stuck training animals at a ranch for the rest of her life.

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• Action Girl: OJ may be the horseman in the family, but she's a skilled biker, and manages to both kill and photograph Jean Jacket in the climax.
• Ambition Is Evil: Her desire to succeed in Hollywood is painted as a negative trait given the film’s larger themes about spectacle and attention, even though she’s clearly a talented young woman who just doesn’t want to stay tied to a failing horse ranch for the rest of her life.
• Animal Motifs: Wolves/coyotes. Emerald wears several articles of clothing with canine motifs, including an oversized button-up shirt patterned with howling wolves, a child's athletic shirt with the team name "COYOTE" printed on it, and a band t-shirt depicting a cartoonish wolf with heart eyes. Emerald's association with large canids is striking when one considers OJ's speech about predators late in the film: one cannot tame a predator, but can enter into an agreement with one. Wolves are often used as a metaphoric device for hunger and lust, while coyotes are associated with tricksters and scavengers. Canids are also the exemplary social predator of western mythology, maintaining close-knit family groups for the purposes of protection and hunting. Emerald is hungry for fame, even predatory in her pursuit of it, but her loyalty to her family tempers some of her more extreme behavior.
• Badass Biker: She demonstrates her skill with motorbikes with a sliding stop before killing the alien once and for all.
• Beware the Nice Ones: One of the most kindhearted (and comedic) characters in the film, Emerald is also the one to set off the theme park helium balloon mascot that explodes and kills the UFO in the end.
• Blithe Spirit: Em can light up a room at her most charismatic, as shown in her Establishing Character Moment (see below).
• Brilliant, but Lazy: She boasts a wide range of skills applicable to any business opportunity, but scoffs at OJ offering her chores around the ranch to do.
• Chekhov's Skill: Em mentions several of her skills in her opening scene, including "motorcycle stunt rider". Her skill at riding a motorcycle plays heavily into the climax.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Fitting her name, she primarily wears shades of green, the wallpaper in her room is green, and her very first scene even has her standing in front of a green screen.
• Deuteragonist: She initially plays freeloading second fiddle to OJ, but she ends up being the more proactive of the two, from convincing OJ to get security cameras to taking initiative in calling Holst to get his assistance. She is also the focus of the climax, being the one who both destroys AND gets a photo of the alien, after OJ serves as bait to lure Jean Jacket away from the motorcycle she is on long enough for it to turn on again.
• Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: Em is an energetic, charismatic, talkative woman who aspires to fame and fortune, while OJ is a quiet, collected, somewhat socially awkward man who wants to keep running the family ranch.
• Establishing Character Moment: Within seconds of arriving, Emerald gives an energetic advertisement of her family's horse training ranch and charms everyone around her, establishing her as a Blithe Spirit with a lot of charisma, but she's also self-promoting, which OJ finds crass.
• Expy: Emerald’s arc shares many similarities with, of all characters, Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz. Like Dorothy, Em fantasizes about leaving behind her humble origins in search of glamour, but a harrowing adventure teaches her not to turn her back on her family. This is referenced repeatedly in the film: her name draws from the Emerald City in Oz, she’s shown watching an Oprah clip where the guest references Dorothy’s ruby slippers, and at one point she is whisked away in a tornado-like funnel of wind. Just as Dorothy watches the Wizard escape in a hot air balloon and awakens surrounded by her family, Em watches the Jupe-balloon end her own nightmare — and sees OJ in the distance.
• Final Girl: Averted. It seems like this might be the case at one point, but in the end Angel (and possibly OJ) survive.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Neither of the siblings get along with Angel at first, but after he and Emerald survive Jean Jacket's attack by hiding in the house together, the two share a fistbump of victory.
• Gemstone Motifs: Emeralds, due to her name and the color green that follows her around.
• Lipstick Lesbian: From talking about sleeping at her "girl"'s place (with no implication that said "girl" is her daughter, particularly since she isn't mentioned again and in order to have a daughter old enough to own their own place, she'd need to have had a child at 10), to talking about sleeping with her female therapist and flirting with a woman at the electronics store and on the set of the ad, it is all but outright stated that Em is a lesbian, or at least bisexual.
• Missing Mom: Even before her father died, her mother was out of the picture, and aside from a brief shot of (presumably) her photo, it is never mentioned where she is.
• Nice Girl: Em’s generally a kindhearted individual who, while a bit pushy, is generally looking out for the interests of her brother despite their contrasting personalities and opinions about the ranch.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Emerald exudes nothing but nerves and quiet fear on the day of OJ’s run. She goes along with the group’s plan without cracking a single joke, showing just how seriously she’s taking the alien threat. Additionally, her usual charisma is completely absent during her interaction with the TMZ reporter. While she’d ordinarily have no problem bluffing him into leaving (the way she bluffed Jupe earlier on), she’s clearly so shaken by the past couple of days that she doesn’t have the energy to properly dazzle him.
• Small Town Boredom: Emerald moved to Hollywood partly because she never felt as connected to her small town/ranch surroundings as her brother did. This partially informs her desire to sell the family ranch to Jupe, along with the fact that the ranch is facing substantial financial losses.
• Social Climber: Emerald is The Idealist who wants to become famous, hence why she moved to Hollywood, and wants to film the UFO in order to achieve this goal. The ending hints that she might get this fame, as she manages to get a damn good shot of Jean Jacket, though she is seriously shaken by the overall experience.
• Straight Gay: Were it not for one or two lines of her mentioning that a therapist she occasionally sleeps with is a woman and telling another woman she passes while shopping she looks nice, she gives off no stereotypical indicators that she's attracted to women.
• The Unfavorite: Emerald admits to feeling this way because her father was more focused on grooming her brother to run the family ranch.

Otis Haywood Sr.

Otis Haywood Sr.

"I guess some animals ain't fit to be tamed."

Played By: Keith David

OJ and Emerald's father and the original owner of the ranch. He was killed by Jean Jacket, albeit unintentionally.

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• Death by Looking Up: Looking up when Jean Jacket was expelling various objects caused a nickel to pierce his eye. Had he not looked up, it likely would've just hit his skull and caused minor injuries.
• Eye Scream: He is mortally wounded when Jean Jacket expels a coin that pierces through his eye and implants itself deeply in his brain.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Em claims that he and OJ shared a similar hard-headedness and had difficulty with accepting change.
• Living Legend: He was the horse trainer in Hollywood.
• Parental Favoritism: He groomed OJ as his successor, completely shutting out Emerald from the business, even taking the horse that he promised to teach her to train away from her for a movie he was working on. Emerald still holds a grudge even after his passing, and her relationship with OJ is tense at the start of the film. OJ suggests that this was because her father and her were too similar, causing them to butt heads.
• Plot-Triggering Death: His death at the start of the film causes the rest of the Haywoods' plot, and arguably Ricky's B-plot as well. While Jean Jacket was clearly already eating humans at this point, if Otis Sr. had been alive the ranch probably wouldn't have been in such trouble as he would have still had some clout to get clients, OJ wouldn't have needed to keep selling horses to Ricky (thus enabling him to keep Jean Jacket in the area, to the point it starts becoming dangerously territorial), and the siblings wouldn't have been so desperate to profit off Jean Jacket with the 'money shot' and thus wouldn't have unwittingly tricked Jean Jacket into eating the horse statue, leading it to devour Ricky and his audience.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He dies within a few minutes of seeing him, but his death and the financial trouble it leaves OJ in leads to him selling Jupe some of the horses. This leads to Jean Jacket marking the area as its own and ultimately killing around 42 more people.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He dies within the first few minutes of the film.

Lucky

Lucky

One of the horses kept on the Haywood family ranch.

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• Meaningful Name: His name is Lucky, and he survives three encounters with the UFO.
• Nerves of Steel: While the other horses are prone to panic and run when sensing the UFO’s presence, Lucky stays still and doesn’t flee. He’s not completely fearless, as he can be heard whinnying anxiously when the alien is close and bucked in fright after being faced by a VFX chrome ball in the commercial shoot, but his tendency to halt in place and not look at the alien turns out to be key to surviving encounters with the entity.
• Released to Elsewhere: Subverted. OJ sells him to Jupe after he gets spooked at the commercial shoot, not knowing that Jupe intends to feed him to the UFO as he did the other horses he bought from him. Lucky ends up surviving.
• Sole Survivor: He’s the only horse from the ranch that manages to survive. He’s also the only survivor of the Star Lasso show, ironically so considering his whole purpose there was to be fed to the alien.

Jupiter's Claim

Ricky "Jupe" Park

Ricky Park

"What if I told you that you'll leave here different? I'm talking to you. Right here, you are going to witness a spectacle."

Played By: Steven Yeun (adult), Jacob Kim (child)

A former child star who was forced to retire after a traumatic event during a live sitcom recording. He's desperate to reclaim his fame, and resorts to rather unorthodox measures...

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• Aesop Amnesia:
  • After his experience on Gordy's Home, he should know better than anyone that anthropomorphizing animals is incredibly dangerous and that you can't change an animal's nature. Instead, he tries to tame an extraterrestrial creature and tries to use it as a theme park attraction, only to be one of the creature's many victims.
  • Considering how he was abandoned by Hollywood after the Gordy's Home event, how disgusted he is to run a private museum based on Gordy's Home, and his distasteful tone of voice when he talks about how Saturday Night Live mocked the tragic event. Jupe should also know better than to pander to the general public and grovel to reclaim his stardom since they only see him as a means of entertainment.
• Alas, Poor Villain: It's hard not to feel bad for him when you see the look of horror on his face when Jean Jacket shows up early and he realizes what's about to happen, followed by the screams of him and the audience members, including his own wife and kids, being eaten alive.
• Ambiguously Evil: While there's no denying he is one of the antagonists, one could make the argument that he just wasn't aware of how dangerous Jean Jacket is. While he is indirectly responsible for many of the deaths in this movie, he never intentionally wants or aims to kill anyone; while he is still very greedy, ironically that greed makes him more morally grey, since he never intends to harm anyone, and judging by his PTSD he isn't mentally stable enough to be aware of how the whole 'Star Lasso Experience' is a very bad idea.
• Bad "Bad Acting": In what little is seen of the Gordy's Home taping, Jupe as a kid misplaces his inflections, blows takes, and stammers through his lines, with not much in his acting repertoire other than an awkward Fascinating Eyebrow. As an adult, his attempt to seem casual and nonchalant while recounting his trauma comes off as artificial, barely masking his true pain; while he is noticeably better narrating the Star Lasso Experience, he's been rehearsing and revising exactly what he's going to say for weeks.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents: His chimpanzee co-star Gordy was shot only a couple of feet from him, leaving his face splattered with his blood.
• Breakout Character: In-universe. Ricky wasn't actually the star of Kid Sheriff so much as only one of the child protagonists, but his performance as Jupiter proved popular enough to warrant further success, while the other two child actors' careers never took off; Em even wonders aloud what happened to "that black kid".
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: He wears a deep red suit as part of his daily costume at his theme park. He is also splattered with blood during the flashback to the Gordy incident.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Jupe was a somewhat popular child star before an event on the set of a sitcom left him with lasting trauma.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Naïve Animal Lover. Ricky is a former child star who worked on a television series called "Gordy's Home" and during a special birthday episode, Ricky would be the only actor to be unharmed by Gordy (Tom Bogan was killed by Gordy, while Mary Jo Elliot was brutally disfigured and Phyllis Mayberry lost part of her hand). Ricky believed he had a special relationship with Gordy and believes it was the reason he survived the attack but it's heavily implied that Gordy only spared him because the animal finally came to his senses after the attack and because Ricky was unwittingly covering his eyes by hiding under a table. In his adulthood, Ricky tries to bond with Jean Jacket and foolishly believes that he had tamed an extraterrestrial creature, which eventually leads to the deaths at the Star Lasso Experience after Jean Jacket angrily consumes the audience after accidentally eating a horse statue.
• Establishing Character Moment: Jupe happily reminisces about his time as a child star, including showing Emerald some of his memorabilia despite his obvious trauma about the event, showing just how much he wants to become famous again. Even more disturbingly, he specifically keeps mementos from the time his chimp co-star went berserk and mauled/killed his co-stars, showing how deep in denial he is about his trauma. When he's prompted to talk about that event, he can seemingly only process it by gushing about the Saturday Night Live sketch parody version.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Though Jupe has his own secret private museum for parkgoers who inquire about Gordy's Home, it's implied that he's disgusted by it and the people who come just to talk to him about it, and only operates it for the money's sake and to prop up the self-delusion that he's not traumatized.
  • Jupe seems to secretly dislike how the incident was exploited by the media; a passive-aggressive note creeps into his voice when he says how Chris Kattan played Gordy on the SNL sketch, saying he "pretty much nailed it, better than I could".
    "The star of the sketch is Chris Goddamn Kattan as Gordy, and he is... undeniable, 'kay? Bit goes like this: Everyone's trying to celebrate Gordy's birthday, but every time Gordy hears something about the jungle... Gordy — Kattan — goes off, and it's— It's Kattan. He's just crushing it, he is a force of nature, he is killing on that stage. Yeah. It's legendary. Legendary shit".
• Former Child Star: He was in one popular kid's movie and a sitcom which lasted for a little over a season before his co-star, a chimpanzee, went berserk and attacked the cast and crew, leaving at least two of the stars dead and another permanently disfigured. The tie-in website portrays him as desperate to maintain relevance in the current day, and his stunt with Jean Jacket was an attempt at this.
• Formerly Fat: He was noticeably pudgier as a child actor than he is as an adult.
• Freudian Excuse: Jupe's naivete towards animals stems from his traumatic experience on Gordy's Home, a sitcom about the Houston family adopting a chimpanzee named Gordy. During a live birthday episode, the chimpanzee became overwhelmed with stress and suddenly attacked his co-stars, believing he was in danger and needed to defend himself. During a 6-minute rampage, Jupe had to hide under a table as Gordy was too busy killing two people and brutally disfiguring a third to notice him. When Gordy calmed down, he tried to initiate a fist bump with Jupe but was shot by the local authorities. Because of Gordy's fist bump, Jupe falsely believed he was spared because of their prior friendship. After the Gordy attack, Jupe lost his stardom and fell into obscurity, resulting in him becoming desperate to reclaim his fame in his adulthood.
• Friend to All Living Things: Invoked but horribly averted. Jupe thinks he survived Gordy's rampage because he had a closer relationship with the chimpanzee than the others. In reality, Jupe survived by pure luck because Gordy calmed down after attacking Jupe's co-stars and Jupe survived because he was hiding under a table and his eyes were obstructed ^note  Primates see prolonged eye contact and baring teeth as an intimidation tactic and will become violent in response . In his adulthood, Jupe applied the same logic to Jean Jacket and thought he could form a bond with the extraterrestrial creature by feeding it live horses. Only for Jean Jacket to consume the audience, Jupe's wife, his children, and Jupe himself instead.
• Heads, Tails, Edge: An unusual non-coin example: during Gordy's attack, one of the actress's shoes lands standing straight up on its heel. Jupe is so fixated by this that he stares at it over the entire encounter (and later has it mounted in a display case) instead of looking at the chimp, which ends up saving his life. On a more metatextual level, this represents him not being consumed by violent spectacle by not engaging with it at all. Unfortunately, he fails to make the connection here, and believes he survived because of some unique connection with animals.
• Irony: Ricky's attempts to deny his trauma on Gordy's Home only repeats history as he's killed by Jean Jacket in a similar attempt to commodify a wild animal.
• Karmic Death: He's eaten by the alien predator he had sought to commodify, just like the horses he had fed to it.
• A Lesson Learned Too Well: After surviving Gordy's rampage on the set of Gordy's Home, Jupe misinterpreted the lesson and thought he was spared because he had a closer relationship with Gordy than the others, resulting in him trying to tame Jean Jacket, an extraterrestrial creature that he thought was a ship full of sentient aliens, which lead to his own death when he realized that he fatally overestimated himself.
  Otis Haywood Jr.: We're not the reason it settled down here. That was Jupe. He got caught up trying to tame a predator, you can't do that. You gotta enter an agreement with one.
• Motifs: Ricky is strongly themed around space, as his nickname is "Jupe" (as in "Jupiter"), he played Mikey Houston (named after the Space Center Houston) in a sitcom about a family who adopts a space chimpanzee, and he tries to tame and exploit an extraterrestrial creature.
• My God, What Have I Done?: As Jean Jacket begins to suck up his audience, the camera holds on Jupe as he slowly realizes how badly he's screwed up.
• Naïve Animal Lover: After surviving Gordy's rampage as a kid, Ricky attempted to reciprocate the exploding fistbump that the bloodied chimp was extending to him before the animal was shot down. Some of this apparent belief that he can control the untameable extends into adulthood, as he tries to put what he believes is a UFO (which turns out to be an even more dangerous creature than a chimp) into a live show for his profit.
• Obliviously Evil: He's not so much evil as he is extremely overconfident and naive, but nevertheless, feeding the horses to Jean Jacket and opening the Star Lasso Experience results in the deaths of at least 40 people, including his wife, his children, and himself. It's heavily implied that his unresolved trauma over his experience with Gordy has severely warped his sense of judgment on the matter of non-human beings.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • As Gordy rampaged and killed the two actors playing his parents and mauled the actress playing his sister, Jupe hid underneath a table. Then the chimp spotted him. Luckily, he had calmed down by then, but given that balloons were still going off in the studio, anything could have happened if animal control hadn't arrived when they did...
  • He gets another one when Jean Jacket sucks up him and the entire Star Lasso audience.
• Power of Love: Jupe believes he survived Gordy's rampage because of their close relationship and tragically misunderstood the fist bump gesture from Gordy. Gordy went on a rampage because he was deeply stressed by the audience and the balloons and when he calmed down, he initiated the fist bump because that was part of his training as an animal actor.
  • There is a chance that Gordy's attempt at initiating the fist bump was an attempt at showing affection or even comforting the obviously terrified child Jupe. However, affection does not equal control, which Jupe can't comprehend.
• Reality Show: He briefly starred in one as an adult, Jupiter's Orbit, about his experience running the park while being a husband and father to his three sons. Given the ages of the boys on the poster in his office, it's likely the show ended not too long ago, as there's never a film crew seen at Jupiter's Claim.
• Released to Elsewhere: Jupe gets subtly uncomfortable when OJ tries to broach the subject of buying his horses back, as he has already fed them to Jean Jacket, and when Em gives him an excuse to change the subject he immediately graps it.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: In-Universe. It's implied that Gordy's rampage on Gordy's Home caused Ricky to lose his status as a child actor because he was so traumatized by the event that he couldn't act or work with animals again. This also indicates that the producers wanted to distance themselves from the attack, and did so by dropping Ricky as one of their stars. Ricky's denial of his trauma and attempt to domesticate Jean Jacket ultimately implies that he is trying to prove to the public that he's able to act again and is in no way traumatized by what happened.
• Stepford Smiler: The Depressed kind. He's an ebullient theme park entrepreneur and seemingly loving husband and father, but it's abundantly clear that he never processed his childhood trauma properly and that he still suffers mentally from it despite his attempts to laugh it off and pretend he's unaffected by it.
• Stupid Evil: Ricky severely overestimates himself by trying to domesticate an extraterrestrial being and turn it into a means of making money and fame.
• Tragic Villain: A PTSD-stricken man desperately trying to reclaim his fame and repress his trauma, resulting in him feeding horses to alien and putting dozens of people in danger, and ultimately getting himself, his family, his employees, and his audience killed by it.
• Trauma Button:
  • He tries to joke about a Saturday Night Live skit revolving around the fateful day his chimpanzee co-star Gordy went berserk, but it clearly triggers his PTSD, and the film flashes back to Gordy sitting on the set covered in blood next to the body of one of his victims.
  • In the chapter "GORDY", what happened in 1998 is shown with more clarity from Ricky's perspective. It's followed by the adult Ricky sitting on his desk, staring very placidly into space, as his nervousness before the first public Star Lasso Experience exhibition triggered a full flashback.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Ricky tried to restart his career by taming Jean Jacket and using it as a show animal. Severely underestimating the creature's temperament causes the mass death at the Star Lasso Experience when he fails to realize that he's out of his depth by trying to tame an extraterrestrial creature. The audience was simply in the wrong place at the worst possible time.
  • It's heavily implied that feeding it over the course of six months was what attracted Jean Jacket to the area in the first place, meaning Jupe may have accidentally kicked off the entire plot.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Ricky's childhood acting career was cut short, and he has no real claim to fame in adulthood beyond being part of a horrific tragedy and running a theme park based on his one well-remembered role (which the tie-in site has to stress, for legal reasons, is unaffiliated with the Kid Sheriff franchise, implying it continued without him). As "Jupe", he's very desperate to reclaim any measure of stardom beyond his past notoriety — even if it means attempting to exploit something he only thinks he understands, which results in an even worse massacre.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Ricky acts as if he is in A Boy and His X story like his old show Gordy's Home and genuinely believes that the "aliens" (actually just one alien) trust him. This is justified in that Ricky survived Gordy's massacre and wrongly guessed that said chimpanzee spared him because of their prior friendship rather than the fact that he didn't make eye contact with Gordy.

Amber Park

Amber Park

"They're giving us the real show today!"

Played By: Wrenn Schmidt

Jupe's wife.

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• Behind Every Great Man: She's the true ringleader of her husband's theme park and is always on top of just about everything.
• Control Freak: It's made clear she's the one truly running Jupiter's Claim. She's introduced handling press passes for the upcoming Star Lasso Experience preview, then is seen coaching Jupe's monologue. When supervising the actual spectacle, she's displeased at any hiccups: she shoots a Death Glare at the sound technician when she's late in switching music tracks, and shows very little patience for the audience when they pull out phone cameras after the pre-recorded message just told them not to.
• Eaten Alive: Along with her husband Jupe, their three sons, and everyone else at the Star Lasso Experience. If you look closely in the background, she appears to be one of the first people to be sucked up by Jean Jacket.
• Happily Married: She is clearly supportive of her husband and helps him with his little amusement park.
• Meaningful Name: Amber (the substance) is fossilized tree resin that sometimes forms around organisms, keeping them trapped and preserved over time. Similarly, this Amber keeps her husband stuck in the role of a performer, which also serves to trap him in his emotionally stunted ways rather than giving him the necessary space to deal with his deep trauma.
• Satellite Character: She only appears at Jupiter's Claim working alongside her husband.
• The Show Must Go On: She's quicker than Jupe to improvise an audience-friendly explanation when the UFO shows up an hour earlier than expected.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She appears in only a handful of scenes before she's eaten by Jean Jacket.

Gordy's Home

Mary Jo Elliot

Mary Jo Elliot

Played By: Sophia Coto (young), Haley Babula (adult)

Jupe's co-star on Gordy's Home.

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• Body Horror: Aside from the damage inflicted to her face, Gordy evidently beat her hard enough with his fists to damage her pelvis or spine, as she needs to use a motorized wheelchair to move around, and gets out of it with some difficulty when she looks up at the sky.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: After surviving the incident on Gordy's Home, she is sucked up and eaten by Jean Jacket during the preview of the "Star Lasso Experience." Her wheelchair ends up on the roof of the Haywoods' house when Jean Jacket purges over it later.
• Eaten Alive: Along with her old co-star Jupe and everyone else at the Star Lasso Experience.
• Facial Horror: Her lips were bitten off by Gordy, forcing her to wear a veil when she goes out in public. As chimp attacks go, she actually got off incredibly lightly — attacking chimps often go for the nose and eyes.
• Former Child Star: Her acting career took a nosedive like Jupe's did after the chimp incident, not only because of her face disfigurement, but because the producers wanted to distance themselves from the incident by cutting ties with those involved.
• Masking the Deformity: Due to the damage to her face, she wears a veil when in public.
• Precocious Crush: Jupe mentions that Mary Jo was his first crush, and she was clearly a few years older than him.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: After surviving the Gordy's Home incident, she appears to have spent the next twenty-odd years in seclusion. And then she's eaten by Jean Jacket after being invited to Jupe's Star Lasso Experience.
• Underage Casting: Sophia Coto (16 years old at the time of Nope's release) plays Mary Jo Elliott as both a teenager and a 40-something woman. (Not that you can tell).
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While filming the birthday party, it was Mary Jo's gift of balloons that ended up triggering Gordy's rampage, though of course that was the fault of the writers and producers for putting her in that position, and only her misfortune to be the one to actually commit the act.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: The damage to her face clearly put an abrupt end to her career. She is shown wearing a sweater depicting her child face before the incident.

Gordy

"Gordy"

"...we were shooting an episode in Season 2 entitled “Gordy’s Birthday”. And, boom. One of the chimps that plays Gordy just hit his limit." - Jupe Park

^{Click here to see Gordy during the Gordy's Home massacre}

Played By: Terry Notary

A chimpanzee actor who portrayed the titular character of a Show Within a Show called Gordy's Home. After a few balloons burst, Gordy, already on edge from being stared at by many humans, goes on a bloody rampage mauling his fellow cast members before being gunned down.

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• Actor/Role Confusion: Played for drama. Jupe notes that he wasn't really named "Gordy", referring to him first as "one of the chimps that plays Gordy" — but from then on, he describes him solely through the lens of the SNL sketch, which also called him "Gordy", and the audience never learns the chimp's real name; even the credits list Terry Notary as such. As he's trying to stare the chimp down, Tom Bogan fearfully stammers, "N-n-no, Gordy, no!" seconds before the chimp beats Tom to death. All of it illustrates how the sitcom treated the animal: as an unpaid actor or a Living Prop they could use as they saw fit, rather than a wild creature that posed a threat to others if placed in that setting.
• Bilingual Bonus: Averted. While many people have theorized that Gordy was signing "What happened to family?" when approaching Jupe under the table, Gordy does not make any actual recognizable signs; rather, the chimp appears to be making nervous gestures. Truth in Television, as primates are proven to not be able to use any signed language to communicate in the same way humans do: they can figure out what individual signs mean, but stringing those together into a coherent sentence with appropriate grammar and syntax has not been observed.
• Boom, Headshot!: How he dies.
• Collective Identity: According to Jupe, multiple chimpanzees played Gordy in the show and thus everyone just collectively calls the chimpanzees "Gordy", both on-camera and off-camera.
• Dissonant Serenity: His rampage comes across as calculated and methodical, beating up anyone who moves until they stop moving and pursuing anyone he sees running away. When there's no one left, he looks over the carnage he wrought with a calmness one would ascribe to a psychopath if holding him to human standards, reflecting one of the film's themes that you shouldn't expect animals to work the way humans do. His rampage was simply a stress response, and his subsequent calmness sees him revert back to his status as a meticulously well-trained animal, and when he spots young Jupe hiding, he approaches with the intent to give their customary greeting, having no expectation that he should do otherwise.
• The Farmer and the Viper: The producers of Gordy's Home made the fatal error of believing they could tame a chimpanzee and simply deny its basic instincts rather than accommodate them and not anthropomorphize the animal. Although Gordy was trained by animal handlers to be docile around humans, once Gordy became stressed, he killed 2 of his co-stars and violently disfigured another in a fit of fear and rage.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Just as he was starting to calm down from his rampage, he gets shot in the head.
• Intelligent Primate: Downplayed. While Gordy does not actually sign "What happened to family?" to Jupe, it approaches him after calming down, gestures in agitation while looking around the carnage, and attempts to perform one of its trained tricks with Jupe.
• Irony: The theme to Gordy's Home was "(You're A) Strange Animal" by Lawrence Gowan. The producers likely chose the song under the belief that it invokes the wackiness of owning a monkey as a pet. When, in actuality, the song is actually sung from the perspective of the animal not the human and the song is an allegory for the mistreatment of animals. At the end of the music video, it outright confirms this by saying "Man, you're the strangest animal".
• Killer Gorilla: Gordy was a show animal that took part in a show called Gordy's Home, which was about an astronaut mom adopting a chimp from NASA and taking it home to live with her and her family. However, during a special episode of the series, Gordy blacked out and entered fight or flight mode after being stared at by the audience and becoming panicked after hearing some balloons pop at the same time. During a rampage that lasted only six minutes and thirteen seconds, Gordy killed Tom Bogan, mutilated Mary Jo Elliot's face, and mutilated Phyllis Mayberry's right hand as she escaped the studio. Ricky "Jupe" Park managed to survive because he hid under a table as he rampaged, and Gordy only noticed him once he had calmed down.
• Mischief-Making Monkey: Invoked, but horribly averted. Gordy was supposed to be the main character of a sitcom where an astronaut mom adopts a NASA monkey and takes it home to live with her and her family in the suburbs. However, during a special episode of Gordy's Home, Gordy snapped from the stress of being stared at, seeing people bare their teeth, and hearing balloons popping. In a six-minute rampage, Gordy killed two actors, mutilated a child actor, and was shot dead by animal control while he was distracted by Ricky.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After mauling three of his costars, Gordy becomes docile and doesn't seem to remember what he did, implying that he blacked out when he became stressed.
• No Name Given: Played for Drama. “Gordy” is actually the name of the titular character of the Show Within a Show. According to Jupe, the chimp that went on a rampage was just one of the many chimpanzees that played the character. The chimp’s actual name is never revealed to the viewer (with even the movie’s credits listing Terry Notary as the actor behind “Gordy”) and the chimp is just called “Gordy” by everyone on and off-camera, signifying how the chimp was seen as a living prop or an unpaid actor rather than a dangerous wild animal that poses a threat to people’s safety if their boundaries are not respected.
• Obliviously Evil: After finding Jupe under the table, he gestures in agitation to the messy set while looking around before trying to perform a fist bump with Jupe which indicates that Gordy wasn't aware of the harm he was doing and was just in a state of extreme stress and fear.
• Please Wake Up: A variation. When Gordy finally calms down from his rage, confused, he nudges Mary Jo's foot with his hand, though she's not dead and is likely in shock, has passed out from the pain or is just too terrified to move; previously during his rampage, when she showed signs of life, he rained blows down on her and bit her lips off. After finding Jupe under the table, he looks around the room and gestures in agitation with his arms before attempting to fist bump with Jupe, implying he may not be aware of what happened.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Gordy's rampage seems to be heavily inspired by Travis, who was similarly a trained, so-called "tamed" chimp who went into a rage one day with devastating consequences. Mary Jo Elliott has similar injuries (a mutilated hand and face) from Gordy's attack to Charla Nash, the woman who was mauled by Travis. The one difference is that Travis was a pet, not an actor, and thus his attack took place at the home where he lived rather than on a TV set.
• Silly Simian: Invoked but horrifyingly defied. The chimpanzee was put in the role of Gordy, a monkey from NASA that lives with a suburban family, and Gordy was supposed to be a comedic character who gets into shenanigans with Jupe's character, Mikey Houston (if the intro was anything to go by). Unfortunately, Gordy got stressed out during a birthday episode and attacked his co-stars in a fit of rage, killing two, disfiguring one, and only sparing Jupe because he was lucky enough to be hiding under a table once Gordy calmed down.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears in two or three scenes, but is ultimately the root of Ricky's trauma, loss of fame, and desperation to gain it back.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Implied in the intro of the in-film sitcom where Gordy is seen with a bag of popcorn when turning on the television set.
• Tragic Monster: He only started to attack the cast and crew due to being frightened by the sudden popping of the balloons and being stared at by both his costars and the audience. After completing his rampage, Gordy recovers from his blackout, and when he sees Ricky, he tries to initiate their signature exploding fist bump with him, only to be shot by Animal Control.
• Truth in Television:
  • Chimpanzees don't like being watched and the species will perceive prolonged eye contact and baring of teeth as an act of aggression and intimidation. When attending a zoo (if the exhibits don't have tinted glass), keepers will inform attendees that they shouldn't bare their teeth or stare too long at a chimpanzee's eyes as this will cause stress to the animal and see it as a threat. During the taping of the show, Gordy was being stared at by both his costars and the audience and was under intense stress because of it. Sure enough, a big reason that Gordy didn’t maul Jupe like he did his costars was that their eye contact was obscured by the tablecloth Jupe was hiding under.
  • Baby and juvenile chimpanzees are small, cute, and usually on the sweet, biddable side. But they grow up and hit puberty like humans do, though much stronger than humans and with prominent canine teeth. Being raised away from their own kind and especially as pets or for commercial exploitation means their socialization is often weird as well. Things that didn't bother them when they were younger end up bothering them greatly. Gordy's face is pale like a young chimpanzee's, but he's certainly large enough to be out of his childhood, so with this in mind, it’s highly likely that a big factor of Gordy’s rampage was that he was fueled by extreme hormonal reactions, on top of his lack of proper socialization.
  • Chimpanzee groups operate as a dominance hierarchy, and the dominant chimpanzees will often bully the weaker members of their society into giving them food. When attending zoos, customers are expressly told not to feed the chimpanzees because they then will expect food from all humans (which will make them aggressive if they don't get any), and chimpanzees will treat humans as weaker animals that can be easily intimidated by them for food. In Gordy's Home, Gordy was having a birthday party, and food was likely used to placate him and keep him docile, but it instead didn't do enough to calm him down or it gave him the impression that he could easily fight them all.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Gordy's rampage instilled a fear and naivety towards animals in Ricky, which ultimately led to him creating the Star Lasso Experience to reignite his fame.
• Villain of Another Story: Gordy entering a violent rage and attacking his co-stars made national news and proved to be the defining moment in Ricky's life. Gordy himself has no direct bearing on the plot, only serving as the catalyst for Jupe's actions in adulthood, and as a thematic parallel to Jean Jacket.
• Would Hurt a Child: One of the victims of Gordy's rampage was child actress Mary Jo Elliot, whose face was torn apart. In the present day, Mary Jo appears in the audience at Jupiter's Claim, and we get a glimpse of her face when the wind blows her veil up. It's not pretty. It's implied that Gordy simply blacked out and was operating under fight or flight instincts, so he didn't really target her specifically and was attacking indiscriminately in a state of extreme stress and fear.

Other Characters

Angel Torres

Angel Torres

"I need y’all to tell me. What did you see in that cloud?"

Played By: Brandon Perea

A salesman at Fry's Electronics.

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• AM/FM Characterization: Angel owns a variety of band tees for obscure rock bands he listens to, some of which the Haywoods end up wearing after the trio flees the ranch. Costume designer Alex Bovaird said she wanted to showcase Angel as the kind of guy who headbangs at rock concerts, as well as make him out to be a little more “depressed,” in contrast with Brandon Perea’s naturally upbeat energy in the film.
• Ascended Fanboy: Played with. The film's events are much more dangerous than he'd like, but since he survived the film's events and helped capture the footage of Jean Jacket, he had his UFO hunting adventure and will likely enjoy a life of fame and fortune.
• Bait-and-Switch: When he shows up the day after Emerald states the the UFO was hiding in a cloud, he's seen staring at a cloud and asking them what they saw in it. Given his earlier Cloudcuckoolander behavior, it seems like he's mistakenly staring at an ordinary cloud and assuming the UFO is inside. Then he reveals that specific cloud hasn't moved at all in the two days since he set up the cameras.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite his avid conspiracy-theorist belief in extraterrestrials, Angel’s camera system works effectively when capturing footage of the UFO. He's also shown to be an avid gamer and crypto miner, further cementing his tech skills.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He believes in aliens and quickly inserts himself into the Haywoods' business once he realizes that they're trying to get UFO footage. Of course, this isn't a lighthearted adventure film, he's in a horror movie.
• Defrosting the Ice Queen: Angel goes from mumbling about the Haywoods being dicks to helping them capture footage of Jean Jacket in just a few days.
• Establishing Character Moment: When he sets up the Haywoods’ cameras, he discusses his belief in aliens, mentioning the possibility that the UFO is a “world destroyer”.
• Fire-Forged Friends: The Haywoods treat him like a nuisance they want to quickly get rid of, but after he helps them realize where the UFO is hiding and escapes from Jean Jacket with them, he's treated more cordially by them.
• Jumped at the Call: He quickly pieces together that the Haywoods are trying to get UFO evidence, so he connects their cameras to the internet so he can also check the feed and keeps an eye on things, and goes back to the ranch to help them more once they realize how serious things are.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Of the positive variety. He's still alive at the end of the movie after selflessly helping out the Haywoods, so he will likely be set for life.
• Meaningful Name: He's the member of the main cast least tempted by the spectacle Jean Jacket represents. Antlers is obsessed with finding his 'perfect shot,' Em wants the money and fame that was denied her family due to their race, and even O.J. wants to capture the 'Oprah Shot' to save the ranch, whereas Angel seems more concerned with spreading the truth for humanity's sake. Notably, he is the only victim that Jean Jacket spits out due to wrapping himself in barbed wire (which he was only able to do because a tarp happened to whip him away from Jean Jacket's path just in time). He is both angelic and has the luck of someone with a guardian angel.
• Nice Guy:
  • Of the three leads, he seems to be the only one who prioritizes "doing something good" as a result of filming Jean Jacket, not just getting rich.
  • He also seems to just want to help the Haywoods once he learns how serious the situation is. Despite tapping into their cameras even though they denied him permission to do so, he immediately calls Em to warn her when he sees that one camera is down and the other is blocked. After JJ covers their home in blood and debris from the Star Lasso Experience, he lets them stay at his place (and borrow his clothes) for the time being.
• Oh, Crap!: After reviewing the security camera footage from the ranch, Angel notices that one of the clouds doesn't move, as it's Jean Jacket's hiding spot. He drives there and is terrified to see it with his own eyes.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Angel is correct in assuming the UFO is hostile. He is, however, incorrect in assuming a higher intelligence from it.
• Smarter Than You Look: He’s The Stoner with a tendency for Cloudcuckoolander behavior, though is the first to realize where the UFO is, and manages to avoid getting eaten by the alien by wrapping himself up in a tarp and barbed wire, causing Jean Jacket to spit him out.
• Soul-Sucking Retail Job: He's introduced as a bummed-out cashier/installer for a big box electronics store. He visibly becomes more excited when he realizes what the Haywoods are up to and volunteers his time and effort towards it even without them asking.
• The Stoner: If the scene in Angel’s apartment is any indication, though his knowledge of alien sightings, camera systems, and technology in general might push him into Erudite Stoner territory.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Angel incorrectly assumes that all aliens resemble The Greys who are either pacifistic space travelers, time-traveling humans from the future, or planet killers. In contrast, the actual alien is a Starfish Alien that behaves similarly to an apex predator found on Earth. It's later subverted in that he catches on to how dangerous Jean Jacket is and how to survive as soon as things start to get dangerous.

Antlers Holst

Antlers Holst

"This dream you’re chasing, where you end up at the top of the mountain… it’s the one you never wake up from."

Played By: Michael Wincott

A cinematographer.

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• Actually Pretty Funny: Despite his stoic nature, he can't help cracking a grin at the sight of a rainbow of several dozen skydancers dotting the Haywood's property, the team's metric for how far out Jean Jacket might be.
  Holst: (chuckling) How exquisitely stupid is that?
• Ambiguous Situation: Angel specifically notices him taking prescription medication during the climax. Did some unaddressed illness contribute to his decision to go to his death, or was his listless demeanor the result of clinical depression?
• Authority Sounds Deep: Much like his actor, he always speaks in a very deep growling sort of voice, even when trying to reassure someone.
• Clint Squint: His default facial expression.
• Deadpan Snarker: Though with more emphasis on the “deadpan” part.
• Driven to Suicide: He deliberately attracts Jean Jacket’s attention during "magic hour" to capture the Impossible Shot of an alien, even though he knows doing so will get him killed.
• Expy: Of Quint from Jaws. Both are grizzled professionals who agree to help the heroes confront a hungry predator, and both get eaten for their troubles. They each also have a memorable moment where they sing (or in Holst's case, creepily speak-sing) the night before the big battle. Holst is arguably way less helpful than Quint was, though.
• False Reassurance: He tells Angel "It'll be alright," right before he takes off with his smaller camera to get one more shot of Jean Jacket at the cost of his life. Angel even lampshades it, telling OJ and Em that "Holst said some really creepy cryptic shit, then ran off with his camera."
• Genre Savvy: As soon as he hears the news about people vanishing near the Haywoods' ranch, he realizes that they were telling the truth about the golden opportunity there, books it to their place, and spots the suspicious cloud OJ didn't notice for weeks. He also seems to be aware that he's going to die by going up the hill to get one more shot of Jean Jacket.
• The Grunting Orgasm: Invoked when Antlers gets sucked up by Jean Jacket while cranking the camera he is holding braced against his lower body. Though nothing can be heard because of Jean Jacket's noise, Antlers's wide-eyed, teeth-clenched rictus says it all. Considering he has been shown watching films of animal kills at home and bemoans having been unable to achieve the impossible shot — explicitly called the money shot by Emerald — this is both literally and figuratively the climax of his career.
• Hero of Another Story: A raspy-voiced Deadpan Snarker Jaded Washout cinematographer who ominously makes pop culture references would be right at home in a B-movie or an indie art-horror film with much different tropes and rules.
• Hidden Depths: He is the only one of the main four characters to drink water rather than beer at dinner, suggesting he could be sober. Later, he takes pills shortly before Jean Jacket shows up.
• Hyper-Awareness: Because he's a long-time cinematographer, he has an acute attention to visual detail. While waiting for the Haywoods to come back from Angel's place in Los Angeles, he can see that one of the clouds hasn't moved at all.
• Jaded Washout: Famous as he is, Antlers is very disaffected by the modern state of filmography, and his greatest purpose in life is to achieve the "impossible" shot.
• Jumped at the Call: He realizes that the Haywoods were on to something after hearing the news about people vanishing in the area and makes a beeline for their ranch.
• Meaningful Name: He shares his surname with composer Gustav Holst, best known for his orchestral suite The Planets.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Reciting the lyrics of "The Purple People Eater" in his gravely voice gives the novelty song an ominous quality.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: As a deep-voiced filmmaker with a somewhat cynical attitude and a penchant for ominous, dramatic speeches, Antlers bears a passing resemblance to Werner Herzog. He's also involved in shooting footage of a man vs. nature conflict, which is a common theme in Herzog's filmography.
• One for the Money; One for the Art: In-Universe. When Em admits they can't pay him right away, Holst admits that he uses his clients' fees to bankroll personal work.
  Holst: Well, I already do one for them [i.e. commercial projects] so I can do one for me.
• Seen-It-All Suicide: Deconstructed. He commits suicide by drawing Jean Jacket's attention, but he does so because of his desire to "see it all" (something that he references multiple times) and to capture the footage of what it looks like when he's devoured.
• Shown Their Work: Wincott studied Hoyte Van Hoytema, the acclaimed cinematographer who shot Nope. Some elements of the character, like his preference for IMAX stock or his black shirts and scarves, were taken from Hoytema.

Ryder Muybridge

Ryder Muybridge

"What did happen to Jupe Park and all those people? He was basically your neighbor, right? So, what, they vanished? You don't believe the flood narrative, do you?"

Played By: Devon Graye

A TMZ Reporter who trespasses on the Haywoods' land, seeking the truth behind the disappearances at Jupiter's Claim. After crashing his motorcycle, he is promptly devoured by Jean Jacket.

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• Asshole Victim: Calls Emerald a "nobody" after she refuses to an interview - and after she warns him about the danger.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Silver. He wears a reflective biker helmet that obscures his face, reflecting his job as a reporter by visually turning him into a living camera.
• Cool Bike: He has an electric one, which gets borrowed by Emerald after his death.
• The Faceless: He never takes off his motorcycle helmet.
• Hate Sink: Unlike the other characters in the movie, Ryder is an absolutely obnoxious Paparazzi reporter with no redeeming qualities or common sense to speak of.
• Meaningful Name: It's not mentioned in the movie, but his surname is the same as Eadweard Muybridge, the man who created the first motion-picture film of a man on a horse (with the Haywoods' ancestor as the jockey), making it fitting that he shows up in the movie with the goal of filming the Haywoods. His first name "Ryder" could also be a nod to the fact that for most of his screen time, he's riding a motorcycle.
• Paparazzi: He has all the hallmarks of the worst kind, trespassing on private property and smugly referring to Emerald as a "nobody" when she refuses an interview with him. This continues even after he's injured, still focusing on getting pictures instead of seeking medical help.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: He lets out a high-pitched yelp as he flies off his bike when Jean Jacket shuts it off.
• Skewed Priorities: After breaking multiple limbs after crashing his bike, instead of asking for medical help, he begs OJ to get his camera and photograph him. Even when the UFO begins bearing down on the two of them, he still tells OJ to photograph it and "make a name for yourself" instead of escaping.
• Too Dumb to Live: He trespasses on private property right next to an active crime scene, then continues to drive further in when warned to go away. Needless to say, he pays dearly.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He dies after only a few minutes of screentime.

Antagonist

The UFO

Jean Jacket / Occulonimbus edoequus

^{Click here to see its "hunting" form}

^{Click here to see it “unfolded”}

The film's main threat and the reason behind the death of the Haywood siblings' father — and in fact, not a ship, but rather a strange flying predatory animal that seems to think the area is an excellent feeding ground.

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• Accidental Murder: While expelling indigestible materials, Jean Jacket accidentally dislodges a nickel which kills O.J. and Emerald's father.
• Aliens Steal Cattle:
  • Horses were Jean Jacket's preferred prey, specifically the ones from Haywood's ranch that Ricky feeds it. It only starts actively hunting humans after being tricked into swallowing a fake horse.
  • However, given that there's a news report about missing hikers just before household metal objects like keys and loose change rain down on Otis Sr. and Jr., it may have been opportunistically preying on humans that strayed too close when it was resting.
• Allegorical Character:
  • Of obsession and exploitation, specifically how people and animals are objectified by those wanting to achieve fame and fortune. Jean Jacket is used to show how Hollywood has no respect for animals and discards them ultimately for the sake of spectacle. Much like how Gordy and Lucky react negatively to being looked directly in the eyes, the UFO feels threatened whenever it is looked at and is treated as nothing more than a living prop or a means to achieve fame.
  • Embodies how untameable wild animals actually are and how they shouldn't be anthropomorphized into your friend or underling. The disaster at the park was caused by Jupe confusing the wild animal for something intelligent that trusted/respected him. Jupe thought he had Jean Jacket figured out and it attacked the park and everyone there because of its instincts.
• Androcles' Lion: Deconstructed and subsequently defied. Jupe tries to tame Jean Jacket by feeding it horses from the Haywood siblings (who weren't aware of what he was doing with their horses). While Jean Jacket does come to associate Jupe's theme park with a steady food supply, enough that Jupe can reliably summon it, he's still severely out of his depth. When Jean Jacket accidentally eats a plastic horse, it's severely angered, and Jupe doesn't help matters when he assembles an audience at the Star Lasso Experience, meaning an entire crowd of eyes is now on an animal that absolutely hates being looked at. Jupe is consumed alongside his family, his employees, and the audience.
• Animal Nemesis: It becomes one to the Haywoods due to its homicidal self-protectiveness and tendency to eat their horses. And the people around them.
• Angelic Abomination: After being wounded by the barbed wire it was tricked into swallowing up, Jean Jacket unfolds itself into a larger form as a threat display, similar to certain animals like peacocks, which is reminiscent of a Biblical angel.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Aside from looking like a classic flying saucer when folded, its eye resembles a massive camera lens, making it look like it's recording the main characters as they're trying to photograph it. Seen from beneath when folded up, it resembles an enormous cowboy hat, appropriate for the antagonist of a neo-Western story about the dark side of the American entertainment industry. It also strongly resembles a giant, predatory weather balloon, which are also often associated with aliens and flying saucers.
• Balloon of Doom: Most of its structure is actually inflated, rather than solid. When we see people eaten from their perspective, it has the horrifying and surreal quality of being eaten by a bouncy house.
• Big Bad: It is the film's main antagonist, a carnivorous flying beast motivated only by hunger and responding to threats.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: It looks like a flying saucer when its body is folded up. Unfolded, it almost seems to be made of nylon like a parachute. Its eye is a massive green square that can be moved from one end of its body to the other and telescopes from its body multiple times in layers, like an old-timey camera. It can somehow generate both EMPs and clouds, protecting itself from observation. Finally, it eats by sucking up everything underneath it, trapping them in a layer of tissue, later spitting out anything it can't digest as a Rain of Blood and viscera.
• Bizarre Alien Senses: Jean Jacket is provoked when anyone looks directly at it, and can somehow tell when it's being looked at no matter which direction it's facing or how far away the viewer is. Despite this, it's still fooled by artificial eyes.
• Doing In the Wizard: An in-universe example, its appearance and feeding habits add to up to imply that in the movie's canon, it and any others of its kind that might exist are the real scientific explanation for things like flying saucers, alien abductions, Aliens Steal Cattle, and possibly even older, more mystical stories like gods and angels.
• Don't Look At Me: Like many terrestrial animals, such as chimps, it sees being looked directly at as a threat, and so sucks up anything that looks at it, even non-living things like a horse statue and inflatable men. It's to the point it senses aggression from the Kid Sheriff balloon while hunting Emerald, and attempting to eat it ultimately results in its death.
• Evil Is Bigger: It was already the size of a small house in UFO form, but its unfolded form makes it HUGE.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Well, more like "Wild Animals Are Not a Toy", but Ricky's attempt to commodify Jean Jacket was bound to backfire horribly, especially since the situation is similar to his experience with Gordy (an experience that he's learned nothing from) and the fact that he's completely unaware that the UFO isn't actually an alien spaceship. All Ricky accomplishes is getting himself and 39 other people killed.
• Evil Is Petty: It was clearly not keen on eating a fake horse Emerald and OJ use as bait, so it later consumes Ricky and the audience of his Star Lasso Experience and expels indigestible wastes over their home to assert dominance, then very pointedly drops the horse on OJ's truck.
• Evil Overlooker: It's the cloud in Nope's movie posters. It also spends much of its time hiding in an unmoving cloud when it's not hunting.
• Excrement Statement: After being agitated by swallowing the fake horse from Jupiter's Claim, which lodged inside it, and devouring the attendees of the Star Lasso Experience afterward, it seems to pointedly hover over the Haywood House as it regurgitates the undigested material from the meal. When OJ drives up, it moves over to rest above his vehicle before spitting up the horse statue onto his van. A clear display of dominance from a creature established to be territorial.
• Expy: Its role in the story is very similar to that (in personality, color, and theme) to Moby-Dick - but in the Sky! Or for a film example, similar to Bruce the Shark from Jaws.
• Eye Motifs: Jean Jacket resembles a giant eye; OJ and Emerald's father is shown missing an eye after his death, and a woman in an old black-and-white film being worked on by Antlers Holst is shown with a hand forming a circle over her eye. Early on, OJ's horse freaks out when it sees its own eye staring back at it in a mirror, which helps OJ theorize that Jean Jacket gets agitated when it thinks it's being watched; he adds some fake eyes to his hoodie to attract its attention during the final confrontation, where later its own massive, square eye is on full display.
• Feed It a Bomb: Sort of — Emerald tricks it into eating a very large helium balloon during the climax, which ends up popping inside of it, leading to its explosive death.
• Fluffy the Terrible: OJ names it Jean Jacket after one of the horses the Haywoods used to have.
• Flying Seafood Special: It's basically a jellyfish adapted to live in the sky instead of the sea. It even projects an electrical field like jellyfish often do (in fiction anyways).
• Flying Saucer: It looks like one (but so do aquatic jellyfish).
• Giant Flyer: Jean Jacket is big enough that its mouth is larger than the Haywoods' house.
• Hanlon's Razor: A lot of the film is based around realizing Jean Jacket isn't a group of Inscrutable Aliens acting out of malicious intent, but a hungry wild animal nowhere near smart enough to comprehend the horrific pain it’s inflicting on its victims.
• Hell Is That Noise: A Drone of Dread is the closest thing to vocalizations it can make, but it doesn't do this often. More frequently, after a fresh meal, Jean Jacket's live victims can be still heard screaming in distress from within it. Because of the horse statue blocking its insides, this lasts for hours after its Jupiter's Claim feeding, before it very suddenly stops.
• He Was Right There All Along: When not hunting, it hides in a cloud that never moves. Once it's brought to his attention, OJ realizes that said cloud hasn't moved in the last six months.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: When not hunting, it hides itself in a cloud which never moves. Angel only notices when he fast-forwards through the recorded security footage, and OJ quickly realizes it must have been there for at least six months and he never noticed it.
• Hungry Menace: Jean Jacket is simply a flying carnivore that found a surplus of food in OJ and Emerald's home area and started eating horses (and later humans) in the same way a lion would eat an antelope.
• Intimidation Demonstration:
  • After getting tricked into eating barbed wire, it unfolds into a gigantic jellyfish-like shape, presumably in an effort to stare the protagonists down. Since it doesn't seem to have any form of attack besides eating things, making itself look scarier is probably its last line of defense.
  • It also might amplify the screams of its victims for this purpose. The TMZ reporter's screams are noticeably louder after he's been eaten than before.
• It Can Think: Inverted and Played With.
  • The Reveal is kicked off by OJ realizing Jean Jacket's behavior only makes sense if it's a simple-minded solitary predator. It isn't stupid, but it's also not sapient in the way one would consider a human, reacting to threats on instinct instead of intelligently.
  • That said, it's also eventually made clear that, by animal standards, Jean Jacket is surprisingly intelligent. Its ability to react with aggression to perceived challenges to its territory, mark said territory as its own, recognize "handshake deal" exchanges with humans, and quickly associate certain colors with inedible objects are behaviors more consistent among intelligent predatory mammals than the giant, flying jellyfish it appears to be. In fact, it only ends its "relationship" with Jupe because OJ and Em accidentally trick it into eating one of his horse decoys, which it sees as him reneging on the agreement (the crowd probably didn't help, either). It's not a sapient being, but it is a rather brainy animal.
• Kaiju: It is a giant, flying creature that looks like an ordinary UFO flying saucer when it is hunting.
• Karmic Death: Downplayed as it is ultimately an animal with no sense of morality, but when it swallows an indigestible balloon, it starts groaning loudly as though in pain right before it pops and kills it, meaning that in the end its final moments consisted of it screaming in agony as it inescapably dies to something it had no way of anticipating or comprehending, just like its previous victims earlier in the film. The shot of the balloon exploding in its digestive tract is even framed similarly to the previous scenes focusing on it digesting its human victims.
• Living Gasbag: It seems to propel itself either through jet propulsion, electromagnetic levitation, or a mixture of both.
• Living Ship: While it presumably isn't intentionally looking like a machine, humans repeatedly confuse it for a mechanical flying saucer.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Seriously downplayed, it's never confirmed if it's actually an extraterrestrial or just an undiscovered and really weird species native to Earth. Some supplementary materials seem to lean more toward the latter, but even this largely comes down to the theories of in-universe scientists.
• Meaningful Name: Its scientific name, Occulonimbus edoequus translates to "Horse-eating eye cloud". Its most commonly seen abducting horses to eat them and then there's the fact it intentionally made a nest offscreen near OJ's farm by the beginning of the movie to raid it every other night for horses.
• Non-Malicious Monster: It's not evil, just hungry and territorial; its consumption of people and horses is no more heinous than any wild predator catching and killing prey to eat and survive, we just see it from the perspective of its sapient food source instead of the usual neutral perspective.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Where this creature came from and how it ended up on Earth is never explained. This makes its very presence in the movie all the more unnerving.
• Ominous Fog: It seems to be able to produce this at will as a concealment measure, hence the cloud that it hides in when it's not hunting.
• One-Winged Angel: It spends most of the film in its compacted UFO form, but unfolds into its enormous true form for the climax. Played With, however, in that this likely isn't a "true form", but more of a threat display, like a frilled lizard's frill. Since it doesn't seem to have any way to deal with things besides eating them, this is probably its only means of scaring off whatever it can't eat.
• Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: There's really only two plausible explanations for it - it's either an alien lifeform (possible but on the other hand it seems super sensitive to changes in air pressure which tends to happen when one enters or exits an atmosphere) or it's a cryptid and a naturally occurring Earth species that lives so high up in the sky humans rarely encounter it (and given that it's evolved a form of camouflage to look like a cloud and react to human eyes, it certainly seems well-suited to being an earth-borne predator). In particular, "orbs" and "rods" were often theorized to be UFOs called Skyfish (and indeed - "Skyfish" often proved to be mundane aerial insects moving too quickly for primitive cameras to capture definitive images of).
• Our Monsters Are Weird: Jean Jacket is a gigantic alien creature that looks like a UFO for the most part, but can also disguise itself as a cloud when it's dormant. Its insides are also very bizarre and horrifying, with people being trapped inside a tight, gigantic tube as they are slowly moved up and digested over the course of many hours. It's even more pronounced how otherworldly Jean Jacket is when it unfurls itself in the climax, wherein it looks like a gigantic inflatable jellyfish...thing that pursues the remaining characters with animalistic anger.
• Spit Out a Shoe: Deconstructed and Played for Horror. It spits out any indigestible matter from its meals, which can make them dangerous projectiles from a high enough altitude, with one such example being a coin that killed OJ's Father. The horror is amped up when it also unleashes a rain of debris and viscera onto the Haywood house after devouring the attendees of the Star Lasso Experience.
• The Spook: What is Jean Jacket? Is it really an extraterrestrial, or did it originate on Earth? If so, is Jean Jacket one of a kind, or could there be more due to the many UFO sightings over the years? The film does not answer any of these questions.
• Starfish Aliens: It's a giant spacefaring(?) jellyfish that looks like a flying saucer when foraging. It looks even stranger at the end of the film when it unfolds into a new form that apparently is for staring down prey/threats that's hard to describe. Just see the picture above.
• To Serve Man: It devoured everyone who looked at it in Ricky's Star Lasso show, and it gets to eat Antlers and a TMZ reporter in the climax, and nearly Angel as well.
• Ultraterrestrials: Supplemental materials all but confirm that Jean Jacket's species evolved on Earth, which means that that its species is the origin behind all UFO sightings, alien abduction stories, and tales of celestial chariots going back to the dawn of mankind.
• Urine Trouble: Played with. Since the earlier rain of nickels, keys, and other objects that killed Otis Sr. was bloodless, Jean Jacket quickly crushing its prey and vomiting the half-digested remains all over the house can be seen as akin to territorial urination: it's the deliberate aggression of an animal warning the Haywoods away and marking their house as its own.
• Vacuum Mouth: Its sole method of capturing prey is somehow generating a vortex from its mouth to the ground, stirring up a dust cloud in the desert climate from the funnel of wind this creates.
• Walking Spoiler: More like a "Flying Spoiler" given it doesn't have legs, but the truth behind what the UFO is — a living creature that can unfold into another form, rather than a spaceship — is hard to discuss without spoilers.
• Waterfall Puke: Almost literally — Jean Jacket purges its guts over the Haywood ranch house in the middle of a rainstorm to mark its territory, leading to a chilling shot of blood dripping down the windows.
• Weaksauce Weakness: What finally does it in: a big helium balloon popping. Apparently its anatomy couldn't handle compressed air. It also ejects Angel because he's wrapped in barbed wire. Since its only means of offense is eating things, there isn't really anything it can do against someone who knows how sensitive its insides are.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Despite the intimidating form it takes in the climax, its only mode of offense seems to be eating things. The protagonists exploit this to beat and eventually kill it.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Jean Jacket spends most of the film with a string of flags caught in its "throat"; the Haywoods surmise that it would rather this not happen again, and use a parachute with flags attached to distract it during the climax.
• Would Hurt a Child: When it abducts Ricky and his audience, it also eats his children, and some children in attendance in the audience.
• Your Size May Vary: Its first close-up appearance makes it appear relatively small, with its mouth being around the size of a horse or a little bigger. Later, it's so large that same mouth is bigger than OJ's house. That's not even getting into its unfolded form. Justified by its ability to fold and unfold itself into different sizes and shapes; its size literally varies, depending on what it’s doing.