Robert Peace’s life was cut short, but his legacy will live on in Chiwetel Ejiofor’s new movie, “Rob Peace.”
The Oscar nominee directed, adapted and costars in the drama based on the book “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace” by Jeff Hobbs, which tells the true story of the late and intellectually gifted young man Robert DeShaun Peace.
The movie, now in theaters, follows Peace's life from his early days as an extremely smart young boy to his scholarly success at Yale, where he studied molecular biochemistry and biophysics. Raised by his single mother, Jackie Peace, after his father is imprisoned for manslaughter, Rob Peace does what he can to help free his dad from prison — even if it means putting his own life at risk.
Starring Jay Will as Rob Peace, Mary J. Blige as Jackie Peace and Ejiofor as patriarch Robert “Skeet” Douglas, the film does more than just highlight a story of tragedy, it captures the immense weigh of societal challenges and how one must have utter resilience to navigate it.
When asked by producers Antoine Fuqua and Rebecca Hobbs to bring the book to life, Ejiofor said he felt it was his duty to take great care with the film.
“I read the book not long after it came out, maybe about 10 years ago,” Ejiofor tells TODAY.com, sharing how he was “stunned” by Hobbs’ story about Peace, his former roommate at Yale. “The book has such empathy, sensitivity and real understanding. I really wanted to try to represent that.”
When first encountering Peace’s story, he says he saw the intersection between race, housing, the criminal justice system and education. “And how Rob really encapsulates all of these different struggles, these complications, and the amount of things that he’s sort of spinning and trying to, in a way, rectify as he goes along.”
Calling him “a very brilliant young man,” Ejiofor says he tried to pull the themes of community, interpersonal relationships, “the vines that tie the family, all of these things were what I really wanted to carry through from the book into the film.”
Read on to learn more about the true story of Rob Peace and the biographical film, which also stars Michael Kelly, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Mare Winningham and Camila Cabello.
Who was Rob Peace?
Robert DeShaun Peace, known as Rob Peace, was born in 1980 and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, near Newark. His parents, Jackie Peace and Douglas, were separated and he lived with his mother, who worked multiple jobs to support them.
With a knack for mathematics and science, Rob Peace is depicted as someone who has a close relationship with his father, partly due their bond over his brilliance. However, when Rob Peace was a young boy, Douglas, who was known to sell drugs, was arrested and found guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree. He maintained his innocence and asked Rob Peace to use his smarts to help him get out of jail.
In the film, Rob Peace struggles with learning how to “control the chaos” in his life. His mom, however, is concerned with his personal and professional advancement, which includes him not being seen as “the son of a convict.” As a result, she decides to enroll him at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School, a private middle and high school in the area.
There, he continues to succeed educationally, eventually getting accepted into Yale — all while committed to proving his father's innocence.
“Science helped me navigate the challenges I faced, science is organized, results come from the collection and analysis of data,” Rob Peace says in the film. “Completing tasks, interpreting results, reaching conclusions.”
During a pivotal moment in the film, Rob Peace is able to get his father's case dismissed and he is subsequently set free. However, the state would go on to appeal the decision and win, ultimately sending Douglas back to jail.
Once at Yale, he joins the water polo team and impresses fellow students and professors with his brilliant mind. He studies and excels in molecular biochemistry and biophysics while also selling marijuana on campus as a way to afford the lawyer he needs for his father's case. During this time, his roommate is Hobbs, who becomes his longtime friend and the author of the book that inspired the movie.
It's later revealed in the film that Rob Peace's father has been diagnosed with brain cancer, which only motivates the college student to work harder to pay for his father's treatment and get him re-release from jail.
But Douglas' life is cut short as his health declines and he eventually dies in jail, as the movie depicts.
Despite having aspirations of attending grad school, Rob Peace decides to return to Newark to teach biology at St. Benedict where he's awarded teacher of the year. But, amid his seemingly positive professional life, Rob struggles with his entrepreneurial efforts, including an unsuccessful real estate venture that leads him back to the unsavory life of the streets.
In an effort to bounce back and recoup his losses, Rob Peace finds creative ways to continue to sell weed, which leads to his ultimate demise — his murder by an unknown assailant who breaks into his basement in an apparent drug-related incident.
According to The New York Times, Peace and Hobbs kept in touch over the years with Peace serving as a groomsman in Hobbs' wedding. Following Peace's death on May 18, 2011, Hobbs reflected on his funeral.
“The funeral — 400 people — (was) very painful, also beautiful — people from all over the world in downtown Newark,” Hobbs told NPR in 2014. “But, outside that church, it seemed like a lot of people were almost eagerly condemning him as this cliche of potential squandered.”
“We were there; it was sort of a reunion aspect to it with mutual friends. We just knew Rob Peace was not a cliche,” Hobbs added. “We write about what conflicts us, whatever medium. And nothing’s ever conflicted me more than this loss.”
How accurate is the 'Rob Peace' film?
When asked how true to the real-life story the film is, Ejiofor says “the fundamental bones of the story are all true.”
“Inevitably, there are things that nobody was present for, that you kind of have to create, certain moments that you take your best stab at, what that would feel like, what it might emotionally look like,” he explains. “That’s part of the process, I think, with any adaptation or with any story, really, that's based on true events. But the bones of the story, the kind of fundamental bones of the story, are all true.”
To make it even more authentic, Ejiofor says he went through all of Douglas’ court documents, “messages and emails and letters that were sent between parties.”
He says there were certain things that aren’t even in the book but are factual. Ejiofor notes bringing balance as well as tonality to the story on the big scree was equally important.
“I think it’s kind of just making sure one creates and is consistent with what is ultimately the kind of emotional, resonant truth of all of these interactions,” he says. “And I think that’s accurate.”
Was Rob Peace's family involved in the making of the film?
Ejiofor tells TODAY.com that the first thing he did when he came on board the film was sit down with Rob’s mom, Jackie Peace. Together, at the home where Rob was raised, they spoke about his vision for the film.
“(I wanted to) understand more about the specific history of the family, (her) relationship with Skeet, with Rob, with everybody else,” he says, sharing that he also asked about Rob’s time at St. Benedict’s and how she felt about him going to Yale. “All of those sorts of dynamics in Rob’s life,” he explains.
The filmmaker and Jackie Peace had met before the COVID-19 pandemic and the film went on a two year hiatus.
“It was quite a lengthy process,” he says. “And she was really present all the way through it, and was an amazing part of this whole making of this world.”
In January, Jackie Peace attended the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival — amoment that was very special for Ejiofor.
“I sat next to her,” he says. “I was just really gratified that I was able to be with her as we watched the film together all those years later.”