[FILM INTERVIEW] SINNERS – Ryan Coogler Interview

With the release of the brand new trailer for Ryan Coogler’s brand new film Sinners there have been a lot of questions going around – even including what genre the film is.

So to get to the bottom of those questions we decided there was only one things we could do – find out from Ryan Coogler himself.

1. This is your fifth feature film and your fifth time working with Michael B. Jordan. Can you tell us how that relationship pushes you creatively?

It’s incredible. Mike was a working actor when I met him. He had been on some incredible television shows and had been a working actor since he was a school-aged kid but he hadn’t had a feature film role where he was the lead yet. So when we worked together on Fruitville that was his first time in the lead in a movie and it was my first time making a movie so in many ways we have grown up together.

I have definitely found a kindred spirit in him – he is someone who is incredibly gifted and he has this God-given charisma. He has this ability to channel empathy without even trying. He also has an amazing work ethic and a true dedication to the craft and he has this desire to want to push himself – you can really see him stretch and to have all those things rolled up into one makes it something special.

We are around the same age and we became work friends and eventually we have become like family. It is an incredible gift to have someone like that. He is someone that I can call up and be like ‘hey I have a new one here for you what do you think.’

I know that he is always trying look for new challenges constantly. I know that he doesn’t want to rest on his laurels and I thought that this role would be something where we could challenge each other.

• This film is deeply personal to you. Can you share with us some of those personal aspects that you injected into this film?

I have been blessed because every time I have made a film I have been able to make it more and more personal. With this one I was really digging into some true relationships. One with my maternal Grandfather who I never met, he died about a year before I was born, but he was from Mississippi and only moved to Oakland to marry my Grandmother.

There was also my Uncle James who I grew up with and he actually passed away while I was working on post-production on Creed. He was also from Mississippi but he wouldn’t really talk about his time in Mississippi to me… unless he was listening to the blues. Then he would reminisce. I miss him profously and with this film I was able to dig into my own history here in the States. With the Panther films I was able to do that as a generational thing but this time I was actually able to go to the South and the film is actually about the music that was so special to my Uncle. I have to say I could not be happier about that and with the film.

• So is this the most personal film you have ever worked on?

Oh yes, absolutely. And it is interesting because at each point of my life that statement has been correct but never like this one.

• You love horror and you have said in the past when you are working on a film you have nightmares but this time you are giving out the nightmares. Did you feel like you had to conquer some kind of fear going into this film?

Oh yeah, absolutely. None of the films that I have ever worked on before have had the horror/thriller element that this one does. Each time though I have been conquering a personal fear of mine – and this one is no different. I don’t want to get into the specific of it… but yes.

While working on my other films I have had awful nightmares, but on this one strangely enough, and I think it is because some of the scenes that we were doing were so crazy, I didn’t have them. I may have been getting rid of my subconscious terror during the day so I was able to sleep like a baby.

• People have been speculating on what the supernatural element of Sinners is going to be. So as the filmmaker can you now let us know?

Well the film is actually pretty genre fluid. It actually pushes into a lot of different genres but yes vampires are one of the elements of the movie but that is not the only supernatural element. The film is about more than just that and I think that will surprise people in a good way.

Some of my favourite films in this genre have been done in such away that you could take away the supernatural element and they are still saying something and I really wanted to make a film in that tradition. This film has all the elements of things that I really love. This really is a personal love letter from me to cinema and to the art form itself. Specifically the theatrical experience.

It is interesting working in a post-Covid time because the theatrical experience what was I missed most during that time. And this is a film that needs to be seen in that way.

• You shot that film on IMAX which of course is all about immersion – so tell us about that.

It was an incredible experience and I was able to get some advice from Christopher Nolan which was fantastic. For myself and all of my collabarators this was the first time we were able to work with large format photography. This is something that hasn’t been done before – combining Ultra Panavision with IMAX. The last film to use that format was The Hateful Eight and we had to make some big decisions about when we were going to use each. It is an incredible contrast when you get to see them together.

But the whole idea for all of that was to make this immersive and we wanted folks to really be able to experience this world and for me this is the world that my Grandparents were part of. It was what they grew up in and it was a time that is often overlooked in American history, specially for black folks because it was a time when there were a lot of things happening that we are ashamed to talk about, but for me I got to have conversations with my Grandmother who is nearly 100 years old and I got to do some really deep research.

I found that really exciting and to be able to bring that time period to life with the celluloid format that was around then along with the technological advancements that IMAX can provide is really exciting.

• What was it like for you to be able to write about the deep moral complexities of a community with Sinners?

I loved it. A big inspiration for the film was a novel called Salem’s Lot and that is a novel that has been adapted quite a few times and in some really cool ways. But what is great about that novel is that is about what happens when a town has a lot of its own issues then meets up with a mythicological force of nature and that then influences the town.

So that for me was a great way to be able to explore some of the real themes in this place and where my Uncle and my Grandparents came from. This is also where a lot of American pop culture came from – especially blues music and blues culture – and that became a lot of the things that we celebrate today. So it was great to be able to explore that because that kind of music actually has a very unique relationship with the macabre and the supernatural – you can hear that with your ears. You hear stories about the likes of Tommy Johnson selling his soul to play guitar and deals like that. It was called The Devil’s Music and lot of these amazing singers learn how to sing in the Church but they chose to do music that perhaps was frowned upon.

• Where did the idea about the hidden evil that is found in the story come from?

It was from a lot of different places but mainly from my Uncle. I wanted to tell a story that would make me feel close to him. I’ve basically been working on projects back-to-back since my mid 20s and he passed away while I was in post-production on Creed and because I was trying to finish the film I never really got the opportunity to process the loss. Here though I got to really dig into the world that produced my Uncle – and it is not really talked about that world is the heart of American culture. All of biggest cultural exports come from this place and I really wanted to ask why. Some of my favourite movies if they are not horror films certainly have horror elements to them so I was really excited to be able to combine those two ideas and it was incredible to see how they were able to fit together. It was perfect.

• Is making movies a kind of therapy for you?

Oh yeah, it definitely is. I am blessed to have been able to find this medium, and I found it by accident, where I can work out deep philosophical questions that I am struggling with. I get to work them out while contributing to an art form that means so much to me and my family. For my family watching movies together was how we connected so I feel like the luckiest person on the planet.

But yeah it is a form of therapy because each film brings me closer to being able to understand myself and the world around me.

1. How long have you had the idea for Sinners in your mind and why does now feel like the right time to bring it out into the world?

Timing is everything – it can really make or break a project. But as a filmmaker with a project the timing has to start with me. I was at a point in my life where I felt like I did want to do something original and I realised that I always seemed to be working on things that were based on pre-existing things so I felt the itch to want to try and it just felt like the perfect time for me.

The other thing I really wanted to do as well was play with architypes. Yes it is original but I am playing with a lot of architypes – not just the vampire but also the supernaturally gifted musician, the twins and there are a lot of other ideas in there as well so I am still digging off pre-existing things in culture but I am putting them through my own personal lens.

1. What was it like directing Michael B. Jordan as these two very different twins?

It was exciting. But we were talking about timing – well there are a lot of films coming out at the moment were actors are playing two or more different roles. But what is great is that they are all different ideas.

With these two though other than being twins there is nothing supernatural about them. But we do dig into twins and especially identical twins, which in itself is a bit of an anomality. We actually hired two friends of mine as twin consultants and they were able to talk to myself while I was writing the script and to Michael while he was prepping about what it is like to have a twin. And that was just fascinating – just thinking about the fact that from the very moment that you achieved consciousness there was another version of you right there in front of you sharing space. And they kind of view the world as us versus everybody else.

One of the things that Mike found though is that they are different in subtle ways and in the end he has been able to put in an absolutely brilliant performance. I can’t wait for people to be able to see it because this is Michael as you have never seen him before.

1. Do you see this film paving the way for a whole new way of horror story-telling?

I don’t know if I can say that the film would pave a new way in the genre. This genre is such an important genre in cinema. All of the great filmmakers that I have grown up loving have either made a permanent home in the genre or they have dabbled in it so for me I am working in the same space.

I just wanted to do it in a way that felt natural to me. It is an experience and a story that I am telling but I don’t think I can say that I am paving new ways because all of the Masters of the genre have been working in these spaces as well. Our film also has many genres in it as well and it is a real roller coaster ride. You will find that I went back to a lot of those inspirations as well and you will find evidence of that all throughout the film as well.

1. What challenges did you find mixing all of those genres together?

The trick is to always make it true to the characters. And I also wanted to make it true to me – that is the reality of it. I think life is like that as well. Even in one hour you go through so many different things and situations and you react to them all differently.

So to me it was just about keeping the characters on the rails as much as possible and letting them have this fantastic experience. I just wanted to make sure the reactions were natural.

1. Tell us a little about the musical element of the film and how you worked that into your sound design.

This film is very different. The musically element of this film is ever present. It is a film about American music and I have never seen a score like this before. In many ways I wrote this film with my composer in mind. He was there with us on set everyday, because he is an Executive Producer as well, and his father was a guitar teacher and that was how he got into music.

When we were doing our preliminary scout for this film his father came with us on the Blues Trail in Mississippi and his father grew up in Sweden so this was the first time for him to come to the home towns of his heroes. We went to B.B King’s hometown and these guys got to play on B.B King’s stage.

1. How do you balance heart and story – or do you see them as the same thing?

I think that they go hand-in-hand but you do have to be aware of both of them. I feel blessed that I was able to both write and direct this one and I was working with my wife who is a Producer on this and of course she knows me really well and she knows that my own personal story is in this. The best thing for me about this was that I got to work with people that know me and that enabled me to be able to split my focus but I also knew that they would be able to keep me on track. This was a family movie, man, big time. Not that you should take your kids to see it – I mean in terms of making it – not the subject matter.

1. Apart from Michael B. Jordan you were able to put together an amazing cast for this film – tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah my Casting Director did an incredible job. The first job was to find our Sammy and we found a young man who is incredible and he holds his own with all the great actors and actresses around him. This is his first film.

I have had some incredible casts – I have been really blessed but this one, and I feel that it is because these characters are original so it will be the audience’s first time meeting these characters, really turns out some amazing performances. Because this is original I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite like what they did. They formed a unit down there in New Orleans when we were shooting.

1. Why do audiences need to see Sinners in cinemas?

Because that is what it was made for. It is my love letter to the theatrical experience, and it is an experience that there has been some anxiety over. It is an experience that some feel is under threat. We shot on large format and that is why we were working so hard on it because it is a love letter to the exhilarating experience of being to watch a movie in a packed house full of strangers and where you never know what is going to happen next. There have been so many incredible movies that have given me that feeling and I wanted to try my hand at giving it back to the audience.

Sinners will be released in cinemas on April 17^th.