Inside Sinners with Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan
Beyond the compelling cinema they've created together, the partnership between Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Ryan Coogler and versatile actor Michael B. Jordan is rooted in a genuine friendship and a mutual love for the craft. This makes their fifth collaboration, the anticipated horror/adventure film Sinners, a particularly rewarding and exciting endeavor.
The film revolves around twin brothers (both portrayed by Jordan) who are attempting to leave their troubled lives behind by returning to their hometown to start anew. However, they find themselves confronting an even greater evil lurking in the very place they sought refuge.
Hitting local theaters and IMAX exclusively nationwide on April 19, 2025, Sinners features an impressive cast including Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, and Delroy Lindo. It is produced by Proximity Media Production, presented by Warner Bros. Pictures, and distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.
In this exclusive interview, Coogler and Jordan talk about the making of the film and the magic behind their enduring connection.
Jordan and Coogler during the shoot of Sinners.
What makes your collaboration creatively and personally satisfying?
Michael B. Jordan: I think what makes it so satisfying and enjoyable is the comfort of it all and the trust, knowing that it’s going to be an enjoyable experience and I’m going to get pushed beyond my comfort zone. We’re constantly trying to grow from project to project throughout our lives, and also, throughout our professional careers. Also, the fact that we get along so well, because he’s somebody I’ve known for a really, really long time. And when you’re working with your friends—you don’t ever want to let them down. The fact that he thinks about you for a certain project that’s really personal to him, that means a lot to him, and he trusts you to deliver the message. To be a part of that process, you take it seriously, because that means a lot. So, it’s all of the above, plus, he’s somebody you kick it with when you’re working or not.
Ryan Coogler: I was fortunate enough to find out what I love to do. Some people say it's a calling or a passion, but I just really love the process of making films. And I love the process of trying to improve, push the media, and push myself. Mike and I met at a time when I was just getting started finding my way professionally. Mike had a lot of experience. He had already done a host of great television shows and had been in some great movies. He started acting when he was very, very young. So, when we met, he was well into his professional career. But he was at a moment where he was kind of maturing and taking stock of what his next 10 years were going look like. And I felt fortunate to be able to just make one movie with the guy. I was convinced, as well as other people around him, that he was a movie star. It’s interesting. This was at a time when people were actively looking for who the next people were going to be. And I figured he was one of them. He could be one of the ones for us, for my generation. And that hunch turned out to be correct. We got a chance to work with each other.
And I recognized in him so many things, so many commonalities—we were around the same age and we’re from similar cities, though 3,000 miles apart. So, we had a lot of instant shorthand that just comes with living life. But what was rare and unique was that I saw in Mike the same kind of love of the process, love of filmmaking, love of the craft and the work. He wasn’t in it for other reasons. He was in it for the work itself. And with that I said, “Oh, this is somebody who wants to push himself, wants to be pushed, wants to go the extra mile, wants to commit. Someone who wants to build a life around doing this.” And we were able to build that together. You could say the professional led to personal, or the personal led to professional, but in reality, it was side by side. We wouldn’t have met each other if we didn’t love the work. But as a result, we were able to build a bond that I think enables us to put some great stories in front of audiences.
Jordan plays the role of identical twins.
How does Sinners, your fifth film together, push you creatively and emotionally?
Coogler: I’ll jump straight in, because I remember telling Michael about the project first, and this is me at my most exposed artistically. This is me at a point as a filmmaker where I most know who I am as a person. It’s the first film I made where I felt like I was fully formed as a human being, so to speak, in terms of identity. And I had this great opportunity that studios were interested in making something original that I had come up with. And I needed the best people for this. It’s a unique role that I thought only Michael could do. And what’s crazy is I would think that even if I didn’t know him, there’s probably a world where the twins are fraternal, not identical. And if Chad [Boseman] were still alive, maybe that could have happened. But unfortunately, Chad is not with us in the physical sense anymore. And it made sense for the characters to be identical. And I was like, “Okay, Mike’s made a lot of stuff, but he hasn’t done any of this.” So, when I brought it to him, it was an opportunity for us to jump off this creative cliff together with no safety net. Like, no pre-existing IP to fall back on and taking some real risks. And I think what Mike pulled off is exceptional.
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Jordan: I know the characters that he writes come from personal places. Some are completely fictional, of course, but there’s a lot of inspiration there. My job is to always make sure I’m delivering the right message and bringing to the table what he intended the characters to bring. And he pushed me a lot throughout this process. The first time going through it together, like, “Man, we have never worked with twins!” There was a process of figuring out the technical aspect of shooting and how we were going to get things done in real time. At some points I was like, "Damn, this feels like my first time making a movie,” because I didn’t know the process before and I was learning this different technical element to it.
Coog had a great team of people around him that he brought onboard to help us through that process… but it was a milestone moment for me, as a project and movie. Our relationship and our dynamic play a role in so many different parts of the moviemaking process—like in rehearsals, there’s a shorthand. This was my first project coming off of directing, and coming in playing just as an actor. So, I came in with a brand new set of eyes. I could now imagine what his mental checklist and priority list would be, from the time he got to set, to the end of the day. How could I anticipate those needs? How could I close the gap? How could I help out in certain areas? That added another element of consideration and thought that I tried to bring to the table. So, a long-winded way of saying, I think our friendship and our dynamic played a huge part in the making of this movie.
Jordan with Omar Benson Miller and Hailee Steinfeld
From Ryan’s script to your performance, Michael, how did you create these two characters?
Coogler: It’s interesting because oftentimes I’ll write scripts with actors in mind. And I still did that on this one, but I also had to take a step back and try to put the actor away as much as I could and just imagine the characters. I think with this film, that process paid off because these performances from Michael are so much different from anything else that I’ve seen him do before. Obviously, excluding the work we’ve done together, but also inclusive of it. I got two little brothers, so I know a sibling dynamic. But starting off, I have to acknowledge the twin dynamic is a totally different thing. And then the identical twin dynamic is even a more different thing than that. It’s literally a chance occurrence.
Fraternal twins can be genetically inherited. But with identical twins, geneticists still don’t understand why it happens in human beings. There is an extreme mystery and also I think a somewhat harmful fetishism that’s associated with identical twins from general society. I have a few close friends who are identical twins. My mom’s older sisters are identical. And there’s an interesting notoriety that identical twins have in their neighborhoods. Almost every neighborhood I’ve been to or been around has a set of twins who are kind of notorious, kind of local celebrities. Everybody knows them. They may have reputations. I have a couple of friends of mine, Noah and Logan Miller—the Miller brothers—they’re from the Bay Area. They’re identical twins and they’re filmmakers. We became close around the time that Fruitvale came out and I reached out to them to see if they would be creative consultants on the film. Basically, I just wanted to interview them and get into their thoughts about what that dynamic is.
It was very informative. They were able to work with Michael a little bit. I found it pretty helpful just to get into the psychology of who these guys are. And then there was the fun of it, right? Like the fun of making them kind of total opposites, but at the same time, very similar. And that was where it got fun. We were able to get into some of the iconography and the color story between them. And also, the backstory of what happened to these guys and how that cemented them into a certain dynamic. The humor of one being born the same day as the other one, but a total domineering big brother type—the relationship that almost is paternal, which is pretty fun. All of these things, it was a great experiment to see if we could pull it off technically, but the technical can only capture what’s coming from the actors, so to see if Michael could be these two guys in the same day… 40, 50 times.
Coogler says the challenging role was uniquely suited for Michael, and couldn't envision anyone else bringing it to life.
Jordan: Backstory is something that’s really important to actors like me, so I built the backstory of what happened to them from their earliest memories. What happened before page one of the script is always super important. Just really getting inside of the identical twin dynamic and what that means for brothers. I’ve had my dialect coach—she’s both a drama teacher and dialect coach for years. She’s incredible—Beth McGuire. I first worked with her on Panther, and she helped me with a lot of body movement, including their physical posture and stance. They both stood differently, they walked a little bit differently—they held their trauma in different places. Just getting into all of the physicality really helped me feel confident and prepared. Also, music—I had one playlist for Smoke and one for Stack. So, with all that, when I stepped on set, I could do it.
Then, we were just figuring out the process. Okay, which twin goes first? In this scene, which brother has the most to do, the most agency or is driving the scene? One goes first because he sets the rules. When I flipped to the other side, I can’t walk in the same space as the other. So, I had to create new blocking. Hats off to my castmates who had to deal with me [laughs]. One version, reading the scene; one with him having to flip on the other side and read that version; and giving us grace during that process for them, which was also an important part of this. Then there was music, the things that I needed to prep. Coming in the morning, getting into one character’s body and mind, then taking a couple of minutes to come off him and go into the other one.
It was a process that we refined along the way. I think in the beginning, we had an idea, and by week two or three, we had a much better idea of what was going to happen and the flow. We just kind of grew with it and the movie told us what we needed to do and… we kind of went from there.
