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Ryan Coogler Dissects ‘Sinners’: How the Blockbuster Filmmaker Reinvented the Vampire Movie on a Near-Impossible Timeline
Ryan Coogler and Proximity co-founders Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian on making the blues-tracked vampire thriller 'Sinners' on an impossible timeline.
We’re discussing a surreal scene that’s previewed in the film’s trailers, where Sammie’s musical talents “pierce the veil between life and death,” literally burning down the house and exposing the revelers inside the juke joint to the devils outside for a moment. The team also hired unit production manager Will Greenfield (who is also billed as an executive producer) to start putting budgets together and explore different states to shoot, as well as casting director Francine Maisler, who was tasked with finding an actor to play Sammie. So, Coogler took those familiar archetypes — the Hoodoo conjurer, the woman who can pass as white, the shop owners, the musical prodigy whose dad is a preacher, the old blues musician who is constantly self-soothing, and even the Smokestack twins — and gave them new depth.
Or read this on Variety
