Fresh off of the announcement of their record-breaking Academy Award nominations last week, Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are adding a bit more context to the story that captivated audiences worldwide.
Ahead of the release of the newest episode of Proximity Media’s In Proximity podcast, ESSENCE has an exclusive first look at the candid, craft-focused conversation between the Sinners collaborators and host Paola Mardo. At the center of the episode is the chemistry the pair have built over years of working together. As the director, Coogler built the film from the ground up, which meant mapping timelines and life events for twins Smoke and Stack in meticulous detail.
“For me, working on a script as a writer, it was a lot of math happening, like just figuring out how old these guys were,” Coogler said during the episode. “I made a little spreadsheet for Mike to show him where they were and what happened and how it went down.”
Set against the blues era of the 1930s, the characters’ backstories stretch through World War I and into Chicago’s criminal underworld. “You kind of work backwards and forwards at the same time,” he explained, adding that understanding “who did what for the other person” shaped the twins’ behavior on screen.
Jordan matched the director’s focus with his own transformation. Playing two brothers meant building two entirely separate inner lives. He kept individual journals for Smoke and Stack and worked closely with dialect coach Beth McGuire to create distinct vocal registers.
“Key phrase is like a phrase that you would use to help you, your muscle memory of your voice and your vocal chords to get into register,” Jordan says. For Smoke, he pulled from late-1930s recordings. For Stack, he modeled the voice after “this older Southern woman.” He’d replay those clips between takes to switch characters instantly. “I used those to have in my head that I would listen to as I’m switching from one twin to the other.”
The episode also digs into the twins’ darker edges, and Coogler didn’t shy away from who these men are. “These are very bad men,” he says plainly. “They’re murderers, they’re robbers… but yet still, they’re still human beings. There is still a depth to their humanity.”
Of course, between talk of the seriousness of the film, lighter moments surface too, including Coogler’s on-set espresso ritual, where he personally pours shots for cast and crew between takes. Ultimately, the conversation offers a rare glimpse at how two longtime collaborators build performances from start to finish.
For fans still dissecting Sinners, this episode of In Proximity served as an open door into the craft behind one of the greatest films of our generation.