Ryan Coogler
Appearances
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Yeah. And what that took. as it relates to camaraderie with us, you know what I mean? A decision had to be made, you know what I'm saying? And when you making a movie about American blues music, you know what I'm saying? Like the Irish folks gotta have a place in that, you know what I mean? Like they were there.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Well, I mean, they cross the street from each other. Yeah, it's the white side of the street and the black side, yeah.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know, the reality is they were accepted in the black community. You know, how he found out was ironic. Like, you know, 10 years or so back, we were doing 23andMe, you know, and obviously they in the news a lot lately I've been seeing. But, you know, everybody was trying to find out their heritage. And for foundational black people, you know, we was jumping on it, right?
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Because of, you know, all of the indignities To our ancestors, at the top of it was the deliberate splitting of ethnic groups through the transatlantic slave trade to quell rebellions that were constantly happening. You know, so as a result of that, you know, we don't know what ethnic group we're from. I spat in the tube and, you know, like, checked it out, and they just came back.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
It came back like 86% West African. And I was like, oh, man, that doesn't tell me what I—like, I knew that. I know that, yeah. And I shared it with Chadwick Balsman when we met. And he said, hey, man, check out African Ancestry because they do it the proper way where you can really find out, you know, some answers to these questions. And I did mine, and my wife— whose father is African-American.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Her mom is from the Philippines. You know what I'm saying? So her pops takes the test. He tests his X chromosome and his Y chromosome, right? His X chromosome comes back West African. Guess what his Y chromosome comes back? Chinese. Han Chinese. You know, this man is in his 90s. He opened that packet up and said, like, what the, you know what I mean? And where is he from? He was born in Chicago.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Where were his parents from? From Mississippi.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
So we started digging into it. You know what I'm saying? You know, we find out that, you know, my wife's black dad comes from these people. The erasure. You know, they were there. You know, that is not, you know, like what I just said, the only thing false in this movie is the vampires. You know what I'm saying? You know, they were absolutely there.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
They were. They were. But we had to transplant them. And then we used digital technology to replicate them at times.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Well, I had a moment before, like... When I was still trying, when I was still, when I didn't have a movie in my head just yet, but I was dealing with a lot of the elements. I was working on Panther 2 and I was in Byron, Georgia. And I looked out of the window when my team was driving me to the hotel and I saw my first cotton field in person.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Man, it really messed me up, man. I told him to pull over, you know, because I was already sad and contemplative, you know what I mean? And I got out the car and walked into it and, you know, took a piece. I took a piece home. I still got it at home now. But, you know, the fact that I had been at this age and done all that I'd done and had never seen, you know, I wear cotton every day.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know, and I know the story of my people and, you know, the fact that, um, what for many years has been the most powerful empire in the world, sentenced them to that being their life, working in these cash crop fields. And looking at it, seeing it for the first time, it messed me up. And I knew I wasn't done with it.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Man, he played all of it, man. He was big on Albert King. He was big on Muddy. He was big on Howlin' Wolf. He was big on Coco Taylor. Big on John Lee Hooker. Sonny Boy Williamson, Mississippi Fred McDowell. He was big on all of them, man.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I just liked being with him. I wasn't thinking about the music. I associated it with him. And at that time, the blues wasn't for, I didn't think the blues was for me. I didn't think it was mine. It was just all man's. And to be honest with you, I thought the blues was for white people. You know what I'm saying? Because at that time,
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know, you had, like, the movie The Blues Brothers, which I hadn't seen, but, you know, on the poster, it was these white dudes with these hats. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know? And so I was like, okay, you know, the blues is for all black people, and it's for white people. You know what I'm saying? Because I was listening to Tupac, and what's crazy is my favorite song...
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
group and music video was Bone Thugs Crossroads not even knowing not even knowing that like you know like the crossroads is like you know what I'm saying like that's a blues thing you know what I mean like it made its way in the Cleveland Gangsta Rap but it was really that you know but I didn't know I was a kid and it took my uncle dying and then me listening to the music without him anymore to explain it to me
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
But I'm trying to hang on to every word, trying to see if I could get a clue about my uncle's life or why he liked this stuff. You know what I'm saying? And then, boom, I realized the brilliance of it. This was the base that everything came out of.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Buddy Guy was the last... musician my uncle would go see consistently. You know, he would get dressed up and go to his concerts, like up to his death. So when I was finishing up the script, I had this idea when I got to those last few scenes, I was like, oh man, wouldn't it be cool if, like wouldn't my uncle get a kick out of Buddy Guy being in this movie, you know? So I kind of got that.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I kind of had that idea. And I talked to my casting director, Francine Masler, and my producers, Zanji and Sev, and said, I want to try to get Buddy Guy in this movie. You know, everybody kind of panicked a little bit, you know, but then we got into it. And Zinzi and I went out there and went to his restaurant, Blues Club Legends.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I fully expected, but he got to say, hey, man, it's nice to meet you, kid, but I'm not being in a movie. You know what I mean? Like, I'm good. You know, I'm almost 90 years old, bro. You know, like, I don't have time for that. And Saul was prepared for that. But his kids, man, they were smiling at me. You know, and I got to sit down.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
He's like, look, you know, I don't know who you are or what you do, but my grandkids tell me I should sit with you and I should hear you out. You know, and I've decided, you know, whatever you need from me, because they speak so highly of you, you know, I'm in.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Have you guys talked about it? He has. We showed it to him in Chicago.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
He gave it a stamp of approval, you know, because that was his life, man. He was a sharecropper in Louisiana and had to make the decision to leave home. And he has so many beautiful stories, but a lot of them are heartbreaking, man. Like he wears polka dots, polka dot suits, polka dot guitars. And I asked him why.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And he said when he left home to become a blues musician, he told his mom he was going to make enough money to buy her a polka dot Cadillac. You know, and she passed away before he could do it. So the polka dots became his trademark. You know what I'm saying? And just that story of him having, like me imagining this nearly 90-year-old man having to explain to his mom, hey, I'm going to leave home.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I'm going to try to go make it with this guitar. You know, while she's in what was a slave shack in Louisiana. You know what I mean? Like sharecropping. You know, and he's here in 2025 completely lucid telling me all about it.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I appreciate you having me. I'm really thrilled to be here.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I was born in the wake of the military defeat of the Black Panthers. So that dream of a better life in the West, you know, that was gone.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
No, I grew up. Look, the first movie I seen in theaters was Boys in the Hood, you know, which, which, which, which, you know, I was five years old. My dad took me to see that movie. And, you know, I was that was what was happening, you know, down the highway five from us. You know, I was four years old.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I might have been actually five. Yeah. I was born in 86. I think that movie came out in 91. Yeah, I was five years old. My dad was a dad in his 20s. He heard that he had just lost his father before I was born. My mom's dad died before I was born. Both my parents' fathers died within two weeks of each other. Right after they got married.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And, you know, I heard that this was a movie black fathers should text their sons to. So he took me, you know. Did the same thing with Malcolm X like six months later.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I remember the whole movie. My memory with movies is pretty solid. Yeah, I remember all of it. I saw Malcolm X shortly after. It was really ironic because we just premiered Sinners in that same room at that same theater. And my dad sat in the same row.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I was a mess. Yeah, I was a mess the whole night. Yeah, I was a mess the whole night. It's my favorite screening of anything I ever made.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Great question. The film deals with dichotomy, as I mentioned, and I was born into a family with loads of twins, specifically like my mom's older sisters who are identical, my Auntie Marilyn and my Auntie Carolyn.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Oh, yeah. My whole life. Like, I can't, like, my aunts have always been around. One of them was my godmother, you know. So they always been a part of my life. The dynamic between them and the stories, you know, they're in their 70s now and they live next door to each other.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
But the stories, man, of, like, them beating people up and, you know, like, the fact that they can't live with each other, they can't live without, they're constantly arguing. You know, the games they would play with people when people couldn't tell them apart. And the fact that us and our family always could.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
We could turn our backs and feel one of them come into the room and know which one it was. You know what I'm saying? So it was something that I was always interested in exploring. And it felt mythical. The other thing is like identical twins are kind of always outlaws. You know, they're kind of always local celebrities. And there's always like a level of othering that happens with them.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
So that wasn't totally accurate. I suffered a lot of injuries, like broke all type of bones. But injuries didn't take me out. I was actually healthy when I stopped, which was more difficult than if I wouldn't have been, I think. Because I made the decision to stop playing when I could have kept playing.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I think my heart was in filmmaking more, and... I knew I wanted to make films while I was young, you know, because I felt like young people weren't represented in the industry behind the camera. You know, like I could feel it in the movies. Whenever I watch a movie about a young person, I was like, man, I don't know if this is accurate.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know, and I realized, oh, yeah, man, like, you know, the average age for somebody directing something is... a lot higher than these characters they portray. And, you know, for me, you know, I wanted to try to get going early. I had this instinct that I should try to, I got something to say now, if that makes sense.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
yes but to be honest with you it would have been more of a risk to not make it the movie was kind of on my heart and when you have something uh that clear for me uh it's a rare thing and and i had this this idea and it was very uh I will go back to say, I didn't put anything on hold for this. It was more... You know, that last Panther film took a lot of time.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Yeah, yeah, one of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, one of them, for sure. I wanted to contribute while I still was young. That was all. And I realized that I liked the movies by young filmmakers. I remember watching Mean Streets and saying, oh, yeah, this is a different Scorsese than...
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
uh think than goodfellas or or or departed you know what i'm saying i just feels like i can feel his youth you know what i'm saying or uh or do the right thing you know versus black clansmen you know i'm saying both both both great movies but like it's a different spike movies made by young people are almost always really dynamic that they youth and they optimism and they and they and they
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
It kind of infects the cinema. So I wanted to do that, you know, like, and it was like, damn, like I could keep playing football and see how long it takes me. But I had a feeling that it would be a while if I kept pursuing ball, you know, that I could play for a little bit more.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I mean, it's some truth. Some of those articles, I haven't seen any that were totally accurate. But the thing is, those terms are not new terms. They're not unique. I will say they are unique, but there are other filmmakers out there in the world who have not made as much money as I have at the box office, who've had these terms for a long time.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
It's not that unique, you know, for me to have asked for these terms and for me to have received them, right? You know, I wrote the script on spec. My production company has made some really incredible movies in the past, you know, and there was no shortage of companies that wanted to work with us, thankfully. You know what I mean? Like, for me, the film was so personal and about my family.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And, you know, 100 years ago, my family were sharecroppers. A hundred years before that, they were in a different type of situation, if you catch what I'm saying. So for me, that was something that I stood on, you know, that my company stood on, you know. And I was so thrilled that Warner Brothers was comfortable with us standing on that and saw value in this project.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And I have to imagine there were some people that were upset about it, you know what I mean? Yeah.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I wouldn't rule anything out. But that was not the reason. The reason for me was just this story that I wanted to... You listed the films that I've made before this. I made these movies when I was very young and they came at a steep price. I was not there when my uncle died because I was making a movie. I miss I miss so much, you know, making these movies before I was 40 years old.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And they've done well over two billion dollars at the box office. You understand? And I will never own any of these movies. The next movie I make, Black Panther 3, I will not own that. Disney won't own that. You know, it was time for me to own this.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Thank you for watching and thank you for talking about it and bringing your brilliant expertise to it. I'm looking forward to folks hearing it.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know, it took more time than any of us had anticipated it taking. You know, those movies tend to take about two years. You know, this one took four because of... The last Black Panther film, yeah. Yeah, Black Panther were kind of favorite. It was because of the tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman, rest in peace. The global pandemic happened.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And in making those films, man, like, there's so much interest. There's so many people involved. There's so many industries that are around.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Yes, yes, yes. Because, you know, and it is... I'm not complaining about it, but there is a... a lot of pressure around those movies. And I just made two back to back. So I was coming off of both of those projects, knowing there was no way I was gonna do another one next. I was gonna have to do something different before I came back to that.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
But for me, I got hit by almost like a bolt of lightning.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
This movie was like all about dichotomy, you know, and that's something that I've been dealing with my whole life. You know, this feeling of not totally fitting in or things not totally squaring with each other. You know, like coming up, I was black, I was from Oakland, I was middle-class, and I was in these neighborhoods where my parents were kind of outliers.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
They got married young and they went to college, but they stayed in their neighborhood, you know? So I constantly, as a kid, would feel like I was living in two different worlds. It was a dichotomy there. And I took the students serious. I was like a big old giant nerd. But I was also like a very, very serious athlete, you know.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And where I'm from, to be an athlete, you're like adjacent to street culture. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, you get cool points in the streets when you're good at football or basketball or whatever. or running track like I was. I was also raised Christian. I was raised Baptist in the black Baptist tradition. You know what I'm saying? But I was going to Catholic school.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
So I was around these like two very different types of Christianity and trying to reckon, you know what I mean, reckon with that on a daily basis. And it made me very sensitive to themes of identity, you know, and the dichotomy as an idea.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
He says, and you're going to have mine.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I mean, I'll be honest with you. To me, allegory, metaphor, all these things, I'm not going to tell you that they're not present in my work, right? But... I was not, in this case with this project, I was not being conscious of it. I was trying to communicate a feeling through cinematic language.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And the reality is, as I've gotten older in this business and in this craft, I realized that if I can make something true, it's up to the viewer to draw those parallels. You take the thing and you analyze it. And in your analysis, you might project your own experiences, your own knowledge, you know what I'm saying?
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And you might draw certain parallels that weren't the parallels that I was intending, you know?
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Yeah, I love vampires, man. I love horror fiction. I love horror movies. I love fantasy. I was raised around a lot of organized religion. And vampires intersect with all of that. You know what I mean? I also grew up in Oakland, which is... very dominated by street culture, you know.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And, you know, all these things, like I find vampires, they pull from all of that in terms of supernatural creatures, right? And I thought when the idea came to me for this movie, I thought about other supernatural creatures as a thing that they confront at the juke joint. I went down the line. I thought about werewolves. I thought about zombies.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I thought about shapeshifters, which in some indigenous cultures might be referred to as skinwalkers. I went through the whole Rolodex. And I kept coming back to vampires because of everything that the vampire implies in public consciousness. You know, vampires, it's not a steadfast rule, but it's pretty commonly associated with sensuality.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Vampires are expected to be sexy, usually expected to be fashionable, usually expected to be knowledgeable, usually expected to be very powerful. It's not... thought of as wrong if a vampire is converted to vampirism, but they maintain a human personality, you know, the human memories. It's a fascinating premise.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know, you'll see a version of this, you know what I mean, almost in every culture. And to me, you know, like that is just like a fascinating thing. If I'm trying to have a conversation about our common humanity, you know, like which for me, you know, this movie is about, you know, and, you know, what better to contrast, you
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know, oh, the other piece that the vampire involves is the Faustian deal. I was very interested in that.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Robert Johnson is who's most associated with that fable. And there's this tradition of things being taken. You know what I mean? Songs being sung over and over again, you know, by black people, you know. And then it was eventually done by white people. And because it was such an awfully racist time when they built this industry,
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
genre was kind of born out of this idea like where where where a black person would sing a song and and you're talking about a back-breaking form of apartheid you know at this time and a black person sings a song white person comes seems the same song same lyrics same uh same rhythm same music and they will say all right the black person's song that is a race record we're gonna we're gonna sell that as a race record this song is rock and roll
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know what I mean? We're going to shut out his rock and roll. Like that concept, you know, and imagine me in 2025 saying, hey, I'm going to make a genre movie. Not even understanding that classification of art and how some art is above other art. You know what I'm saying? You know, it's a period drama. Oh, this is a genre movie.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
You know, I realized, oh man, my people have been at war with this, you know, from the beginning. This has been a tool kind of lobbied against us, you know? So for me, The vampire was a creature who was like human adjacent, who was human at some point, you know, became something else. But through their advanced age, they could see society for what it was.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
I think it's more frightening when the film is about blues music, which is storytelling, but it's also a music that I think was made to help a people who are constantly under attack, to help them cope, to help them feel better, and to remind them that they were human. You know what I mean? To remind them. And that's what the music is.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
And for me, to have a creature who's incredibly powerful, who was human at a time, who is in pain, you know, and who needs to cope in a way that only a community can give him. If I can make a film where you're afraid of this guy, you know what I mean? But that's really what's going on with him. I thought about it after I wrote it, and I said, oh, man, who does he lie to? And who is he honest with?
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
Because for me, it's very clear that he identifies with these people.
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
He identifies with them. And that connection between what we experienced, we being African-Americans, foundational African-Americans who experienced under the forcible remove from the continent of Africa and placement, you know what I mean, in the Americas and the systems that were built after that, you know, our experience and the experience of the Irish people being forced to work
Fresh Air
Ryan Coogler Paid A Steep Price For The Films He Made
you know, land that has immeasurable abundance and wealth, but being denied that. Yeah, so I mean like the connections between the two cultures are really obvious to spot, you know, but also in the history here in the States, It's very complicated. You know what I mean? Like, you know, because of because of the mobility of certain immigrants that, you know, the ability to become white.
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Bro, I got nothing, man. I got a humble movie. You know what I mean? Coming to theaters April 18th. Buddy. That's about it, bro.
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
They're going to say a bunch of horrible words at you if you don't. You know what I mean? So look, bro, I'm like 27, 28 years old. Because Fruitville was my first movie and that was about my hometown. I knew what the Bay Area was. I knew the back of my hand. So it wasn't a concern. But for Creed, I freaked out, bro. Because I realized, oh my God, this responsibility is on my shoulders.
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
So one of the first things I did was I took my locations manager and my teamster, my head of the teamsters, I took them to the side, blocked out three hours. I got a map of greater Philadelphia, like a big proper map, like the size of your ground. And I spent two and a half hours with them and just like, what's this neighborhood called? Why is it called that? Who is here?
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
You know what I'm saying? Where do I go if I want a cheesesteak? Where do I go if I want to learn how to box? You know what I mean? We went through it for two and a half hours, marked up the whole calendar. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then I remember our head of travel, she was a black Philadelphian. You know what I'm saying, son?
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I brought her in and was like, hey man, tell me about Philly. You know what I mean? Like, you know, where are you from? Who's from over here? What's going on over there? You know, I got this scene with bikes. Where do I go to do that? You know, like, so from there I had like, I feel like I had a base understanding. I took a picture of that map And I had it on my phone.
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
And I went and scoured and went to these places. You know what I'm saying? And for me, it was the same thing for Clarksdale, Mississippi. You know, Ludwig and my composer and I, we went.
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
um on the blues trail and um and we spent days in these places you know we ended up shooting uh uh in new orleans which is you know which is you know very very close you know like um yeah but but all of the defining characteristics of the delta you know um we made sure we were steeped in it especially my production designer hannah buechler you know so that we knew
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
uh uh how not to to to you know what not to shoot in louisiana you know i'm saying in order to not not give ourselves up talk about our bfx supervisors to make sure we can maintain the uh the the the structural integrity of the landscape you know you know what i mean and you know so all of those things all of those things matter man you know i'm saying because like you know you don't get
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
You don't get this music and this culture and these types of people without the place. You know what I'm saying? Like the place is in constant call and response with the people that are there. You know what I'm saying?
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Man, you know, it's funny, bro. There's a book that talks about this in depth called Deep Blues by Robert Palmer. And it's a lot of books on Robert Johnson. But what I found out that was so fascinating was that he was not the first person to say this. There was a guitarist before him named Tommy Johnson, who was actually the guy who said, hey, I saw him on Salt of the Devil.
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
He taught me how to play the guitar. He would go around with a rabbit's foot, you know what I mean? And he would play, and he made some incredible songs. Robert Johnson kind of stole his story, you know? Okay. And when he did that, people knew he was kind of like saying he was the next Tommy Johnson, you know what I'm saying? And it was a lot of...
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
uh, a lot written about the fact that that story is, is not what you think it is. Like, like, you know, it is like, like, like it's a, it's an anglicized version of the story that he sort of saw to the devil. Yeah. It was really a deity named Papa Legbox.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
who is a West African deity from the Yoruba tradition that was brought over by enslaved Africans, who's a different, like, he's not Satan, you know what I mean? He's not involved in Christianity. No, exactly. He's not involved in Christianity. It's a different deity, you know, who's associated with trickery and, you know,
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and gifts, but it, but it really is like how, how I looked at it, you know, um, is, is a metaphor for the Faustian deal. You know what I'm, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, and, and that, and that for me, when looking at it was like, okay, well, this is, this is,
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I mean, I think he got himself nominated.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
maybe something that lends itself towards the specificity of vampires when it comes to, like, the supernatural horror rogues gallery. You know what I'm saying? Yes.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah, yeah. And the idea of a deal, you know what I'm saying, to get out of a situation, like mortgaging, you know, mortgaging something for something else, you know, like it's something that I think... you know, oppressed people of all cultural backgrounds are very familiar with. You know what I'm saying?
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Look, you know, my inspiration for this movie was my relationship with my Uncle James, who's from Mississippi. He was the oldest male member of my family. And I was very close with him, man. Like, you know, I loved him very much. And a part of my, something that I had to give up in pursuit of being a professional filmmaker to be able to have this movie to talk to y'all about.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I had to leave my family a lot. I had to miss a lot of shit, birthdays and weddings and just general get togethers, you know what I'm saying? Because I was away at film school, I was off shooting a movie. The year I made Creed, you know, was the year he was terminally ill. You know what I mean? He got sick and died. And I maybe saw him once or twice that year.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
And when I got the call that he had passed away, I was in a post-production facility in Los Angeles. I was at a place called Wildfire Post. And I felt like shit that I wasn't on my uncle's side. You know what I mean? Because I was pursuing this dream. You know what I'm saying? He knows you love him. Oh, 100%, bro. But the thing is, it's like,
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
the question of what you give up to get something, you know what I'm saying? Like that was always what I saw, the Tommy Johnson, the Robert Johnson fable. That's what that was about. I'm going to make you a great guitar player, but in exchange for your soul.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Something super hard. I mean, like, it would have to be something, like, for my kids or something, like, to guarantee. That's a waste. You know, like, to guarantee. That's a waste. It's on them. It's on them. They can sell their souls. To guarantee, you know what I'm saying, like, all my descendants, you know what I'm saying, go to, you know, live, live, wonderful lives and go to heaven.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
You know what I'm saying? I might consider putting that on the line. You know what I mean? That's actually a wonderful answer.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
That's my vampire year, dude. I mean, what's crazy about him, bro, is he been trying to make that movie favorite. He been trying to make that movie since he was a kid. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Yeah, let me beat you to the punch by a long shot. You know what I'm saying? I hope you're not upset with me. You know what I mean? No, no, no.
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I'm sure they exist, you know what I'm saying? But I'm hoping people got in to check out another one, you know what I'm saying?
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I can't wait. It's brilliant. It's silly.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Man, so many things, bro. Yeah, so many things. Like, I can't, you know, I can't say on the pod because I wouldn't be able to get a deal done. It's how we do it.
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I know, man. Bro, I love it, man. Like, it's not... It's not... Yeah, bro, like, when you were saying, like, what's my favorite horror film, I'm like, bro, it's so many, like, that I just absolutely adore it, bro.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I appreciate that, you guys, man. That means the world. I love the genre. You guys are saying I'm coming down to it. I feel like I was coming up to it. You know what I'm saying? Because when I was in... Before I even went to film school, my first short films I would make would have will have horror elements to them.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I'm used to it, bro. I'm working on X-Files, bro.
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I've been excited about that for a long time and And I'm fired up to get back to it. And that would, you know, some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really fucking scary.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I waved at her one time. I've spoken to the great Gillian Anderson. Yes, she's amazing.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah, yeah. She's incredible. And, you know, fingers crossed there.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
uh i can't wait to see her she already in tron i just seen a trailer for that oh yeah that's right she's in tron when i spoke to her she was she was she was finishing that up um but but but yeah but we're gonna try to make something really great bro um and and and really and really be um you know something for the real x-files fans and today you know what i'm saying and maybe find some new ones tell you what we're cruel and we're cutthroat so just so you know
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
So we're going to attack you. I'm going to know how y'all feel.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
It's coming, bro. Yeah, it's really good. Hell yeah. Really, really, really good. You know, I think this... I'm biased, obviously, but I think the score is some of Ludwig's best work. And this soundtrack is some of his best work as well in that space. Like, it's incredible.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
But I didn't feel like I was, I didn't feel like I was good enough to make that, to make that step yet, man. I kind of got away from it.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I didn't know where I was going, bro. It's scary out here.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Fantastic, bro. I saw him in person. We saw him twice. We've seen him twice. We love that album. No, no, check game. He performed in this venue called The Cave up north in Napa, bro. And I was like, the whole time he was playing, bro, I was like, yo, somebody got to put a movie theater in a cave because this shit is sick. It was like stone walls and shit.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
And I was literally going to ask, who got a projector?
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
but yeah man he makes you feel like you floating doesn't he oh my god we saw him at the hollywood forever uh yeah we saw at the masonic lodge it was unbelievable i thought i was gonna float yeah the least coolest people in the room for sure can i ask y'all a question bro yeah i don't want y'all to answer with all sincerity man don't give me the fake podcast answer give me the real answer bro okay
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Would y'all watch Sinners at the Cemetery, bro? Hollywood forever. Yep. I mean, of course. Do it.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah. Get it done. Yeah, please. Make it happen.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I bet we're going to get to work on that after, after hopefully, after hopefully a robust.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
If you at least produce it, you know, that's not, that's not, that's not a bad idea at all, bro. He's still there. He's still alive.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
He's been listening to a lot of George Clinton, bro. I could tell. Well, obviously referenced. I was today years old when I realized on Atomic Dog, the whole beat, he's panting like a dog.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I'm talking before Lox, bro. I was making stuff before that. Lox, I think, was my second semester of graduate school. But I was making shorts when I was an undergrad, when I first learned that I wanted to make movies in it. And I made a couple of things at SC, you know, that, you know, one of them actually was the thing that got me recommended for Fruitvale. But nobody will ever see those movies.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I'm not answering that. I'm not answering that. Sorry, sir.
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Likewise. Thank you all for having me, man. Best of luck with everything, man. I really appreciate y'all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
All right, Joe. See you, guys. Thank you, man. Be good.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
It wasn't legal for us to submit those movies to festivals or anything like that. And they weren't good enough. But, um, but I've been, you know, I've been in love with the genre, man, and wanting to make something, you know, in that zone since I learned I wanted to make movies. You know, that was my first, that was my first, my first instinct. But then, you know, You know, I made locks.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Locks was the first thing I could submit to festivals, you know, by someone who was at a school and ended up making things more in that, you know, more in that tonality. You know, but this was kind of a homecoming for me. That folks who really know me, who are around, you know, know I have this type of passion for horror cinema.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah, man, my favorite horror movies, man. I would say number one is The Thing. Yes!
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I consider The Thing cosmic horror. You know, it definitely has science fiction elements as well. I must tell you, bro, even though I love genre cinema, I don't like the concept of genre. It annoys me. Having to classify things, especially after making this movie, You know, because I can research and, you know, the movie deals with a lot of things.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Right. Hereditary is a big one for me. I love that movie.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yes. Yes. No, 100%. Like, the thing is... I always work from the standpoint of knowing what my worst fear is as an artist. And I'm always kind of dealing with that in my movies. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And in this movie, I dealt with all of them. Like all of my worst fears are in this. I just dumped them all in there. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
But what I was saying about genre was like, you know... in studying for this movie, I was studying Delta blues music. And I discovered that for a long time when the music business was first commodified in this country, genre itself was a tool of racism. Like if a black person sang a song, And then a white person sang the same song.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
You know, they would put those two songs into two different genres. You know what I'm saying? Like the black song would be called a race record. And then the white person singing the song, that might be called bluegrass. Or like pop. Exactly. And, you know, the music industry, you know, came before the film industry. You know what I'm saying? Like it's an older industry.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
So a lot of the film business, it follows the whims of music because it's an older industry. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And that tradition is what causes like certain genres to be kind of like ghettoized. You know what I'm saying? Yes. Like this genre is beneath this genre. The horror movie is beneath the costume drama. You know what I'm saying? Sure.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
So whenever I hear it with this one and I'm trying to define it or when I'm trying to classify a movie like Rosemary's Baby, you know what I'm saying?
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah, exactly. So you realize it becomes, you know, like they had this ridiculous rule that the movie interrogates, like, called the one-drop rule, like, for human beings, right, in this country at a time when they were trying to put the, you know, when they're trying to stick apartheid on top of humanity. They said, all right, if you got one drop of black blood, now that makes you black.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Yeah. Which is so absurd when you hear this. But it's also, you know, you think about that with movies. It's like, hey, you got one, you got a couple of horror scenes. No, that's a horror film. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's like, well, it's Rosemary's Baby. Like, how are we going to talk about this movie?
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Because the vast majority of it, you know, is a husband and wife talking to their neighbors. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, and so for me, you know, my favorite horror movies, they all are going to have an element of like a question mark. Like, yo, is that a horror movie? Because look, I'll tell you straight up.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Like, I think Steven Spielberg has created some of the most horrific images known to man, like, you know, with Jaws.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Raiders, that ending, bro, like what happens to the dude when he pops the thing. But also, man, a movie like Jurassic Park, like some of those Velociraptor sequences, the opening Velociraptor sequence, when a guy gets eaten.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
by something in a box that you can't see. Or the T-Rex sequence when it's raining at night and the cup is rippling and he's coming by the car and he's breathing on the glass. The velociraptor opening the door and the claws on the kitchen tile. You know what I'm saying? That movie is so scary. It literally scares dogs.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Dogs know it's scary. Your dog's not fucking with you. Get that thing off.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah. Absolutely, man. Like, it's so much fun, bro. Like, look, a big... a big inspiration for the movie was also the Twilight Zone. You know, like, that's my... The Twilight Zone is like my filmmaking Bible if I have one.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah, exactly. My favorite episode of Twilight Zone is not as talked about, but it's an episode called The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
And it's about a guy in a southern Midwestern town, Depression era, who wakes up at his own funeral. And it's about the fallout of the town, like trying to figure out what's going on with this guy, you know? And it's just beautiful filmmaking, bro. It's funny. It's scary. It's smart. You know what I mean? Yes. And like for me... You know, that shit.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
And it has like a few, you know, a few scenes that could maybe delve into horror. You know what I'm saying? But most of it is just like slice of life in this town. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Have you ever seen Handling the Undead? No, what is that?
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Do you know anybody who does that shit? My wife, who's my producer on this one, she found a consultant. Um, for, for us, uh, you know, cause I work, I'm big on consultants, bro.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I work with a lot of consultants when I make, when I make movies, I, out of fear of just not wanting people to, to, to, who are knowledgeable about the subject matter we make and to sit in the theater and see us get it wrong on a giant screen. You know what I'm saying?
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yes. I mean, I got nothing to push, bro. That's unfortunate. I got nothing but a movie.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah. Yeah. No, no. So she found us an incredible consultant. Um, uh, her, her name is Dr. Yvonne. Her name is Dr. Yvonne. What's her last name? Yeah. Oh, Sev. Oh, my bad. Sev found that consultant. Our other producer. My wife, Zinzi, is here. Hi.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah, Zanzi Coogler is my boss's name. And the doctor's name was Dr. Yvonne Chereau. Okay. And she, you know, like, you know, read the script, gave feedback. It helped us to make sure that the ritual where Annie, who's our conjurer woman in the movie, where she feeds Smoke's mojo bag, which is a good luck charm that's very, very famous and very talked about in blues culture.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Sometimes it's called a mojo hand. Sometimes it's called a Johnny Conqueroo. But you'll hear this referred to in
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extremely famous blues songs you know uh but but you know all that stuff i wanted to be real man like in in um you know i love uh you know i mean it's like it's a lot of filmmakers carrying the torch for that right like um like robert eggers yeah who's your buddy too he's a little bird he told us you're friends with him and you guys are both well yeah yeah robert and i have the same agent um who's like who's like a who's like a uh
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
who's an incredible person, bro. Like Craig, Craig Castile, who, who are, who are contact us with, right? Right. Like, uh, like Walter and Craig. Yeah. Um, you know, are, are, are, are, are, have been in each other's lives for, for, for the better part of a decade. And, and Craig loves cinema, man. He loves his job, bro. He really does. You know, so, so, so I've been hearing about Robert forever.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
And, um, and, you know, we, we finally got a chance to exchange, exchange info. And, and, but, but, but, but, you know, I love, the feeling of a fully realized and tactile world where you can feel that the filmmakers cared. It's a deep history of that. We wanted the magic in this movie to feel like everything else, like the music, like the dance in the movie. We wanted it to feel
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real and lived in and respected, you know? Yeah. It's beautiful.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
Yeah, it's funny, man, because for a long time, film was how I traveled. You know, like watching... I still, to this day, haven't been to Brazil. But I've seen City of God. You know what I'm saying? So I feel like I've been mentally ill. I didn't get to New York. until I was like 22 years old and one of my films got into the Tribeca Film Festival.
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
But I felt like I had been in New York all the time watching movies like Coming to America and Marty Scorsese movies. You know what I'm saying? So for me... A big part of it, not that I had this incredible blessing to be able to make movies. I think about that. I say, well, this is how a vast majority of my audience is going to experience Philadelphia. You know what I'm saying?
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Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler
I don't want to fuck this up. I don't want somebody who is from Philadelphia to pay a ticket to see what they think is a Rocky movie. And only to realize, man, we got Philadelphia completely wrong. You know what I'm saying? They care, too. Oh, yeah. They let you know.