Ryan Coogler

And I didn't have that...

surreal, like, element to it.

It was just going to be that, you know, Preacher Boy sings and people like it, you know?

No, no, no, no, no.

That's what it said in the outline.

Okay, the outline.

In the outline.

When I got to it in the script, like, I felt strange because I had fallen in love with all these characters and I didn't want them to die.

You know what I mean?

I realized in this movie, they all got to get bit in the neck and check out.

You know what I'm saying?

And I felt bad.

And I realized that this scene was the midpoint.

Donald and me are like, these people, the real people, not in my script, but the real people that they based on, these black folks in 1930s who were of age to be in this juke joint, they were living in Clarksdale during Jim Crow.

They all were sharecroppers because it was nothing else that the society allowed them to be.

Their grandparents were enslaved.

Their children, their children's children will still be sharecroppers.

But somehow they invented, you know, probably the most impactful American contribution to global popular culture.

And they invented it just because they wanted to feel alive for a few hours, you know, Friday and Saturday night.

You know, and they had no, I don't think they had any idea that the music that they listened to