Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at hewlett.org. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Delroy Lindo, an actor whose presence has shaped film and theater for more than 50 years.
From West Indian Archie and Spike Lee's Malcolm X, to the charming and cruel drug kingpin in Clockers, to a father guarding an unspeakable secret in The Cider House Rules, for me, Delroy's characters often feel lived in, complicated, and hard to shake. In Ryan Coogler's latest film, Sinners, Lindo plays Delta Slim, a hard-drinking, deeply-knowing blues harmonica player in 1930s Mississippi.
Blues wasn't forced on us like that religion. No, sir. We brought this with us from home. It's magic what we do. It's sacred. Delroy Lindo is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Delta Slim, his first Oscar nomination in a 50-year career. Sinners leads all films this year with 16 nominations.
Lindo trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and made his name in the theater, Broadway, Yale Rep, and the Kennedy Center, performing August Wilson and Lorraine Hansberry before Spike Lee brought him to film audiences. Over the decades, he's moved between stage film and television, from Get Shorty and Ransom to his turn as the razor-sharp attorney in The Good Fight.
In 2020, he reunited with Spike Lee for Defy Floods, playing a traumatized Vietnam vet returning to the jungle to recover buried gold and the remains of a fallen soldier. Delroy Lindo, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. I want to set up Sinners for those who have not seen it and to remind those who have seen the film.
So Sinners is this haunting Southern epic set in 1932 Mississippi, and twin brothers Stack and Smoke, both played by Michael B. Jordan, and they return home from Chicago to open a juke joint, only to find that their plans are overtaken by this supernatural evil as vampires, and hoodoo, and there's buried trauma, and it all converges into this single horror-filled night.
And I want to play the scene where we first meet your character, Delta Slim. In this scene, Stack approaches you at a train station where you're busking and tries to convince you to play at the juke joints opening night, and you're hesitant at first until Michael, as Stack, wins you over, and Stack speaks first. I'll give you $20 to come play at our juke tonight. Yeah, I wish I could.
I'm going to be a messiness tonight, same as I am every Saturday night. They ain't paying you $20 a night, I know that. You ain't paying no $20 a night. You paying $20 maybe tonight. Tomorrow night, the week after that, nah. I've been a messiness every Saturday night for the last 10 years. Men's is going to be there another 10 years after that, at least.
I play, and I get as much corn liquor as I can drink. A sinner like me, I can't ask for more than that. That's my guest today, Delroy Lindo, as Delta Slim in Sinners. You know, there's kind of a rhinus to your character. There's a little bit of humor there. You know, he knows exactly what he's worth, and he kind of is not going to settle for
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Chapter 2: What is Delroy Lindo's role in Ryan Coogler's 'Sinners'?
I read that in the first draft of the film, as it was written, your character kind of begins and ends there. And you kind of told the director, Ryan Coogler, like, he needs to be built out more. He's rich, and I want to see him more in the film. Is that true? So, no, it wasn't that my character began and ended with that first scene. What it was, was that the introduction was so dynamic
that what happened in the second half of the screenplay, I was not as present. I was there, but I was not as present. And since Ryan had introduced the character, my character, Delta, Delta Slim, so dynamically, I spoke with Ryan and I said, how can we enhance my presence in the second act of the film? And Ryan understood that, and he assured me that we would,
work on enhancing my presence in the second act. And he did. Talk to me a little bit about your preparation for this man because there is a knowing. There's a scene that I love so much. It's where you and Stack, Michael B. Jordan, and Preacher Boy are driving through. In the car. You're in the car. You know exactly the one I'm talking about. You're driving through the cotton fields. Yeah.
And you start to talk about a lynching. Yeah. And there's so much in that that feels so real and... There's a knowing in you. You're starting to tell the story and then you just break out in humming. And that reminded me so much of my grandfather and hearing him sometimes he'd talk and then he'd just start humming.
And I want to know where that comes from, from you, that knowing, you know, that you brought to that character. First of all, thank you for what you just said about your grandfather, because various people have mentioned to me that that scene and my presence reminds them of an uncle or their grandfather, somebody that they knew from their families.
And that is a huge compliment, but more importantly than being a compliment, it's an affirmation for the work. To answer your question, It started, my preparation for this started with Ryan sending me two books, Blues People by Amiri Baraka, who was Leroy Jones when he wrote the book, and Deep Blues by Robert Palmer. And I read those books. That was my intro into the world of Sinners.
And in reading those books and then referencing those books throughout production, I was given an entree into the worlds, the lifestyles of these musicians. There's a certain kind of itinerant quality that they moved around a lot. The constant for them is their music. so that there is this deep-seated connection to the music.
And because they are following where the music takes them, that then becomes an intrinsic part of their lifestyles. I've heard you say that for characters, you first look at maybe those similarities, and then you look at the differences, and then you work from there. That's exactly right.
That particular scene, though, where you're talking about the lynching, and then you just go into humming, it also signifies something else for me. Like sometimes when there are no words for something. There are no words. And when there are no words, that's where the blues comes in. That's where the music comes in. exactly where the music comes from.
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Chapter 3: How did Delroy Lindo prepare for his Oscar-nominated role?
I saw you chuckle a little bit. Because I said, no, we're not. Tell me why. I have made two decisions. comments about what happened. And I feel that for me, that is all I need to say. And the comments that I have made, which I will repeat for you. Can I first tell people what we're talking about? Absolutely. No, absolutely. Please.
So while you and Michael B. Jordan were on stage presenting an award for the BAFTAs, which is basically the UK's version of the Oscars, very high honors, a man in the audience named John Davidson shouted a racial slur. And Davidson has Tourette's syndrome and has said the outburst was involuntary and he's apologized. And you have made some comments about it.
And I want to hear what you have to say about it. The only thing that I've said is that At the NAACP Awards, Ryan and I were presenting an award. And right before we went on stage, I said to Ryan that I wanted to just say something. He didn't know what I was going. I said, let me just, before we start reading the teleprompter, I have something I want to just say.
And what I said to the audience were words to the effect that Mike and I, sinners, company of people, appreciate that. all the love and support that we have received as a result of what happened at BAFTA. And the fact that I could stand there in a room predominantly of our people. Of black people, because it's at the NAACP Awards. The NAACP Awards. Yeah.
I could stand there and feel safe, feel loved, feel supported, and just simply affirm the love and the support that they have given us. And I just wanted to officially, formally say thank you to our people and to all of the people who have supported us as a result of that incident.
And then the second thing, I was at the after party, the BAFTAs, and I don't know what I was thinking, but a gentleman came up to me at the after party and said, he introduced himself and said, oh, I'm with Vanity Fair. Nat should have told me, this is a journalist right here. He said, I'm with Vanity Fair. It didn't occur to me, this is a journalist.
But what I said to him was, look, it would have been nice if somebody from BAFTA had spoken to Mike and I. And that's all I said. And that's all I am going to say. Oh, I'm sorry. There was one other thing that I said. I'm sorry. I said...
It was an example of something that could have been, that started out negatively becoming a positive from the standpoint of the love and support that we had received. And I received a text, a biblical text that I want to just share with you. And the verse of the day is, my wife sends verses, affirmations to various people. Yeah. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12, 21. A negative turned into a positive, which essentially is what I didn't quote that Bible passage. I told her that when she sent me this, God, I wish I'd have said that. Delroy, I feel like that's an answer to my question.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Delroy Lindo face while filming 'Sinners'?
And interestingly, I'm writing a memoir right now. Yeah. Plug, plug, plug. That will be out in 2027. And I referenced this incident in the book. I do remember very, very clearly what happened. And my utter confusion. How old were you? Five. Oh. So I was born in England. And my mom was a nurse. I'm Jamaican.
My mom went to England as part of a movement of Caribbean peoples from the Caribbean to England. And they became known as the Windrush Generation as a result of the boat called the Empire Windrush that transported approximately 300 Jamaican, mostly Jamaican men from the Caribbean to England in June of 1948. My mom arrived into England in 1951. So very, very the beginning of the Windrush movement.
I was born very soon thereafter. And because my mom was studying to be a nurse, they would not allow her to have an infant child with her on campus. So as a result of that, I was sent to live with a white family in a white working-class area of London. And this wasn't just daycare or babysitting. No, no, I lived with them. I lived with them. Very loving family, by the way. I was loved.
I was cared for. But as a result of living with this family in this all-white neighborhood, I went to an all-white elementary or primary school. And I was literally, I mean literally, the only black child in an all-white school. So one afternoon after school had ended, I was playing with one of my
playmates i thought he was one of my i thought he was a playmate and we we we had exchanged garments i i had i was wearing like his sweater i had it tied around my neck and he was wearing my sweater on my jacket tied around his neck and we were pretending to be superheroes right and we were right um um we were on this patch of grass and we had our hands out like superman we were flying and i'm
And having great fun. And at a certain point in our game, a car pulls up. And this kid that I was playing with goes over to the car and has a very short conversation with whomever was in the car, which I now know was his parent, his father. He comes back. And he tears, he throws my garment that he had been wearing around his neck.
He throws it at me and grabs what I'm wearing, his garment that I'm wearing around my neck and grabs it from me. He throws my garment at me, grabs my garment from me and says, I can't play with you. Hmm. And that was the end of the game. That was the end of the game.
But, you know, the thing about that story and the fact that you were so young, five years old, you couldn't have known, like, the full weight of that. It took you time. But it's a story that has stuck with you because you knew that that was a signal of something. Well, it was a signal of my undesirability, right?
So the answer to your question was not necessarily specific to being called the N-word, but it was very specific to being racially othered. These are imprints. Big time. How's the writing for the memoir going? Because, you know, I'm so fascinated. I'm deeply obsessed with memoir, and I love reading them. But one of the things that, like, I know about it is that it breaks you wide open.
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