In Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, twins Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) travel from Chicago to Mississippi intent on opening a juke joint which will feature their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton). What they don’t know is that his music is so powerful that it will summon vampires intent on converting every reveler dancing into one of them.
Awards Buzz spoke with Wunmi Mosaku, who plays Smoke’s wife Annie, about being the first character to actually figure out what’s going on and to try proactively to stop the vampires from gaining the upper hand. On whether that’s gratifying or frustrating – and whether she’s that person in real life – she shared:
“It’s a little bit of both. I’m like, if everyone could just listen to Annie…I feel like that about things in life a lot of the time. Listen to the women in your life a lot of the time! But there’d be no fun without it. I would not be Annie in that moment. I definitely think I would be more of a Pearline. But I don’t know. What am I like in an emergency? I think in an emergency, I’m okay. But when you’re talking about ghosts and vampires, that’s where you lose me. That’s where I’m like, we need help. We need someone who knows what they’re talking about.”
She expressed how she had such enthusiasm for this film from the very start:
“From the moment I heard that Ryan Coogler wanted to meet me for an audition, I was like, whatever he’s about to do, I know it’s going to be great. I know it’s going to be powerful. I know it’s going to be done with integrity and grace and class. Actually, to be honest, the first seven pages, the scene between Smoke and Annie, that’s all I had before my meeting with Ryan. I was just blown away by the quality of the writing. He’s such a great writer. Things feel so simple and so complex at the same time. They’re really easy to say but really deep emotions to feel. I actually said to him in my meeting, I was like, whatever you’re doing, these seven pages have gotten me so excited about our industry again.”
Sinners is streaming on HBO Max.
