Ryan Coogler and 'Sinners' cast on their vampire musical being 'genre-fluid'

I loved the film. I love a vampire movie, but I also love that this has, like, legit song numbers that are really captivating

I am curious. It is a vampire movie with musical numbers. Is it a horror musical

I mean, to be honest with you, in making a film about blues music, you know, genre was kind of wielded against blues music in that, um

at that time it was, you know, a black person and a white person could sing the exact same song

and it would be classified as two different genres. I consider myself a genre film fan

but I also recognize that my favorite movies are kind of genre fluid

You know what I mean? At one point in the movie, they may be this. At another point in the movie, they may be that

And that's when I find things the most exhilarating. But yeah, I think however you're comfortable

classifying it, having seen it, I wouldn't balk at any of it

If you called it a horror musical, I wouldn't say, no, no way, it's not that

If you said it wasn't, I wouldn't argue with you. We worked on a movie for a long time and now pretty soon it gonna be out of the audience or whatever you want to call it You know what I mean Well did you go see it Yeah exactly This gift can bring fame and fortune

Will somebody take me in your eyes? But it also can pierce the veil between life and death

Do you think of it as a horror musical? Mm-hmm. I don't think of it as either

I think of it as like, I forget that it's a horror because it has so much heart

Like, I... I had a moment last night watching it at the premiere where there was a jump scare

And it took, I was like, I was so focused that I, to your point, you forget it's a horror movie

Yeah. It is yeah so driven by these characters and their story and their history and the music throughout not just the numbers per se that yeah I would agree with you Yeah There were no there was no limits And Ryan was very open to collaborate

and he gave you a lot of freedom as a performer to explore it. And to me, that was great

He never spoke about genre. He never spoke about it to me

I don't think he spoke about genres, any of the actors. We addressed ourselves to the task at hand

which was telling the story as clearly as we could. Yeah, I mean, we read the script

When I read the script, I knew that there were a lot of genres involved

but not at one point did I feel like I needed to categorize it by any means. Right

We were moving at tempo as well. I never felt like we were rushed

but there were days where you were literally, yeah, one second you're chomping someone's neck

and then the next second you're doing a bit of a jig with your fellow vampires

you know when else do you get to experience that in one evening Yeah I think that a pretty good sales pitch for the movie because I was definitely like I never been afraid of a jig before So congrats

It's really interesting because it's very fun. There's no right or wrong

The vampires don't feel bad. They feel alluring and funny and scary and all of the

things. I feel like completely invested in each of each person's journey and wants and desires even someone like

remick i'm like oh i get him i get him um i don't know there's there's so there's so much in there

like your heart breaks in there and and then you're terrified and then you're like moved and

then i don't know all of it that ain't your brother