Ryan Coogler has directed five movies, and with the exception of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (where he only cameoed), Michael B. Jordan has led them all. Sinners is their latest collaboration, with Jordan starring in one of the best movies of 2025 as twin brothers Smoke and Stack. The actor’s dual performances has among the many reasons Sinners has been met with many accolades, including being recognized among the 2026 Golden Globe nominations, and Coogler has now discussed how Jordan “challenged” him while they were making the horror movie.
During his discussion with fellow filmmaker Spike Lee for Variety’s Directors on Directors series, Ryan Coogler talked about his professional relationship with Michael B. Jordan and how it “started to make a lot of sense” for him to play twins in Sinners. Coogler thought it was “interesting” for an actor to “whose superpower is the audience is always with him” to play a “coldhearted killer” and a “manipulator.” When Lee noted that Coogler “flipped the script,” he responded:
Each time we get together, I’m trying to challenge him, and he’s trying to challenge me.
In Sinners, Smoke and Stack are World War I veterans who spent seven years up to no good in Chicago, then returned to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi with money they’d stolen from criminal syndicates to purchase a saw mill and turn it into a juke joint. Both brothers have a lot of blood on their hands, but like Ryan Coogler said, Michael B. Jordan was up for the daunting task of making them both likable. When Spike Lee inquired about how specifically Jordan challenged him, Coogler shared this:
When he’s trying to get to the truth of a moment, when he’s trying to find it. He’ll also demand a lot of me. For instance, in Sinners, he’s basically got to hold himself as one brother dies in the other brother’s arms. So he’s got to give a dying performance with a huge blood prosthetic coming out of his neck, and then he’s got to turn around and hold himself.
Stack was turned into a vampire by Hailee Steinfeld's Mary at roughly the halfway point of Sinners, and it eventually reached the point where Smoke had no choice but to bring an end to his now-bloodthirsty brother. Of course, it’s later revealed that Smoke didn’t actually kill Stack, but allowed him to go free if he agreed to let their cousin Sammie live the rest of his life in peace. However, that doesn’t take away from the emotional impact of when we initially think one twin is holding the other as he dies, not to mention the difficulty of Michael B. Jordan having to play both sides of the scene. Ryan Coogler added when Spike Lee asked if that was “done the same day”:
Yeah. And with a lot of technical specifications. He’s on the ground, and he’s saying [to me], ‘Hey, man, I need you. I need you right here. Keep talking to me. Keep reminding me of where I am.’ I pride myself on being there for actors. And because he can handle it, I want to make sure that I’m providing him with great roles.
That seems to be going well so far, because just like Sinners, Fruitvale Station, Creed and Black Panther were all positively received. While Ryan Coogler made it clear there won’t be a Sinners sequel, we don’t need to worry about him and Michael B. Jordan not continuing to work together. The question now is, how will they challenge each other on their next project?
As we wait to find out what that next project will be, tune into the 83rd Golden Globe Awards this Sunday to see how Michael B. Jordan fares in the Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, among the six other categories Sinners has been nominated in. You can also still easily stream the movie with an HBO Max subscription.
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