Director Ryan Coogler on the meaning of home in his films

0:00From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

0:12I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treatment. About a year ago, writer and director Ryan Coogler's first film, Sinners, was released. Coogler's first original project since his debut, Sinners has gone on to become the highest-grossing original film in 15 years and picked up 16 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and his first ever Best Director nomination. He came by here when Sinners had just been released to talk about it. Here's that conversation in a shorter form. The thing that occurs to me watching all this stuff to get ready for this is that every movie you made is about somebody trying to go home.

0:51Wow, that's very interesting. Even going back to Fruitvale, he's trying to get home. Yeah, no, totally, totally. And I wonder where that comes from for you as this kind of dramatic motor. I don't know. Yeah, I haven't thought about that extensively. I've always been very aware that I'm a product of my environment, that home matters to me. I always would get homesick very easily if I left. And I'm still that way. Whenever I leave, I'm counting down the days to get back. Like, though it's been certain cities, like, where I've gone to make movies, where I felt more at home than others. New Orleans, making this was one of them.

1:30New Orleans, I love being there. But one of the biggest reasons I love being there was because it reminded me so much of home. The Bay Area, specifically, like, the colors in the, you know, my grandmother, who's from Port Arthur, Texas, she told me that all the black migrants that came during the second wave of the Great Migration, that came to the Bay Area, they painted the houses to look like where they were from, which was, you know, essentially the Gulf. You know what I mean? Sure, yeah, right there to Louisiana. Louisiana and Houston. And like, so when I got to New Orleans for the first time, it looked like I was at home in North Oakland.

2:05And I also, like, I have this deep desire to make sure I can make the sense of place work when I'm making a movie because for a long time, movies was how I traveled. Like, I still haven't been to Brazil. um but i feel like i know brazil from city of god it was a long time before i made it to new york city i didn't get to new york till i got i made a movie that got into the tribeca film festival in 2009 um i was you know i was 21 22 years old uh actually 23 um the first time i set foot in manhattan and um first time i rode a yellow cab and all that stuff but i felt like i had done it before because of coming to america and goodfellas and all these all these new york belly all these new york movies that i had seen coming up i felt like i traveled so for me whenever somebody green lights something i'm working on it's very important to me to make sure that the sense of place is accurate you know what i mean because i know there's gonna be people who like me are gonna watch these movies and aren't gonna have a chance to go to mississippi for instance you know what i'm saying but but i want to have it right or and i don't know that home you know had a massive uh impact on who i am how i see the world so maybe that's why some of that is poking through the movies that you picked up on.

3:18But also it's about how hard it is to go back home. I mean, you know, for Smoke and Sack, who are the protagonists of this film, what this means to them to come back, once they've been out in the world, home is a much smaller place for them. Yes, yes, for sure. And for me, what's interesting is the battle between the two of them over what home means. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, man. And we said they're twin brothers who've gone out, they've fought in World War I, they've lived in Chicago, been part of the Chicago gang world. They want to leave all that behind and come back to home. But that's part of the fight between them is what home is.

3:51Well, yeah, yeah. Like, I think, you know, for these characters, Smoke and Stack, and I worked really hard on these characters, and through them I wanted to explore brotherhood, relationships, business partnerships, the extremely unique existence that is being an identical twin. It's a very rare occurrence that science still doesn't understand why identical twins happen. And so I wanted to explore all of that. But the big thing for me is, you know, this movie and cinema in general, man, like I think it's all the exercise in dichotomy. It's exercise in contrast. You know, that's what I know was just to see images and understand them.

4:30And for me, for Smoke and Stack, they were going to be so alike because they're constantly around each other. But for me, my entry point into the characters was how are they different? Stack is a dreamer and Smoke is a realist. Smoke sees things for what they are and Stack sees things for what they could be. And for these characters, anytime they went anywhere, the concept was that it was always Stack's idea. And in this case, it was Stack's idea to come back home and start this business. And what Smoke sees at a homecoming is really like the negatives. You know what I mean? Like in the reality of what Clarksdale is and all of the ways that Clarksdale can hurt them, you know because it's hurt them in the past and with stack seeds there's opportunity you know to make something big you know and and special and to really leave a mark on on the place that idea you know really also stems from a conversation with my um my buddies noah and logan miller you know identical twin filmmakers from northern california they were our twin consultants on this film and what they what they told me and michael was having an identical twin Brothers like having a never-ending argument.

5:42Like you always keep in score of who was right, who was wrong. And the argument is ongoing, you know. And so for me, I found a lot of fun in that. By the way, it's The Treatment, I guess, and our old friend Ryan Coogley who decided to come back. His new film as writer-director is... I'm coming home. It's one of my first podcasts. And yet you don't belong here anymore. You can go see the show at kcrw.com slash The Treatment. But that, I mean, the insider and the outsider also runs into what you do, too. Yeah. But also somebody who can't be back home. Yeah. I mean, that's the case in Creed. Yeah, with Creed, he had to leave.

6:18Yeah, he had to leave to go somewhere where they didn't know him. But also this idea of where do you fit in your family. Totally. And your relationship to your father. Very African concept, I've learned. You know what I mean? Like, you know, a very West African concept. you know you you you you must do what your father did but it's interesting in the movie that every time we hear a story about their father it shows a different side of him absolutely and he becomes this kind of mythic figure yeah in their lives yeah that was another piece of it man like like um look man the twins are there's so many things but the big thing they are is capitalist there's a lot of value in their reputation the the rumors surrounding them and the myth around But also creating their own myths in real time.

7:03Totally. There's a robbery in a truck. I don't want to give that away. But at a certain point, these guys said, we have to basically sort of tell the story of our lives so people see it. They're living their lives very publicly. Totally. Totally. Because they're in a public business. And the fear that's surrounding them is useful. It's there for a reason. And one of the more foundational principles that I learned, man, growing up, and I don't get a chance to talk about this often, man. I don't know if I ever have, bro. But the way that I talk right now, you know, my accent, I didn't always talk like this.

7:44My mom is from North Auckland. My dad is from East Auckland. My mom was from like a particular part of North Auckland, like kind of like the heart of it. You know what I mean? and I used to talk like my parents, which is what we would call a proper. And they talk like they do because their parents came from the South. You know what I'm saying? And they were the first ones to be, you know, educated in California. And their own version of code switching. Their own version of code switching. So my mom kind of does code switch in that she can have like a very professional sound, but then when she code switches, She sounds like she has almost like a southern accent, like her like her mom.

8:25So, you know, we were moving around to different places. The last house we lived in in Oakland was in a neighborhood called Bushrod, right outside of Bushrod Park. It's a neighborhood that's kind of like uptown North Oakland, closer to Berkeley. But it was a very notorious neighborhood when we were coming up. And it was a different neighborhood from where my mom was from. And it was it was a house behind our house we was renting. That was a Section 8 house. and for the first time I was around kids my age, you know, and my mom would tell me, you're hanging out with them kids a lot. You know, I'm not that she's starting to sound like them.

8:58You know what I mean? And she would say, man, careful because you're not going to be able to not sound like that. You know, and eventually, like what happened is it got locked in. So I can't change how I'm talking. You know what I'm saying? You know, like I sound like that specific area. But the other thing she would tell me is like, don't hang out with them you know not not these kids specifically but other older kids i was on the corners you know what i'm saying and i used to always think man mom's tripping she think that that something's gonna happen to me out there if i'm if i'm out there with these with these people or whatever you know i wasn't worried about that like a you know a straight bullet or or maybe maybe they get arrested and take me to remember what i learned like later in life you know growing up and and seeing certain things transpire was like that.

9:47Nah, she was worried about me becoming that. You know what I mean? Because I saw that happen to a lot of my friends. And once you sound a certain way, there's a glass ceiling. You're not going to get any further than this. Yeah. If you're lucky, you'll be. But no, like the power for a human being to turn themselves into something. You know what I'm saying? Something that they not. And then become that. Like I saw people who didn't have to become street actually become that. And decide that that's what. It becomes aspiration because your friends are these. Exactly. You surround me with people like this, and they know better than your parents because they're your friends.

10:19Exactly. So it wasn't the worry of me being out and something happening to me. It was actually the reality that you can become that. You know what I'm saying? And for me, this movie was very much about two characters who became something that maybe they didn't want to be. You know what I'm saying? But out of necessity. This movie feels in this way that it's kind of like this, almost this pinnacle of these things you've done because that sort of inside-outside is a part of all the films. There's also this Roman coin thing. It's T 'Challa and Killmonger and Black Panther. It's to some extent Rocky and the young Creed and Creed.

10:55So you've actually sort of closed that gap by making these twins. Totally, totally. Yeah, closed the gap, making them twins. I think complicated, like folded it on itself in many ways. Put the onus on this kid, you know, in terms of like what is he going to become? And he has this kind of fork in the road, so to speak, where he has his cousins and he has his daddy. You know what I mean? It's the crossroads and the blues songs. Exactly. Exactly. Which way is he going to go? And for him, he fantasizes about what his cousin's life is like. You know, they've been gone seven years. You said the young cousin who's kind of really the focal point of the story.

11:35Yeah, yeah. I can say, in a lot of ways, he's the first person and the last person we see in the movie. Absolutely. Yeah, the movie begins and ends with him. This character, Sammy Moore, his stage name is Preacher Boy. So Sammy Preacher Boy Moore, and he is the younger cousin of Elijah and Elias Moore, more colloquially known as Smoking Stack or the Smokestack Twins. They've been gone for seven years and have kind of come back on a Saturday morning to take him to go, you know, be one of the action at the juke joint that opened it. This is my 2025 conversation with Oscar-nominated writer-director Ryan Coogler on his film Sinners.

12:17There's more to come after this. It's The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell, revisiting my 2025 interview with Sinners writer-director Ryan Coogler. In all your movies, somebody's afraid of losing their immortal soul, of being consumed by something bigger than them. Yeah. And this is literally and figuratively the case here about losing your soul to this thing, to assimilation, to success. Yeah. And where do you want to be? Where do you want to live? Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot to pack into a horror movie. Totally, man. And I think horror can hold a lot. It's got big, giant shoulders in terms of a genre, man.

12:56And I think there's a reason for like, you know, all of the filmmakers, man, the Titan filmmakers, man, that we think about, you know, they all have made their marks in that genre. You know, I remember you taking me on that awesome tour to the Kubrick exhibit. You know what I mean? Like, who is Kubrick without The Shining? Or Clockwork Orange. Or Clockwork Orange, which is his own type of horrific imagery. And so is Dr. Strangel. That's a horror film, too. Yeah. Yeah. And it's war movies. You know, I've been able to pack, you know, boxing movies with personal fears and thoughts in comic book films.

13:30You know what I'm saying? I was really excited about this one. And I wanted to load it up as much as we could because I thought the audiences could take it in 2025. You know what I'm saying? Because the movie also has a sense of play. I mean, there's more sort of fun in this movie than any movie you've made before. I want to ask you about that because there's been this burden of sort of like delivering entertainment with a political, I mean, there's been a point of view that's unmistakable. I think it's the thing that unites you and Mike, Mike Jordan. Yeah. Because you both sort of put your politics on the screen.

14:00Yeah, totally. But there's more laughs in this than any movie you've ever made. Yeah, like, oh man, if you've been around like Southerners from that era, but they're hilarious, bro. My family's from Hattiesburg. Yeah, they're hilarious, bro. And they never, the thing is, it's like that Southerners thing where people never stop talking. Never. It's constant conversation. Yeah, yeah. And I think it comes from the situation, man, like the rural quality of it. You kind of got to be your own entertainment. You out there in them fields, you out there on them dirt roads for miles and miles. There's also a subtextual thing that's really a big part of this movie.

14:34It's been a part of everything you've done, which is that people are living on a clock. Everybody in these movies that you made is living on borrowed time. This genre gives you a chance to really play on that. And what that means for people of color, it really is that you say the wrong thing. to somebody like you, because you say the wrong thing to smoke a sack, you're gone, but also you say the wrong thing to the white people, you're gone too. 100%. Don't look at that woman. Yep. I mean, don't make eye contact with her. Yep. And what that means, that's a big part of what horror movies are anyway.

15:02The reason that, I think as a black audience, we respond to them because that's the life we live outside. 100%. Yeah, the constant... Apprehension. But also the hyper-vigilance. Yeah. Yeah, like that is very black. Like, you know what I mean? Who's here? Who's watching me? Who can I talk to? Who can I not? Oh, the police are here now. You know what I mean? Who are they looking for? I actually wanted the character Smoke to wear that. He is the hyper-vigilant character. Anytime you see him, he's watching everything. You know what I mean? He's looking at the floors. He's not able to enjoy the party.

15:40He's always looking down. Yeah. And his brother's always looking up at the sky because the world is open to him. I mean, it's the earth and the sky. I mean, so seeing these two guys standing together and one standing proudly with his head up and his arms up, his chest out, thinking the world is mine. And his brother's thinking, no, it's not. I mean, that sort of division. But also what's interesting, too, is the young man you picked to play, Sammy, Miles. Miles Cason. Who has this voice that's 10 years older than he is. Oh, man, maybe 50 years older than he is. Both his speaking voice and his singing voice.

16:14Totally. I wanted to ask you about that because that's a remarkable thing to find somebody like that. It was the biggest blessing of the movie, man. I knew where to find Mike. I knew where to find Haley and Wumi and Delroy. This kid I did not know existed. And we needed this kid for this role or the movie wouldn't work. It's just his movie. Everybody else knows who they are. There's no movie to watch with everybody else because you kind of know what role they're going on. But this kid, we knew he needed to be a transcendently gifted singer, able to play the guitar, able to be believably Michael B.

16:51Jordan's cousin, you know what I'm saying? All of these things. The thing, he also needs to be able to do what she does so well. He has to be an audience because he's listening to everybody talking. Yes, sir. You have to believe that he's listening and taking what they're saying. That's so true. I hadn't even thought about that, man, how good the kid listens and observes. What's really interesting about him, his look versus the way he sounds, is that's Charlie Patton. That's Robert Johnson. All these guys who you hear the song, you see pictures, you realize they look like kids when they're doing that.

17:20They were kids. Yeah, they were kids, man. But with those voices that sounded like they were taking all the black experience and delivering it. I got to say this to you, too, man, because I haven't talked about this. So one thing that happened with me, man, when I was working on the screenplay, I was writing it and outlining it and trying to figure out the ending. And I listened to a song by Skip James called Hard Time Killing for Blues. Hard time yawning everywhere you go Finds it harder than ever been before

18:03And the people are drifting from door to door Can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh my God, that's the most heartbreaking song of all time. So let me tell you, man. And it turns up in Oh Brother Where Art Thou, that version that he does. Yeah, let me tell you, man. So I'm listening to the version of it recorded in the 30s, with 1930s recording technology. And the thing about Skip James is Skip James lived. He lived to be an older man. And so he was able to be recorded with later technology. and bro when I listen to the difference between the song recorded in the 30s and the song recorded later sung by the same man it changed what the movie was for me like it changed everything for me in realizing that oh my god for people who are alive in the 30s that continue to live when they heard a recording versus what they heard when they were in those juke joints it's night and day Hot times is here and everywhere you go.

19:26Times are harder than ever been before.

19:47It's even a reference to that by one of the characters. That's what gave birth to that last scene. You know, like the disparity between the recording qualities of the song. And I thought like, man, how crazy would it be to have eternal life? You know what I'm saying? But to not be able to access something that was so important to you. It's because of the failures of technology. You know what I mean? And that for me was what unlocked the whole movie for me. Because to bring it full circle, when I talk about where my action comes from, that place is still physically there in Bushrod. But the people are gone.

20:24The world that shaped the way I talk, it does not exist anymore. You know what I'm saying? like time did away with it. Gentrification and just the way time changes, you know what I mean? And that concept for me, it became like the baseline of the heart of the movie, if that makes sense. I guess you have to come back and see how much when you don't come for 10 years. Amen. All this stuff has been stored up. I'm back, man. Anytime I got something, y 'all want to talk, I'm here, bro. Yeah, talk is cheap. I guess it's not cheap for him. He's got too many things to do. His new film, his writer, director is Sinners.

20:56Thanks so much for coming. It's always good to see you. Always, bro.

21:04Sinners, Ryan Coogler's most recent film, maintains his status as the most successful writer-director of his generation. Topping that achievement is his 16 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The full version of that conversation lives at the archive, kcrw.com slash the treatment. We can hear previous conversations with Kugler and other award winners. And while you're in the neighborhood, look in on KCRW.com slash The Treat, where creators of all types talk about inspiration, including Ryan Kugler. The newest treat comes from the director of another of this year's Best Picture nominees, Jussel Kaczynski, director of F1.

21:50The show is produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist. To better days, everyone. I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's the Treatment.