Ryan Coogler And Spike Lee Talk ‘Sinners,’ Hollywood, And The Importance Of Movie Theaters
Spike Lee and Ryan Coogler are two sides of the same coin: both directors started with indie hits, then moved on to more mainstream projects. Both are closely associated with a superstar actor they helped make famous. Though Coogler has been less controversial, Lee paved the way for him to tell authentic Black stories from Fruitvale Station to Sinners.
Coogler and the movie are expected to earn multiple Oscar nominations, but the question remains – will Best Director be among them, and does he have any chance to win? If he does, he’ll be the first Black director in Oscars history to take home the prize.
Lee is now an Oscar-winner whose movies moved the needle on race, sexuality, and the centering of Black characters in all their diversity. To this day, no one has made a better movie about a young Black girl navigating childhood and grief than Crooklyn.
His most recent release, Highest 2 Lowest, was his fifth movie with Denzel Washington in a lead role. A$AP Rocky makes an appearance as well. Based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low, reviews were mixed, but the film encompasses many of Lee’s passions, including sports, New York City, and music.
So it makes sense to have Lee and Coogler sit down at the top of awards season to discuss their respective filmographies, their long-term professional relationships with Denzel Washington and Michael B. Jordan, and why movies are still great in theaters. They talked to Variety for its Directors on Directors series about all of the above. Here are some excerpts.
Lee, on seeing Sinners for the first time:
Lee: (After telling Coogler not to sit next to him at the screening). “I was giving you a warning. And I watched my brother’s film, and it’s like me sitting courtside at Madison Square Garden and we’re kicking the Celtics’ ass. I’m jumping up and down. I was buggin’. When that surreal music montage came up, I lost it, man.”
Lee on working with Washington so many times:
“Here’s the thing: We don’t really hang out. You can have a great relationship without being in each other’s mug every single minute. When you have the foundation of love and trust, the sky’s the limit. Boom shakalaka. After I read it, I said, “Number one: You’ve got to change the title so it’s Highest 2 Lowest. Number two: We have to do a reinterpretation, not a remake.”
Coogler on the reception to Sinners and the importance of movie theaters:
“I’m happy we were able to find a home with Warner Bros., and just that people came out, which is something that you can never control, right? It’s a risk. I’m willing to bet on a good story. I truly believe that there isn’t any experience like a movie in a theater, you know what I’m saying? Especially at this time, when we’re disconnected from each other. I can get groceries delivered to my house. I can order food from my favorite restaurant to my house. I can buy clothes from my house. All of these experiences are things that we used to go out and do in public.”
Coogler on working with Michael B. Jordan:
“I had decided I was going to do Fruitvale Station, about this young man, Oscar Grant, who had been murdered by a transit cop. We needed an actor that looked like him, because I was thinking the movie was only going to play in the Bay Area. But I figured if the actor didn’t look like Oscar, people would write the movie off as being BS out of the gate. So I literally was like, “Man, who could play this guy?” And I started thinking about Mike B. I met with him, and just we really got along, bro. And then when we got to work, that’s when it really lined up. He’s a great actor in that you don’t see the work. He just is the thing that’s in front of you.”
Watch the full conversation below
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