Sinners star Michael B. Jordan, director Ryan Coogler and a dozen years of collaborations

NEW YORK – Of all the storied bonds between visionary directors and their movie star alter egos – Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Pedro Almodovar and Antonio Banderas, Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams – few have been as seamless as the one between American duo Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan.

Since their first meeting, during casting for the biographical drama Fruitvale Station (2013), Jordan has starred or appeared in all five features Coogler has written and directed, including two Black Panther superhero blockbusters (2018 and 2022) and a Rocky boxing drama spin-off (2015).

Their film Sinners took the top spot at the North American box office with an opening haul of US$46 million (S$60 million) and is now showing in Singapore cinemas. It ups the ante by assigning Jordan not one part but two. He plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack, enterprising gangsters who encounter supernatural resistance to the juke joint of their dreams in Jim Crow-era Mississippi.

Coogler, a former college football athlete, said he learnt the value of a consistent partnership from playing wide receiver.

“Sometimes, I’d have four or five different quarterbacks in a season, and that was always tough,” he said. “It gave me a real appreciation for how important chemistry is when you can find it.”

In a joint interview in April, Coogler and Jordan, both 38, broke down their career-long working relationship, film by film, including Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. It was made after the 2020 death of American actor Chadwick Boseman, star of the original Black Panther. These are edited excerpts.

Sinners (2025)

In Sinners, Michael is playing twins who have a vicious reputation. But the movie shows them trying to open up a juke joint that will give people jobs and a place to decompress. We want them to succeed. It is something that has been consistent in all the movies you have done together: heroes with real flaws or villains who inspire empathy.

Coogler: It’s a testament to his charisma. As soon as you put the camera on him, you just naturally care about the guy – “Aw, man, my heart goes out to this person.” I’ve always found that when you push that, when you see how far you can go and have the audience still be with him, that’s where you get an interesting contrast.

For me, he would actually be the wrong person to cast if it was somebody who had no flaws. Because it would get awkward. I think you need that contrast to make it feel like reality.

Fruitvale Station (2013)

This was your first feature film as a director, Ryan, and Michael’s first as a lead actor. What was it about that experience that bonded you?

Coogler: I knew he was going to be great in the movie, but it was all the other intangibles that I didn’t expect. Him being kind, respectful, responsible, family-oriented, but also in the pursuit of excellence. It all started with us both being like, “Let’s make something great” – you know what I’m saying? “If we’re here, let’s be here.”

Jordan: Acting is a lonely journey. It’s a lot of nos and a lot of self-doubt in the beginning. I started young and you’re finding yourself, who you are in this industry that, for a long time, limited what you could be. At a pivotal time, when I was really questioning and doubting, he basically told me, “I believe you are a movie star, and I want everybody else to see that too.” And it gave me the reassurance and the confidence I needed. It made me double down and fuelled this fire that I had to make it a reality.

Creed (2015)

Another theme that is present across your work is characters with daddy issues.

Coogler: (Laughs) A lot of that is IP. With Creed, I wanted to make a movie about Apollo Creed, but (American actor) Carl Weathers’ character died in Rocky IV (1985), so we found (another) way in with that (via Creed’s son Adonis, played by Jordan). The Killmonger stuff (from Black Panther)? I moved him to Oakland, but the rest of his story is ripped straight from the comics.

When it comes to Sinners, for me, the twins were like Cain and Abel. And I started to think, “What if instead of Cain killing Abel, he killed Adam?” Like, if the two siblings were so close that nothing could come between them? I also really wanted to explore the blues and those archetypes, and it felt like the kind of thing a blues hero would sing about.

My relationship with my dad is fine (laughs). It’s as complicated as anybody’s, and he’s obviously one of the most important people in my life.

Black Panther (2018)

What did Michael bring to the Killmonger character that was not in the comic books?

Coogler: The comics were written by white Jewish guys who were influenced by African-American culture, but I wanted the movie to feel like it was more rooted in the Continent. Killmonger is the one character who is fully representing an African-American perspective. When he shows up in the movie, you feel something shift. He talks like he talks, and he dresses how he dresses. He instantly becomes an avatar for this ideology that challenges the other characters.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Michael, you have one scene in the film, when Killmonger appears to Shuri in a vision. Your character died at the end of the first Black Panther. Had you been angling to get in on the sequel?

Jordan: Man, that’s tough. You know, we dealt with a huge loss. (Boseman died while the sequel was still in development.) But before that, there were plans for something else. I was looking forward to what that was going to be. Coog had to figure out where do you go from there? How do you progress this bigger machine with sensitivity, care, understanding? So, he crafted this other thing with these pieces that he had left on the board and figured out how to do that, and I’m still not sure how he did.

Coogler: Killmonger was in the script that I wrote before Chad died. So, I had to find a way for him to be in this one that felt organic to what the story was. (Jordan) was in Atlanta making Creed III (2023), directing his first movie, and we only got him for a day. But we came up with this scene that, to this day, I’m really proud of.

It was nice to be in that throne room again (where Shuri’s vision takes place, in an echo from the first film). But look, man, (Boseman’s) death messed everybody up. (Coogler drops his head and begins sobbing quietly. After two minutes, he regains his composure.) And it might have messed him up (gesturing towards Jordan) the worst. The thing is, this is a tricky business to navigate, like any business, and nobody looked out for us like Chad.

Jordan: There’s not a lot of us doing what we’re doing. With Chad, it felt like we finally had a little squad. It went from being the two of us to three. And then it went back down to two again.

But his influence has stayed with us, even on Sinners. We were doing a camera test early on, when I was still finding my way into the characters, and Coog reminded me of what Chad did with T’Challa – how he really leaned into that character and embodied him throughout the shoot. I said, “Say no more”, and from then on, the performance was done in that light. NYTIMES