Ryan Coogler reveals the hardest Sinners scene to film

15 December 2025

Ryan Coogler “almost lost [his] mind” shooting Michael B. Jordan as the Smokestack Twins in Sinners.

Sinners director Ryan Coogler ‘almost lost [his] mind’ filming Michael B. Jordan as the Smokestack Twins

The 39-year-old director has recalled the difficulty he faced filming Jordan, 38, and his double Percy Bell as Smoke and Stack during a driving scene for his 2025 vampire blockbuster, which demanded meticulous planning and timing.

During an appearance on Entertainment Weekly’s Awardist podcast, Coogler said: “Every day was different. Every scene was different. Watching the movie, there are certain scenes you wouldn’t think were difficult.

“You remember the day I almost lost my mind — where you guys had to drive the car and get into the bushes? Pulling off that shot was f****** crazy, because Mike’s driving, and we had to do a repeated pass of the car driving up and landing, them getting out of the car with the correct timing, and then interacting with the bush with the correct timing.”

The Black Panther director added Smoke and Stack have their own distinct ways of moving, and each movement had to be precisely recreated each and every take.

He said: “You can see the difference in performance, but also, because of the timing, they have to enter the bushes in a certain way.”

Jordan noted he had to know exactly how his double would deliver his lines.

He explained: “I would have to work with my twin double, Percy Bell, and direct him on what I was going to do, so I could have that performance to react off of when I was playing the first brother.”

The Creed star also said whichever brother began the sequence would set “the rules of blocking and coverage” for the scene “because we couldn’t exist in the same space”.

He added: “That was the thing that we found out in real time.”

Although filming the sequence was a challenge, Coogler insisted the finished scene “looks good” in the final cut of the movie.

In Sinners, twin gangster brothers Smoke and Stack (Jordan) return to their Mississippi hometown in 1932 to open a Black-owned juke joint, hoping to leave their criminal pasts behind.

However, when a charismatic vampire (Jack O’Connell) unleashes a supernatural nightmare on the town, the twins, their musician cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), and their tight-knit community must decide what they’re willing to sacrifice to survive – and to stay free.

Sinners also stars Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo, Jayme Lawson and Omar Benson Miller.

Jordan recently said he believed his performance as Smoke deserved an Oscar nomination.

When Comic Book Resources asked the Without Remorse actor which of the twins he thought was his better performance, Jordan said: “As much fun as I had with Stack, which was a lot of fun, I think for me, probably Smoke.

“I think Smoke will probably be my guy. You know, it’s a side of me I think it’s the furthest away from me.

“Both characters were extremely tough for me to dive into, and build them from the ground up, and from the research we were doing and from the twin consultants that we talked to, and the work that I did to compartmentalize with the two of them.”