Happy Friday, my loves! It’s a special day! Sinners is out in theaters now! It’s been a crazy few weeks leading up to this release — a fully wild year, if we go back to the audition — and I’m so grateful for this moment.
If you’ve followed along with any part of our press, you’ve heard me say this a million times, but I could say it a million more: This experience has changed me. The amount of growth I’ve felt, the outpouring of love, is all thanks to the people who surrounded me, our cast and crew.
I wanted to bring a few of my dear friends and castmates into this issue…so without further ado, here’s Michael, LiLi, Miles, Wunmi, Omar, and Jayme! We chat about the best bites in NOLA, music, board games, and our favorite memories from making Sinners. Enjoy our BS!
Q: Let’s start with the fact that we shot this movie in one of the greatest food cities. What was the best thing you ate in New Orleans? What was it, and where did you find it?
Michael: Aw man, I feel like I gotta say something good…It had to be Jamaican food. I had these Jamaican patties that were so bomb. Oh, and at Ryan’s daughter Tocarra’s birthday party, they had this barbeque lobster with like crab meat; it was so good. I think we had some gumbo, too.
LiLi: Pigeon and Whale on Freret Street: the food, the cocktails - exquisite. Because I lived in the Lower Garden, I would have breakfast at Molly’s Rise and Shine. They have these biscuit sandwiches with sausage, scrambled eggs, cheddar with Duke’s mayo, and pickled banana peppers on a tangy buttermilk biscuit. I’m drooling.
Miles: Bruhh one of my favoites gotta be the charbroiled oysters from Drago’s!! Those slap! And friend chicken from Mother’s!
Wunmi: The tasting menu at Dakar NOLA. Every single course.
Omar: This combo platter from Addis…an absolutely delicious authentic Ethiopian restaurant. A longtime friend took me because she knew the owner. Needless to say, I became a regular.
Jayme: Chargrilled oysters. The best ones are in the quarter. I took LiLi and Miles there and they are the BEST. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant, but I discovered it a year prior when I was in NOLA for my bday.
Q: What's a song you discovered while we were making this movie? (It could be Blues-related, but doesn’t have to be.)
Michael: “By Your Side” Sade. That song got me through a crazy scene. Then “I Put A Spell On You” Alice Smith got me through another. Those were the two songs that really made an impact on me while making this movie.
LiLi: I don’t think I remember discovering any new songs, but with all this promotion, I’ve been listening to a lot of our songs. I can’t wait until your song comes out because I'm singing along, but I only sing to the hook because that’s all that’s out right now — although I guess that’s not the case when this comes out! Also, Miles [Caton]. Everything he sings. I’m still in awe of how a voice like his comes out of a body like his.
Miles: A song I discovered was “Death Letter Blues” by Son House! Ryan and Ludwig told me about it, and it was one of the first blues I started practicing on guitar before we started filming.
Wunmi: “Flex” by Cupid. Love a good line dance.
Omar: “Spoonful” by Howlin’ Wolf. Or “Not Like Us” by K. Lamar, because once it hit, you couldn’t get away from it. And it hit while we were in the middle of filming.
Jayme: My entire filming process was underscored by the King Kenny and Drake saga. I would schedule FT calls with one of my best friends just to dissect.
Q: What were you doing in your trailer between takes? We had a bit of downtime. How did you fill it?
Michael: Probably changing clothes to go right back to set as the other brother. Listening to music was kinda how I stayed locked in. Going through my key phrases. I rarely got a chance to just chill because I was always on my way back to set. If it was raining or something, I might crash and take a power nap whenever I could.
LiLi: I lived about four minutes from a set, so sometimes I’d escape. I’ve done some yoga in the trailer. We’d also play games in Jayme’s trailer because Jayme is a very hardcore gamer. She likes board games.
Miles: Aight, so in between takes I was either eating a turkey sandwich from crafty, beating you guys in a board or card game, or practicing and going over lines for the next take
Wunmi: Pumping! Or playing board games with the cast.
Omar: Trying to avoid craft services. I had a bunch of time on my hands and watched several episodes of Law & Order, but the lovely crafty people got my favorite popcorn, and I struggled to avoid turning into a popcorn kernel and not fitting into my overalls 🤭
Jayme: SLEPT when I could lol. And then played Spades, Uno, or Rummikub with some of the cast and crew.
Q: Now that we've wrapped up this crazy, amazing process, what's your favorite Sinners memory? I have a million, but the ones that stand out are the read-through, my last day, and, honestly, London premiere night.
Michael: Too many. I’d say the Irish jig. Doing that dance, being out there, and us just totally letting go, getting through it, and having a fucking blast. We had our liquid courage racing through our veins. The makeup and the costumes. The blood was going, and it was sticky and uncomfortable, but we just kind of leaned into it. Seeing Jack [O’Connell] do his thing. It felt like an out-of-body experience. That’s one of them for sure.
LiLi: I think one of them was the first time we all had a day off, and we all got drinks at the Commons Club. I picked the place, not thinking anyone would show up, and everyone did, and they didn’t have room. Thank you, Commons, for stepping up. The London Premiere, too. London does a premiere right. It was so fun and I felt like we actually had some time to see each other and spend some time with each other. Maybe we’ll get to do it again during award season - hint, hint:)
Miles: Man, so many incredible memories and moments, but one that really hits home was the final day of wrap! They played us a 10-minute clip to sum up everything we shot, and that moment really hit me how special this project was. We worked so hard day in and day out, and to see everyone’s reactions and emotions watching the outcome of that work was unforgettable.
Wunmi: The interior surreal montage scene was my most favourite day. I brought my daughter to the set, and she got to be amongst such beautiful spirits, evoking our ancestors and future ancestors. Joy, family, freedom, and art!
Omar: The London premiere was a fire memory because I think we all finally got to cut loose. Also, the day I had to wear my prosthetic changed my life by cutting off my ability to speak and drink water, which was also, strangely enough, the night we shot the Irish dance scene, which I love.
Jayme: Honestly, London premiere night is now HIIIIGH on that list — but that last game night at my place, with a big majority of the cast, was my favorite. The joy on everyone’s face at 2am. And all those leftovers!
The Voice of Mary
Since this trailer dropped, so many of you have asked about my accent in the movie. So, I also wanted to bring on Beth McGuire, our fantastic dialect coach on Sinners, to give you more insight. Mary’s voice is not mine, which many of you clocked. She has a specific twang and intonation, and Beth helped me get there. Here’s how. (No spoilers, just process.)
Q: Beth! First of all, how did you become a dialect coach!?
Hoo boy! I was an actor/teacher for many decades. But I felt I could raise the bar — teaching respectful, soulful character representation — if I applied my skills to dialect coaching. Dialect work has many aspects, as you know. Ultimately, I help the actor discover the vocal lens of their character.
Q: What did a day on the set of Sinners look like for you?
I was most often invisibly present so as not to distract the actors. It’s a carefully timed dance to give a dialect note! Actors, as you know, deal with a lot of variables with people zhuzhing all around them. When there’s a line change, I step in. I also worked with the 2nd AD and the actor’s assistants to find pockets of time to touch base with the actor between hair, makeup, and wardrobe before they landed on set.
Q: What was your directive for Mary? I’d love to talk about our references and the tapes you put together for me. Where and how do you even begin to look for those?!
What was key for you was finding key phrases and little sayings that trigger the dialect matrix. When we discovered Mary’s full name — “Mary Louise” — we found a little bit of vocal gold. You did a wonderful job keeping honest with the needed twang.
With references, I went down many rabbit holes, pulling from Library of Congress recordings, folk archives, etc. Ryan was brilliant at coming up with general references of the time, which I took full advantage of! I worked with each of you to pull out key phrases. I put them on one MP3 file for you to listen to as a sort of dialect mantra.
TO LISTEN TO: “Dangerous” + the rest of the soundtrack.
TO COOK: Shrimp creole. NOLA on the brain.
TO READ: Deep Blues. Ryan gave copies to our whole cast
TO WEAR: Your favorite Mary-inspired slip dress. This one is good.
TO REMEMBER: Sinners is in theaters now! Buy tickets here. I can’t wait to hear what you think.
Enjoy our movie (and music)! And Happy Easter to all who celebrate!
Love,
Hailee (Beau)
Highlighting your comments on the previous week’s issue. Today, we hear Danalyn’s response to This is Dangerous…
“This is amazing, and I am so proud of you! I stopped playing my instruments (flute and saxophone) when I had kids — my oldest just turned 13! I never played in front of them, and they had no idea I could make noise with the instruments we stored in the closet. But I started playing again! And after some long hours practicing, I volunteered to play a song with my kids’ piano teacher at their recital on May 3rd. I am not at your caliber with music, but I love it. It calms the chaos in my head. I am facing a fear of playing in public because music brings life and beauty to the world.” -Danalyn
