Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld and a mix of new and veteran talent

One of the things Coogler always loved about going to the movies was the feeling of discovering a fresh face. Here, he hopes that comes in the form of Miles Caton, a 19-year-old newcomer who’s essentially third lead to Jordan’s twins as Sammie (or Preacher Boy), a blues prodigy who wants to play music and not follow his father to the church.

Caton was singing backup for H.E.R when she told him about the top-secret role, and he made an audition tape. It was, he laughed, bad, but Coogler saw something in him.

“Ryan had sent me an essential blues playlist and that’s where I started to discover some of the great blues artists that we know today,” Caton said. “I learned about Howlin’ Wolf and Charlie Patton, Buddy Guy. Those were the guys I kind of studied for this role.”

Delroy Lindo is the other side of the blues spectrum as Delta Slim, an older man in town who he said recognizes Sammie as the future, “not just musically, but of our culture.”

The film’s ensemble is vast, with some faces you know and others you might be meeting for the first time, including Jayme Lawson as a local singer, Omar Miller as a sharecropper, and Jack O’Connell as, well, an Irish vampire. “Sinners” also presents a more accurate version of the Deep South at the time than audiences may be used to seeing in Hollywood films, with Li Jun Li and Yao as Asian American shop owners.

All seemed to learn a bit about themselves in the process, including Steinfeld whose character is biracial but “passing” as white.

“This film brought me closer to my family and my family history,” said Steinfeld, whose grandfather was half-Black and half-Filipino. “I think that it will serve as such an amazing conversation starter for people and maybe encourage them to look into their genealogy.”