Ryan Coogler found inspiration in a myriad of sources when writing and directing Sinners, but you probably didn’t expect a Disney Channel original movie to be among the influences.
During his Sinners panel at Contenders Film over the weekend, Deadline reports that the filmmaker noted that 2001’s The Luck of the Irish stoked his fascination with Irish culture’s similarities to Black culture, inspiring the villainous Remmick in his vampire film.
“We used to watch that movie like crazy. That was our first introduction to some of the similarities in Irish folk music to, basically, our music,” Coogler explained.
“There was a small Irish community in The Bay, and we would talk about it. That movie was kind of a touchpoint for us to jump off of, crazy enough. We’ve been fascinated with that culture in my household.”
The Luck of the Irish follows a high school basketball star, reluctant to embrace his Irish heritage, as he has to reclaim his family’s lucky gold coin from an evil leprechaun, or else they’ll transform into leprechauns.
In Sinners, twin brothers Stack and Smoke return to their Mississippi hometown in 1932 to open a juke joint, which quickly becomes a hunting ground for Remmick.
“The film was a great opportunity,” said Coogler of Sinners. “It was also a big shoutout to Bram Stoker, who was Irish, and kind of gave us the first context around the concept of a vampire in popular culture. So, it just made a lot of sense to explore the character that way.”
He continued, “He’s not Satan, but we saw him as a pre-colonial Irishman who had this massive backstory that we would kind of hint at and peel back like an onion.”
Coogler also praised “the great Jack O’Connell” as Remmick, who “brought the memory of his father to the role, the same way that I brought the memory of my uncle. And it was a profound experience to see somebody take ownership of the film in the same way.”
Sinners earned over $367 million at the global box office, making it one of the highest grossing horror movies of all time, and now has Oscar buzz behind it.
