"Coming from a music background [and this being] the first time I've taken on a larger acting role, I guess I was expecting a bunch of white-haired scary film producers," July Talk's Peter Dreimanis tells Exclaim! in Toronto.
"I was blown away by how you could just walk up to Ludwig [Göransson, the film's composer] or any of the actors on set, and just have open conversations," Dreimanis continues. "Everyone knew they were a part of something really special, mostly because I think everyone knew that this was Ryan's opportunity to do what he really wanted to do."
In the weeks since the release of Sinners in theatres, Ryan Coogler's first original film since 2013's Fruitvale Station has been lauded for its themes surrounding race and class, and use of gothic horror, becoming a certifiable critical and commercial success. Sinners touched a nerve, providing historical context to contemporary issues, including oppression and social mobility, while simultaneously creating a rip-roaring vampirical blockbuster movie experience for audiences.
Coogler re-teamed with his frequent collaborator Michael B. Jordan (also the star of Fruitvale Station) to tell the story of twin brothers who return home to the Mississippi Delta in 1932 to open up a jukejoint and reestablish themselves in their hometown as businessmen. Standing in their way is the ever-present Klan and a trio of vampires looking to infect — or free, depending on who you ask — those around them.
Dreimanis, along with Jack O'Connell and Lola Kirke, portray the fiddle-playing, foot-stomping, folk-singing vampires. To prepare for the role, Coogler turned the actors onto various podcasts and films that explored the Appalachian past of the Midwest and the South, including the first episode of NPR's White Lies, "The Murder of the Rev. James Reeb."
The episode concerns James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister who was murdered in Selma, AL, while marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery. NPR interviewed the descendants of Reeb, as well as the descendants of those who murdered the minister — a nuanced discussion that sparked a connection with Dreimanis, who reveals he has "so much conflict within myself about the way in which I look back on my family and my ancestors."
Dreimanis shares, "My great-grandmother on one side gave the first shot of insulin in Alberta's history, and I'm a Type 1 diabetic. On the other side, my grandfather was a translator for the Nazis at the end of the Second World War. We have these conflicts within us. We all get comfortable putting ourselves into the best light, but, especially in Canada, we're all kind of a mixed bag."
Coming to the character of Bert with that personal reconciliation, Dreimanis found great admiration for Coogler's handling of villainy, not only in Sinners but also across the director's filmography.
"Wakanda Forever, for instance, is not a simple good-and-evil story. You're talking about colonialism, and the systems at play as the villain. Even going back to the Creed series, he's making an entire series based on the villain of the Rocky series," the singer-turned-actor shares. "I think this is somebody that's compelled by the idea that a villain can't just be bad and a hero can't just be good. Ryan has a really beautiful way of retaining that complexity."
During a press conference held ahead of the film's theatrical release, O'Connell, playing Remmick, the leader of the vampire crew, echoes Dreimanis's sentiment: "There's a real richness, a real depth to Ryan's writing. What we were striving towards wasn't superficial. It was grounded in something that's rooted in history. That, to me, was the main thing I was loving to latch onto — the cultural richness that our characters were representing in individual ways."
To hear Dreimanis, O'Connell and the rest of the cast speak of Coogler is to hear an outpouring of unequivocal admiration for their film's North Star; however, from Coogler's perspective, much of the film's success should be attributed to the culture built on set, which began with Jordan.
"People are watching how the lead actor communicates with the PA, with the assistant director, the AD, with the camera operator, with the sound," Coogler says during the presser. "In an industry where it can get very high-stress, and it can get very toxic, it's great to have somebody who understands the value of keeping it loving and respectful. That's what I like about Mike the most: kindness is the default."
After spending the entire three-month long shoot in New Orleans with Coogler and Jordan, Dreimanis shares Coogler's observations, saying, "The vibe of [the set] and the values and the respect the collaboration does stem from the friendship between Michael and Ryan."
He continues, "They kind of cut their teeth together, right? They came up together and both started from pretty similar positions in the industry, and then rose together. I think the respect that came out of that influenced how everyone was treated on set. There was not one person that showed an ounce of disrespect or ego."
Coogler also points to Jordan's desire to challenge himself as key in the making of the film, something the filmmaker found true of his entire cast: "Everybody who went through the works and stepped on the set, they were trying to be better than they were on their last movie. I believe that they're going to be better than they were on this movie on their next one. That's the type of people that we hired, and that culture starts with Mike, but I was fortunate enough that everybody came with that, and I was very happy with that."
This culture built on set, the work ethic observed and creativity experienced left Dreimanis tremendously inspired, describing himself as "lit on fire" after returning from New Orleans. "I came home [and] I made another film with friends, like immediately. It's called Middle Life and I love it," he says, also sharing that he wrote another film that's still coming together.
While Dreimanis is best-known today as a musician, the JUNO Award-winning singer actually went to film school in the hopes of becoming a filmmaker, having made movies as a teenager. His pivot came from finding the film industry a difficult one to "work my way up," and he found more immediate results in music.
Wherever his film career takes him, the experience of working on Sinners will remain a significant moment for Dreimanis. "Going down there and spending time making something of that magnitude and scope, something that rich, it totally reawakened this dream inside me," he says.
And much of that inspiration comes from seeing Coogler work: "I love that Ryan took that swing, went big with it and packed a punch. He understands that he has a limited time on this earth to make the art he wants to make, and I think he just bit off an admirable bite on this one."