One popstar reveals she auditioned for Sinners and was completely shocked at the vampire twist. The Ryan Coogler movie is a genre-bending film that has been praised by critics and audiences alike. It features Michael B. Jordan playing twins Smoke and Stack, who return to Louisiana after spending time in Chicago, only to discover that a series of dangerous beings are welcoming them back. In addition to Jordan, Sinners features a leading cast including Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Saul Williams, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, and Li Jun Li.

Speaking on In Your Dreams with Owen Thiele, pop music artist Halsey opened up about her surprise brush with Sinners. She read for the role of Mary, which was eventually played by Steinfeld. When Halsey began reading the script, she thought it was a “surface level period piece about racial politics.” When she continued on, the musician wondered, “Am I getting punked?” because she was so shocked at the movie’s vampire twist. Check out the full conversation with Halsey below:

Halsey: I read the script though. I did read the script. There’s not a lot of white-pᴀssing Black girls in Hollywood. So I did read the script.

Owen Thiele: I didn’t know she [Steinfeld] was a sixth black.

Halsey: She’s incredible. I don’t think I knew, but when her casting was announced I was like, that makes perfect sense. She’s stunning. I’ve seen clips, and she’s so commanding and powerful in the role. And she’s amazing.

Thiele: Totally. She was amazing. It was so scary — the movie is about vampires, spoiler alert.

Halsey: Which, by the way, huge surprise reading the script. I was like, “This is a period piece.” I was like, “This is gonna be like, you know, we’re on the plantation. This is a deeply surface level, period piece about racial politics.” And then there was vampires and I was like, “What the f*ck is going on?”

Thiele: That’s how I felt watching it, I thought it was a gorgeous Sundance movie, slow, gorgeous, about racial politics, then suddenly, someone’s eating another person! I go, what the hell is this? It was genius.

Halsey: I thought I was hallucinating at the table. Because they give you a little bit of time to read the script, and you don’t get to go away with it when it’s that high-profile of a project. You read it, you give it back and then you go. So I left being like, “Am I okay?” Like I couldn’t even double check my work. I just walked out of there with this memory and was like, “Did I make the back half of that whole movie up in my mind?” It felt like they printed the first half of like a different Ryan Coogler movie and then stapled it to the back half of Blade. And it worked. That’s not a criticism of it. It was amazing. But for a second I was like, “Am I getting punked?”

What This Means For Sinners

The Movie Has Twists And Turns

The role Halsey was after, Mary, is one of the few lighter-skinned characters in Sinners, which becomes vitally relevant to the story. While the white vampires mistake her for a white person, Mary is multi-racial, as one of her grandparents was Black. Like her character, Steinfeld is mixed-race, with Black American and Filipino heritage on her mother’s side. Halsey is also mixed-race, and she makes an important point that “there’s not a lot of white pᴀssing Black girls in Hollywood,” making the casting of the Mary role vitally important.

As for the film as a whole, it is interesting to hear the experience of someone reading the script before the marketing campaign. For those who have not seen the Sinners trailers, the beginning of the movie does seem like a more conventional period piece. It takes its time to establish Smoke, Stack, their relationship with their cousin Sammie, and the juke business that they are trying to start. For someone reading it early, like Halsey, it felt then as if she might have made “the back half of that whole movie up in [her] mind.”

Our Take On The Sinners Twist

The Movie’s Genre-Bending Works Well

Having seen the trailer and traced Sinners‘ development from the early days, I was aware of the vampire twist, but I certainly envy audiences who were able to go in blind. I can only imagine what it was like for Halsey reading this script when the early news about the film had not broken yet, letting all its twists and turns work on her like a first-time audience member. Ultimately, her audition experience speaks to how powerful the movie is at bending genres and defying expectations, making something that is at once a period piece and a horror film.

Source: In Your Dreams with Owen Thiele