\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSinners\u201d is one of those rare modern blockbusters that fans are dissecting on a near literary level. There have been paragraphs dedicated to its symbolism<\/a>, social media threads about its cultural themes, and hours of podcasts delving into lines and scenes. Wunmi Mosaku isn\u2019t exactly seeking out the takes.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t gone searching for anything because I\u2019m very mistrustful of the internet and I\u2019m scared of what I might see,\u201d Mosaku said in a video call from her Los Angeles home.<\/p>\n Mosaku\u2019s stirring performance as the hoodoo healer Annie is the soulful core of \u201cSinners.\u201d The fact that it\u2019s Mosaku, 38, in the role seems fitting: The film is a period horror-drama centered on romance as well as a meditation on grief and a musical. Her acting r\u00e9sum\u00e9 reflects each element.<\/p>\n Mosaku has played a time-space agent (\u201cLoki<\/a>\u201d), multiple strong-willed detectives (\u201cLuther,\u201d \u201cPassenger\u201d) and an immigrant mother in mourning (\u201cDamilola, Our Loved Boy,\u201d which won her a BAFTA Television Award in Britain). A few of her biggest roles \u2014 like a singer fighting Jim Crow-era maledictions in the series \u201cLovecraft Country,\u201d and a South Sudanese refugee battling a night witch in the film \u201cHis House,\u201d both from 2020 \u2014 are part of the post-\u201cGet Out\u201d<\/a> strain of popular horror that evokes racial anxieties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At times Mosaku has drawn on her own experience as a Nigerian who immigrated at a year old to Manchester, England, and felt distanced from her family\u2019s Yoruba heritage. To play Annie, she studied how to be a woman in the Mississippi Delta, preparation that ultimately led to learning more about her ancestry because hoodoo is related to Ifa, the Yoruba religion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI discovered a part of myself, a part of my ancestry through looking into Annie,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Mosaku spoke more about navigating her Nigerian and British roots, playing grieving mothers, and differentiating Michael B. Jordan\u2019s roles in \u201cSinners.\u201d These are edited excerpts from the conversation.<\/p>\n The first piece of the script you read was the seven-page scene where Smoke reunites with Annie.<\/strong> Did that inform how you approached the role?<\/strong><\/p>\n First of all, my response was, my goodness, Ryan Coogler is an incredible writer who understands humanity and the power of love, and connection, and forgiveness, and grief, and joy and faith. I just felt like it was so perfectly written. Then Ryan spoke me through the story of \u201cSinners.\u201d I read this scene thinking it was going to be one thing: the greatest love story ever told. \u201cSinners\u201d is that. It has so much beautiful love, whether it\u2019s Annie and Smoke or Annie and Elijah. Mary and Stack. There\u2019s so much love.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I was really kind of taken aback by this genre-bending story he told me. I was excited. I was in from the moment I heard that Ryan Coogler was doing a movie. I didn\u2019t need to read the seven pages.<\/p>\n I noticed in your answer that you differentiate Annie and Elijah and Annie and Smoke.<\/strong><\/p>\n Because Smoke is his representative. Smoke is his smoke and mirrors. It\u2019s his outward persona. And Elijah is the person that she knows and loves, and she can see through it all.<\/p>\n At the end of the movie, she calls him by his name again and says, I don\u2019t want any of that Smoke<\/em> to get on her. For me, that\u2019s the reason there\u2019s a difference between Smoke and Elijah.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve spoken a bit about navigating this role in relation to your Nigerian and Yoruba heritage. Have you had to navigate your Britishness?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Culturally, you have to learn about the person you\u2019re playing. Louisiana, the bayou, hoodoo \u2014 this is what forms her as a person. It\u2019s going to form the way she eats, the way talks, the way she walks, the way she navigates the world. I had to learn that. But I feel like unless you are that, you would have to learn that, right? I think as a dark-skinned woman who\u2019s grown up in the U.K. there will be similarities of feeling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There is obviously an ancestral cellular memory that African Americans will have, but I have the ancestral memory of colonization and assimilation. These are things that are in the film, too. But I would never claim to know exactly what it feels like because I\u2019m definitely aware my accent gives me some sort of privilege sometimes when people can hear me. But you don\u2019t always get a chance to advocate for yourself.<\/p>\n After winning the BAFTA, you spoke about sometimes thinking it might be your career\u2019s precipice. You\u2019ve been in a bunch of projects since then. Does that feeling ever go away?<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t think that feeling will ever go away for me, and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a bad thing that it doesn\u2019t go away. It makes me feel grounded and not to take anything for granted. It\u2019s not about the awards; obviously it\u2019s about the work. The BAFTA doesn\u2019t feel like the precipice that it probably was a long time ago. Now that feels like a milestone in a journey.<\/p>\n The idea of assimilation pops up a few times in your work. How did you work though that theme for \u201cSinners\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s deeply personal, isn\u2019t it? I was born in Nigeria, raised in Manchester. There\u2019s just so many things lost because I\u2019m only interacting with my immediate family and my Nigerian community. Everything gets watered down in a way.<\/p>\n My Yoruba teacher said to me, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t go to the market anymore.\u201d I said, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m married now.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cWhat?\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cOh, no, no. That\u2019s just a cultural thing.\u201d Once you\u2019re married, the only men at the market are either sellers, they\u2019re not married or their wife isn\u2019t well. Like that\u2019s just not a done thing. All these rules and social expectations and unwritten rules I don\u2019t know. So when talking about assimilation, it breaks my heart. I wish I knew all that I have lost. I\u2019ve lost my language. I do Yoruba twice a week. I\u2019ve been doing it for five years. It\u2019s still difficult.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s why I found playing Annie so profound because with hoodoo \u2014 I knew nothing about Ifa, and hoodoo is a derivative of Ifa. I discovered a part of myself, a part of my ancestry through looking into her and trying to fill her space. Actually she filled a part of me because I had a deeper understanding of the people I am from.<\/em><\/p>\n Your characters from \u201cDamilola, Our Loved Boy\u201d (2016) and \u201cSinners\u201d both deal with the loss of a child. How have you changed between those roles?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m a mother now. I know more now, just in general. I know I know nothing, and I know I know so much more. I\u2019ve lived more, and I\u2019ve experienced more. It\u2019d be interesting to go back and watch that performance, being who I am right now, where I am right now. I don\u2019t know if that would be an interesting thing to do or would it be torturous.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve spoken a while back about your family being skeptical about going into acting. Have they come around?<\/strong><\/p>\n My mom and my sisters were never skeptical. They were like, \u201cYou do you.\u201d My dad has definitely come around. But yeah, this is it. This is what I do. There\u2019s no going back. There is expanding and there\u2019s transforming, but there\u2019s no going back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n