If there is a list floating around of the best working actors to have never been nominated for an Oscar, surely Delroy Lindo’s name is near the top. Beginning in 1992 with his performance as West Indian Archie in Spike Lee’s masterpiece, Malcolm X, Lindo has delivered one award-worthy performance after another. The wayward father in Crooklyn, the charismatic and frightening drug dealer in Clockers, the low-level (and criminal) film producer in Get Shorty, the orchard foreman in The Cider House Rules, and the Trump-supporting Vietnam veteran in Da 5 Bloods are all evidence of Lindo’s gift for giving commanding, authentic, and near peerless performances. With Sinners, Lindo is once again receiving Oscar consideration for his role as the alcoholic bluesman Delta Slim in Ryan Coogler’s smash hit mashup of race-related period drama and vampire horror film.
In our conversation, Lindo and I discuss the genesis of Sinners, the development of his character, and how Ryan Coogler’s film transcends genre.
The Contending: When you first received the script for Sinners, did you wonder if the film could successfully transition from period drama to horror?
Delroy Lindo: I hoped that what I saw in the script that I read, in the draft that Ryan sent me, would be the film that audiences have been seeing and enjoying. Which is to say that I saw that Ryan was using this genre to tell a much larger, nuanced, and dynamic story. Even though the draft I read was not finished, there was enough there initially that I called Ryan after I’d read it. I said, ‘Look, these are the things I’m seeing.’ He confirmed what I believed (about the story). I was hoping for a much larger film, (thematically) beyond the genre that it was set in. That has absolutely proven to be the case.
The Contending: I thought it was genius to connect the challenges that the Irish had coming to America with those of Black people who came over in the slave trade. Although their struggles were not precisely the same, there are commonalities between them. ‘No Irish, no blacks, no dogs.’ Even when the vampires appear, it is layered with this undercurrent of the oppression of marginalized people.
Delroy Lindo: That’s right. You used the word genius, and without an ounce of hyperbole. The application of that term in this instance is really apt in terms of Ryan’s original intent for this story. And that honestly has been one of the most rewarding aspects of this experience. Being involved with this film, the audiences, quote unquote, ‘get it.’. They seem to be getting it in all of the various nuanced, multi-layered, historical, cultural, and racial ways that I believe Ryan Coogler intended.
The Contending: Being of Irish descent, it hit me right in the chest. Even if the movie didn’t necessarily need it, the movie was there for me, too, in a very specific way.
Delroy Lindo: Wait a minute. I’m going to respectfully disagree with you. I think the movie did need it. Because think about this, and I’m just ruminating on this as I’m speaking with you. In some strange and brilliant way, it almost humanizes Remmick (played by Jack O’Connell). Because in the moments that he’s articulating his origin story, if he weren’t such a violent dick, one would say, Oh, I get it.
The Contending: Their shared connection?
Delroy Lindo: Right. It doesn’t justify what he does, but it’s very much central and fundamental to who Remmick is and why he does what he does.
The Contending: Sinners is almost a musical—a quasi-musical.
Delroy Lindo: As a quasi-musical, yes. Even though I didn’t know what the movie would be specifically, the music was always going to be, and is elemental to the unfolding of this narrative. To the extent that Miles Caton’s character, preacher boy, is the manifestation of that, and Delta, too. I don’t want to say tangentially, but not as centrally. Miles’ character was always going to be the base. That was certainly the intent of the placement in the music. That was my impression from reading the text.
The Contending: Is Delta Slim based on a real person or multiple people? Son House is the blues musician who came to my mind as a possibility..
Delroy Lindo: It is interesting that you mention Son House because I listened to a lot of his music before and during production. Son House embodies the classic conflict between the sacred and the profane. The many great artists have, right? Prince, maybe Michael Jackson. Sly Stone, and probably Little Richard, more than anyone. The struggle to balance on the tightrope between the sacred and the profane. Delta, I want to believe, is an amalgamation. Ryan sent me two books. Deep Blues by Robert Palmer and Blues People by Amiri Baraka, who, when he wrote the book, was called LeRoi Jones. I read those books prior to production, and I referred to them during production, in addition to listening to Muddy Waters, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, and Ike Turner–many of the musicians who come from that part of the world, the Mississippi Delta—all of those influences, human and musical, are in my character.
The Contending: Was this music that you were already steeped in and a fan of?
Delroy Lindo: Not steeped in at all. I saw Muddy Waters when I was a young man. I saw him in concert a couple of times. I never saw Ike Turner, never saw Son House. But no, it was not music I was overly familiar with, but I made it my business to steep myself as deeply as possible in those musical forms during production. Howlin’ Wolf man, right? Howlin’ Wolf, I listened to a lot. I’d listen to him and Muddy Waters and take in the breadth of the music. I was trying to steep myself in the music of these cats from that region of the country as much as I could.
The Contending: As soon as you’re on screen, you feel like a person from that era. It doesn’t take any leap of imagination whatsoever. I come from a small coal mining town in Western Kentucky, where people didn’t see a future for themselves. Alcohol was often a salve for those who knew life was never going to be about their hopes and dreams. I think that’s why Delta drinks.
Delroy Lindo: No question. Look. On so many levels, without blowing smoke, you are the audience for Sinners. The things that you’ve clearly picked up on, which have resonated with you while watching this film, are exactly the intention of the storyteller, Ryan, and myself as an actor. Because the story that I tell in the car, about the lynching, is part of the origin story. To use your phrase, it’s not a ‘great leap’ to connect Delta to the tragedy and the trauma of that experience. And it goes beyond trauma. I don’t know what the word is when one has gone through what Delta went through, seeing his friend violated and killed like that, and the guilt that he feels. Why him? Why not me? There were two of us. We were both there. His friend made that unfortunate choice to flash his money. He made a set of choices, and he ends up dead. I made a set of choices, and I get to continue to live, and I’m racked with guilt because of that. And that is the basis of the drinking. After the first screening, I mentioned to Ryan that certain sections had been left out of the first cut. I just mentioned to Ryan how fundamental what had happened to my friend was to Delta’s origin story, and the “tragedy” of the rest of my life. He uses drinking to, as you say, salve, to heal, to numb, to self-medicate.
The Contending: What works so well in that scene is how it slowly rolls into a powerful story. That scene doesn’t announce itself as “important.” It builds in an almost casual way, but by the time the scene is over, it’s devastating.
Delroy Lindo: I think this is critical. I’m (Delta) not a victim. Despite what I’m saying, I’m not a victim. Yes, I have been victimized. I’m doing what we’re all doing. I’m connecting with this community in the best way I know how, I’m playing with the cards that I’ve been dealt.
The Contending: I recently spoke with Miles Caton, and he spoke of you with reverence. He said that when it comes to Delroy, you have to be on your toes because he will improvise. If you’re not ready, you can get left behind.
Delroy Lindo: He’s correct. (Laughs). I went to do another film in Australia earlier this year, and when I met with the director and the producer, they referenced that they had heard that I liked to improvise, yes. Let me just be clear. I do not enter into any scene unless I’ve been asked to, with the intention to improvise. What was interesting about the way some of these scenes unfolded in Sinners was that there were moments in which one was emotionally transported into a place, and moment A connected to moment B. And if moment B was not actually written in the script, then I started to explore that moment. And a perfect example of that is the end of that scene in the car. When I started to holler, when I started to sing, that was an improvised moment. But there were other moments with Miles where, yes, as long as it was apropos to the material, I went off-book a little bit and added some personal flavor to it. It’s a testament to the script that was constructed in such a way, and it was strong enough to have space for that. Again, that’s Ryan’s writing.
The Contending: The scene that has been spoken of so often, and it probably isn’t a surprise to you, where Miles begins to perform on stage, and the scene takes this leap of imagination, where it connects P-funk and hip-hop and all these other musical genres. It connects all Black music and much of American music to the blues. It is stunning. What does that scene mean to you?
Delroy Lindo: It almost defies my ability to articulate because in one brilliant, deft genius, cinematic stroke, he tells the story of Africa and the music that descended from there and its impact on the world. Ryan doesn’t get on a soapbox. He simply presents it to the audience in all of its manifestations. And actually, it’s not just Africa. There are Asian people, too, and he weaves in all of the influences and interconnectedness, simply presenting it and saying, ‘Here, make of it what you will.’
