In “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler directs and Michael B. Jordan stars as twin brothers that fight a great evil in 1930s Mississippi. The film has a mix of genres and ideas, making music the most important part of the story. Because the music is essentially another character in the film, Coogler turned to his longtime collaborator, Ludwig Goransson to compose the score. Goransson won an Oscar for Coogler’s “Black Panther,” and also won  another Oscar for scoring “Oppenheimer. Coogler and Goransson worked on other projects  together including “Fruitvale Station,” “Creed,” and “Creed II.” On their latest project, “Sinners,” Goransson shares how he helped create music for the role.

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – MAY 14: Ludwig Göransson attends the 2025 BMI Film, TV & Visual Media Awards at Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel on May 14, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for BMI)

“It was a big task because Ryan Coogler wrote such an incredible script where the music is so integral to the stories,”  Goransson said in an interview at the BMI Film, TV and Digital Media Awards. “There’s musical performances but it doesn’t feel like it’s a performance. It feels like its part of the story. It’s important to the film, it’s important to propel the story. It was for me, the most important in terms of the songs was finding the right people to work with to write the songs. Raphael Saadiq and Brittany Howard —  these are two incredible artists who are also incredible instrumentalists that can play and be able to write music that I think that could have been reminiscent of the 30s but also feels like it’s contemporary so that was a challenge and I’m grateful to be working with them.”

For Goransson’s creating process, he’s been doing things the same way for a while now. “My creative process right now…the last 5 to 10 years I’ve been really wanting to be able to write everything on instruments where I’m playing it instead of sitting in front of a computer and playing on a media keyboard,” he continued. “I actually like to be able to play the real instruments, come out with something that resonates with you like a guitar or piano or flute or drum and because that’s going to give you something back, those type of instruments and talks to you back so I feel like that a way where I can really be creative.”

In working on “Sinners,” it was important for the Oscar winner to get things as accurate as possible. “I think on this project, feels like we’re such a family. I’ve been working with Ryan now for 15 years and also to bring in [my wife] Serena [Goransson] as the executive music producer on this. There’s so much detail in the script that needed to be represented in the film and the music so doing all the research and making sure all the music is represented the right way in the right way. It’s not just the music department, we’re working together with the choreographer, with the costume department, with the visual effects, to be able to make that whole five-minute surreal montage, everyone has to be together working, together as a team.”

“Sinners” is currently in theaters.