‘Sinners’: A vampire wants to crash Michael B. Jordan’s party
Cornbread (Omar Miller) isn’t acting like his old self when trying to re-enter the party in Ryan Coogler’s period horror movie “Sinners.”
Miles Caton has toured the world with a Grammy-winning artist and tussled with vampires, all before turning drinking age.
In director Ryan Coogler’s genre-smashing horror movie “Sinners,” the 20-year-old musician/actor makes his film debut surrounded by booze and blood. From being part of the movie to walking red carpets for the first time, “I’m still processing it, but it’s been really an unreal experience, man,” says Caton, a New York City native.
“Sinners” (in theaters now) centers on Smoke and Stack, 1930s gangster twins played by Michael B. Jordan who return to their Mississippi hometown and run afoul of bloodsuckers. Just as key to the narrative is Sammie (Caton), the brothers’ young sharecropping cousin – and son of a preacher – with a gift for blues guitar and a mesmerizing voice.
The movie has proven a success so far, with a $48 million opening weekend, 98% fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore grade (a horror movie first).
Here’s what new fans need to know about Caton:
‘Sinners’ star Miles Caton toured with H.E.R. as a teen
The son of gospel singer Timiney Figueroa, Caton started singing with his family in church at age 3. The first tune he learned was Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” taught to him by his aunt. “That’s a song I’ve sung probably more times than I can remember,” he says. Caton spent his childhood “building up my own resume”: When he was a tween, a video of him singing Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” went viral and ended up in Jay-Z’s “4:44” short film, and Caton also appeared on the NBC competition show “Little Big Shots.”
When he turned 16, Caton snagged the opportunity to become a background singer for H.E.R., and juggled going on tour with his studies. He completed high school online, and two years ago, Caton came home from a Global Citizen show in Paris the same day he attended his graduation. That week “was lit, for sure,” he says.
Miles Caton got an acting masterclass from Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo
While music was his “main thing,” Caton grew up watching movies – his uncle turned him on to everything from comedy to horror – and acting was “something that always piqued my interest, just being like the family clown,” he says. “As a kid, that was something that I subconsciously wanted to do, but I didn’t really know how.” When he got the script for “Sinners” and learned Coogler was directing, Caton enthusiastically sent in an audition tape: “I said, ‘Hey, maybe this is my chance.’ ”
Caton could relate to Sammie “in so many different ways,” he says. “We both had such a strong ambition, especially in music, just to pursue it and to be great.” The fledgling actor also learned to play blues guitar because his instrument means so much to Sammie: “When everything around you in the world is going crazy, the guitar was something that he could really hold onto that was kind of safety for him, and also his first love.”
Even though it was his first role, Caton had plenty of role models around him. Watching Jordan develop his twins was “really inspiring,” Caton says, while Delroy Lindo’s performance (as aging blues man Delta Slim) made the youngster “want to dive deeper into acting and just learn more about it.”
‘Sinners’ youngster seeks to be both actor and singer
Caton is a Marvel superhero fan, and he gets a big grin when asked if Coogler has hit him up about “Black Panther 3” yet. “Man, that would be crazy. We’ve got to see,” Caton says. But he’s also fostering his other career, and a sound influenced by Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder.
He would like to bounce between the music and movie worlds, a la Jennifer Lopez or Will Smith. “I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds, but I’m a musician at heart,” he says. “I’m definitely excited to work on some more acting roles, for sure, and just see where everything goes.”
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