{"id":357684,"date":"2025-12-19T08:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T08:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/357684\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T08:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T08:15:08","slug":"delroy-lindo-and-denzel-washington-sinners-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/357684\/","title":{"rendered":"Delroy Lindo and Denzel Washington ‘Sinners’ Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe devil works hard but Delroy Lindo<\/a> and Denzel Washington work harder. Washington, who famously stays off the grid when it comes to the latest pop culture moments, hosted his first ever movie screening for Ryan Coogler<\/a>\u2019s cultural phenomenon Sinners<\/a> at the Harmony Gold theater on Thursday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo what compelled him to rise to the occasion? \u201cI love Ryan Coogler,\u201d Washington told Deadline. \u201cI\u2019d do anything he asked of me. He called and asked me to do this, but the real draw was that Delroy and I have a 48-year history. So, when Ryan called to ask, it was an immediate yes.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the start of the panel moderation, Washington encouraged the crowd to stand up and give Lindo his well-deserved flowers \u2014 and when Washington speaks, the crowd certainly listened. The nearly five decades worth of history that Washington is referring to is their time spent at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco along with his and Lindo\u2019s tie to Spike Lee, though their only onscreen roles together has been in Malcolm X, they\u2019ve each separately starred in many of Lee\u2019s projects from Da 5 Bloods, Crooklyn, Highest 2 Lowest and Mo\u2019 Better Blues. <\/p>\n

\n\tWashington joked that in all the years he\u2019s known Lindo, the two things he\u2019d learned from him in their younger years were: \u201cFirst, a loaf of wheat bread, a jar of honey and a jar of peanut butter was all you need to survive. Second, that you need to act and analyze stuff. I remember back in school, Delroy did this scene and they had no notes \u2014 but they had notes for me. I thought I was pretty good. But then I saw Delroy, and was like \u2018Whoa, OK, I have to go home and work. It\u2019s so cliche, but he\u2019s one of the finest actors. There\u2019s a purity to Delroy,\u201d he continued. \u201cDelroy\u2019s discipline, attention to detail and his spirit. In those days, he [would always be so open] about the things that bothered him, which I admire, and I still do. I realized that he had no filter to him, he had to tell the truth. I began to understand that\u2019s what I was trying to figure out about his acting, that there\u2019s a foundation, purity and honesty and an integrity that\u2019s undeniable and something to reach for.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tLindo then responded with a story of his own about Washington back in their school days. \u201cThere are two things that I remember that always stick in my mind about Denzel and I and how far we go back. We used to stand on the corner of Leavenworth and Sutter in Downtown San Francisco, and we were talking about our aspirations for our careers and I remember saying to you, that \u2018I don\u2019t ever want to be in competition, man. There should be space for all of us.\u2019 And the fact that I\u2019ve maintained that ethos is one of the reasons that I\u2019ve been able to appreciate the extraordinary things that this man has done, because to the extent he talks about what he appreciates about me as an actor, right back at you brother.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe second admiration point that Lindo mentions for Washington came at a low point in his career. Lindo describes the rough nature of the industry and the constant rejection wearing him down. During a period of time when the actor was living in New York, he had run into Washington briefly, and that encounter lead to a pep talk that Lindo definitely needed at the time. \u201cThis man said to me, \u2018Dee, don\u2019t leave man. You\u2019re too good. This will turn around for you. Do not leave.’\u201d Lindo explained. \u201cAnd that moment want the linchpin at a particular point in my career. I got some encouragement from a friend. And that was the difference between staying in the game or leaving. Part of the reason that I hung in was based on what you told me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tLindo continued dishing out advice to the crowd. \u201cCreatives, I\u2019m telling you this. No matter what\u2019s happening, hanging in there. You must hang in there.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWashington added: \u201cThey say if the devil leaves you alone, you\u2019re doing something wrong. Also, Delroy, there\u2019s a nominal fee for that advice I gave you.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCheck is in the mail.\u201d Lindo quipped back. <\/p>\n

\n\tNow the pair have a new spiritual directorial tie through Coogler \u2013 it was reported that Washington will have an upcoming role in Black Panther 3<\/a>.\u00a0During our conversation with Washington, he said the secret to Coogler\u2019s penchant for collecting heavy weight actors is in his spirit is the fact that \u201che\u2019s so shy and sweet.\u201d\u00a0 Lindo attributed Coogler\u2019s magic to his \u201cendearing\u201d personality. \u201cI would describe it as him having the people\u2019s touch. He hasn\u2019t lost that with all of his success. He\u2019s still a regular dude from Oakland. And he maintains that demeanor that\u2019s why he\u2019s so relatable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Sinners, Lindo plays Delta Slim, an accomplished Blues musician, who falls down on his luck\u00a0 and into a drinking habit, due to the oppressive discriminations of the American Jim Crow South. Washington asked Lindo what drew him to the script, as his character is weighed down by the cruel world, but also emerges as somewhat of a father figure to the group in the film. \u201cI knew from reading the script that [Ryan] was using the [horror] genre to tell a much larger story. In my opinion it\u2019s not a horror film. There are horrific components, but he\u2019s telling a much larger story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLindo gets a very heartfelt and sorrowful scene in the film that was partially improvised, where Delta Slim is singing in the car with Sammie (Miles Caton) and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) to honor his friends who viciously died at the hands of racists. \u201cYou meet him as a drunk \u2013 because he\u2019s self medicating. Through asking Ryan to keep that moment in the film [that he nearly deleted], I was hoping to explain to the audience why he was self-medicating like that. That scene was not there and neither was the chain gang scene. I felt that moment was fundamental to the way that he is in the movie.\u201d\u00a0Lindo told Deadline about the importance of pushing to keep the scene in the film. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor later recalled with Washington about the strength of collaborating with Coogler to add more dimension to his plagued but wise character. \u201cHe introduces Delta Slim so brilliantly, but I told Ryan that he falls off in the second act. Ryan heard me and said that we could work on that,\u201d Lindo said. \u201cWorking with Ryan is a dream. He\u2019s incredibly collaborative. He was very open, not just with me, with all of us, and I\u2019m talking to the cast and crew. He\u2019s a collaborative spirit. He genuinely wants to hear what everybody has to contribute. Now, he may not use it, but he wants to hear what you have to say, and he values that.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The devil works hard but Delroy Lindo and Denzel Washington work harder. Washington, who famously stays off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[153911,177166,88,206,41717,21959],"class_list":{"0":"post-357684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-black-panther-3","9":"tag-delroy-lindo","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-ryan-coogler","13":"tag-sinners"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}