Sinners star Wunmi Mosaku speaks exclusively on how she found herself during the vampire film — “Learning about Annie, I felt like I learned a lot about myself and my own heritage”.
Sinners became a household hit in 2025 with Michael B Jordan and Hailey Steinfeld taking centre-stage, however, fans were struck by character Smoke’s relationship with Annie and her use her cultural practices for good. The actress shares how, as a Yoruba woman, this vampire film led her to understanding her own heritage.
Sinners star Wunmi Mosaku sounds as excited as a child at a fairground as she relives the moment when her agent told her director Ryan Coogler wanted to speak to her. Oscar and BAFTA nominated for her role in the $368 million-grossing Warner Bros movie, her words spill over, as she recalls saying: “Whatever it is I’m in, if he’ll have me!”.
Expecting a brief online exchange at most, instead, she says: “I went on Zoom and thought it would be for half an hour, but it was for an hour and half”. At this point, excitement consumes her, as she continues: “My brain…everything kind of opened up…”. It took just seven pages of script to convince Nigerian-born actress Wumni, 39, who moved to Manchester, aged one — growing up on a tough estate — that Annie was a part she would covet, and that working with Coogler on the vampire movie was an experience she would never regret.
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She says: “He’s such a wise and lovely and loving person. I read these 7 pages of Smoke and Annie and that first scene in the shop and I was just like, “poooh,” blown away by the quality of the writing. And then I auditioned with Michael B Jordan like two days later and they offered me the role in the room and then… that was it. Oh wow, it was bonkers! It happened so fast and it was so amazing,” she described.
The momentum has continued to gather at unstoppable pace — with Sinners making Oscars history with 16 nominations, as well as having 13 Bafta nominations; while the part of Annie, says Wunmi, has changed her “forever”. It’s certainly raised her already high profile, as Wunmi has been nominated for best supporting actress Oscar and Bafta awards. Ryan Coogler has also been nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Bafta and the Oscars — where he is also up for Best Picture.
A Hoodoo priestess, healer and spiritual anchor, Annie is the estranged wife of Michael B. Jordan’s character Smoke in the period horror-drama, set in 1932 Mississippi. A kind of spiritual system, or religion, Hoodoo is used by Annie to protect others from the vampire threat. Playing the character involved intense research by Wunmi, who had a daughter in 2024 with her American husband, Tash Moseley, who works in the entertainment industry, and is expecting a second child.
Speaking on The Arts Hour on the BBC World Service, she says: “I feel like I had to do quite a bit [of research] with regards to her faith”. Wunmi hails from the Yoruba people of south western Nigeria and Benin and yet learned about the Ifá divination system — relying on signs that are interpreted by a diviner, rather than on spiritual mediumship — through researching this role. She says of Annie: “Learning about Annie, I felt like I learned a lot about myself and my own heritage and the faith systems of the people I’m from”.
“She’s a Hoodoo practitioner and Hoodoo is this spiritual practice of roots and herbs and this connection to the ancestors and the divine and also the earth. It actually is a derivative of the spirituality of Ifá and that was interesting, as I am a Yoruba woman and I didn’t know anything about Ifá at all”.
Wumni, who won a best supporting actress Bafta for her role as Gloria Taylor in 2016’s Damilola, Our Loved Boy, also admits to having “preconceived ideas” about indigenous religions like Hoodoo before joining the cast of Sinners. She says: “Funnily enough, Annie was a lot of unlearning of preconceived ideas I had of traditional indigenous religions”. She explained: “I’ve always thought of them as quite scary. You think of Voodoo and you think of James Bond and you think of The Crucible and, actually, I met these practitioners and these priestesses and they were so loving and devoted to their ancestry and their purpose and it was just so enlightening”.
And Wumni — who rose to fame playing Joy in the BBC2 miniseries Moses Jones and Holly Lawson, and in ITV’s Vera, before appearing in Luther, Lovecraft Country and in movies including Deadpool & Wolverine — would never have expected a Vampire film to make her feel “more grounded” about herself. She says: “I didn’t expect to find a part of myself and feel more grounded in my actual lineage in playing this fictional character”.
“It was more about unlearning a lot of stuff and decolonising my mind and opening up my heart to other ways and traditions and belief systems,” she went on. In the film, Annie is the first to suspect the true nature of the vampires, led by Remmick — played by Jack O’ Connell — and uses her Hoodoo practices to guide the community. But as well as learning more about Hoodoo through Annie, Wunmi has got under the skin of her as a woman.
Speaking of her admiration for the character, she says: “Annie as a mum, as a person who’s a partner, her capacity to love and to understand and to forgive and to move without needing apologies, without needing explanations — [the] “I just need the truth. Just face me and look me in the eye and we can do anything together”. I think that’s really Annie”.
Playing the spiritual healer has been a role providing huge personal and professional satisfaction for the down-to-earth star. She says: “Every character changes you. You learn more, you understand more about someone else’s experience”. She adds, thoughtfully: “It was amazing. I feel like I’ve been changed forever through Annie”.
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