If I've learned anything from Twilight and Nosferatu, it's that you can't make a vampire movie without fake blood. This is, apparently, a lesson Michael B. Jordan had to learn the hard way on the set of Sinners, his new vampire horror film. In fact, Michael hated the fake blood so much that the Sinners production had an emergency meeting to discuss his aversion to the gallons of red goo.
Director Ryan Coogler recalled the strange meeting in an interview with People saying, “I got called into a meeting a few weeks in by my producer and my wife Zinzi Coogler, and she was like, ‘Hey, we gotta talk about Mike.’ I'm like, ‘What? What's going on?’ And she's like, ‘The blood—he doesn't like it.’ I'm like, ‘Wait, what?’”
Looking slightly bashful, Jordan laughed. “First of all, there's a difference between complaining and venting. I was just more venting, you know what I'm saying?” he said. “But they care about me, so they had a meeting. I appreciate the meeting.”
According to Michael, he went into Sinners in the hope that filming a horror film would “take the edge off” when watching them. Turns out being doused in “disgusting” fake blood for days on end was an effective form of exposure therapy, as the actor added, “I do like them a lot more, I just want to say that.”
To be fair to the actor, he wasn't the only one venting about the fake blood. “Being covered in blood is wild” said co-star Hailee Steinfeld in a separate interview with People. “It was sticky, SO sticky. Parts of my body were glued to each other. Moving, and like unsticking, was kind of painful.” Hailee added that, even though the fake blood was vegan and safe, it did cause her skin to breakout. Not fun!
One vampire accessory Michael did like, however, was the fangs. “I liked the fangs. Fangs were dope,” he told People. “The blood was a lot.” In fact, he loved the fangs so much, he and some of his fellow Sinners cast members wore matching vampire-inspired grills to a photocall for the film in London.
Meanwhile, Sinners is making history as one of the best reviewed films of the decade and is on track for a major opening weekend, so it looks like all that fake blood paid off.
