Ryan Coogler's Sinners was a gripping vampire thriller where the identical twins, Smoke and Stack, blurred every reality-warping line between savior and monster. Everybody left the theatres talking of them, but the visionary who conjured those haunting twins? He is petrified of the eerie doubles he brought to life, enough to call off an entire interview.

"The crazy part about me is I also have a phobia of doppelgangers," Ryan Coogler confessed on the All the Smokes podcast, dropping a quirky revelation that had everyone leaning in. The seriousness of the statement was telling of not a standard celebrity quirk like fearing heights or spiders, but something deeper, more uncanny.

Coogler dove right into it with a fresh example from that very day, explaining how it hit him mid-podcast. He had walked into the studio, politely introduced himself to a crew member in the other room, only to step into the interview space and have her greet him all over again. Taken aback, the filmmaker almost asked to "stop everything."

He recalled freezing up as that doppelganger dread kicked in hard. He revealed how his phobia is not abstract, but triggered by simple mix-ups that make the world feel off-kilter.

While Coogler's real-life fear of doubles almost derailed a simple podcast chat, his work on Sinners earned him his first Oscar.

Ryan Coogler wins his very first Oscar for Sinners

Ryan Coogler snagged the Best Original Screenplay award at the 98th Academy Awards for Sinners, turning the Dolby Theatre into a standing-ovation frenzy. Visibly nervous, he kicked off with a plea for everyone to sit down, before giving a shout-out to his Oakland roots and the cast and crew magic that fueled the supernatural horror hit.

Calling everyone "winners in my book," he made history as just the second Black writer to claim the prize after Jordan Peele's Get Out. Sinners did not stop there, as it racked up a jaw-dropping 16 nominations. Coogler's script wove emotional family drama into genre-bending scares, powering the film's awards rampage through Golden Globes, Critics' Choice, and more.

Regardless, Coogler's phobia of doppelgangers feels almost poetic when the twins he created for Sinners are taken into consideration. His Oscar win for the screenplay, on the other hand, shows how he turned that personal fear into something powerful and award-winning on screen.

What do you think about Ryan Coogler's doppelganger phobia? Let us know in the comments.

Written by

Pratham Gurung

Edited by

Adiba Nizami