April 17, 2025 • 9 mins
ICYMI: ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – A conversation with actress Wunmi Mosaku (HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country,’ Marvel Studios ‘Loki’ and ‘Deadpool vs. Wolverine’), who joins the program with a preview of her co-starring role as spiritual leader ‘Annie’ in Warner Bros. Pictures ‘Sinners,’ the highly anticipated new supernatural thriller starring Michael B. Jordan, directed by Ryan Coogler; arriving in theaters nationwide on Fri, 4/18 - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty KFI.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's Later with mo Kelly. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio,
app Arriving in theaters nationwide this Friday comes to new
supernatural thriller Sinners, trying to leave their troubled lives behind.
Twin brothers and World War One veterans, both played by
Michael B. Jordan, nonetheless returned to their hometown to start again,
only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting
(00:28):
to welcome them back. But joining me right now on
the show is one of the co stars of Sinners,
actress one Mi Masaku, who you know from siries such
as Lovecraft, Country Loki and of course her TVA ties
from Loki carried over to the movie Deadpool and Wolverine.
One Mi Masaku, A pleasure to meet you. How are
you this evening?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I'm good, Thank you? How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm actually tickled because right now I've known you from
your best works such as Lovecraft, Country Loki and of
course the movie Deadpool and Wolverine, But I don't think
i've heard your natural voice until now. You grew up
in Manchester, England, and I'm always so curious about how
English actors may hear the so called American accent. What
do we sound like to you? And how do you
(01:10):
go about mastering it?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh? Well, I love hearing American accents. I love hearing
how different they are from from east to west, north
to south. It's it's a challenge, but we hear so much.
We get so many of your TV programs when we're
growing up, so we hear it a lot. And then
you know, then getting to the specificity of different accents,
(01:35):
like my character and Sinners, I play someone from Louisiana,
and you know, I had a dialect coach in Beth
Maguire who is amazing, and it's it's it's yeah. I
love doing accent work. And it's interesting because it doesn't
actually come naturally to me. But with a good teacher,
I can get it. I can't just listen and repeat,
(01:58):
but I can someone can break it down the hows
and the whys and what people are doing with their
tongue and their mouth and the back of the and
their soft palette. I find it like an really fun challenge.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Sinners is, of course a supernatural horror film. Is directed
by Ryan Coogler. And as I said, my introduction starring
Michael B. Jordan, tell me more about this story in
how you as Annie come in?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So I play Annie? Who is who? Do priestess, a
conjure woman, a healer? She is powerful and full of
love and understanding and and and and and she has
such a groundedness and connectedness with and her ancestry and
(02:44):
the spirit world. She is smokes other other half. So
Smoke is played by Michael B. Jordan. He plays Smoke
and Stack, identical twins. And she is smokes Person soul Tide,
his safe place and sanctuary. And yeah, she's someone who
has the intuition and the foresight and knows what's going
(03:08):
on before most people know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
What y'all doing?
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Just step aside and let me hang in now?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Why you need him to do that? You begining strong
enough to push basses? What?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I wouldn't be too polite, now, would it, Miss Hanny.
I don't know why I'm talking to you anyway, So.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Don't talk to him.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
You're talking to me right now. Why you can't just
walk your big ass up in here without an environ?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Admit to it admit to what that you Dad, you're
listening to this now? Now we out here playing games,
telling ghost stories in place of doing what we ought
to do, and what is it we're supposed to be
doing being kind to one another, being polite. Now we
(03:55):
is one people and we shouldn't go in barging into
other folks places uninvited.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So we've been in and out of Hill all day.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
They never need an invite. Dean. Yeah, So I ain't
had no.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
In working with someone like Michael B. Jordan and how
you are intimately tied. There's a level of intimacy with
your characters. Tell me about that production process. How much
rehearsal time might you have with him prior to doing scenes?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
We had two weeks rehearsal. Everyone got spent this time
kind of getting to know their characters, getting figuring out
their costume and spending time with Ryan and Michael and
understanding their history. We had. We had their history kind
of written out like beat by beat when they met,
you know, when she moved from Louisiana, when they when
(04:46):
he went to war, and we spent this time just
like trying to flesh out their past so that when
they're reunited after seven years of being apart all that
history into the room with them, and whether or not
you see it as an audience, you feel it and yeah,
(05:08):
so the rehearsal period is really about getting to know
each other, building that history between us and and building
trust so that we could we can move freely with
each other and safely and know like where our where
our strengths and weaknesses are, and where we need the
(05:30):
support and the space.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You know, Sinners is a powerful, powerful horror movie. And
the horror genre I would say has evolved over the
years where it was less psychological, less thriller, and more
bumps and jumps and screens, and this seems a return
to that. When you were reading the script, I'm quite
sure it impressed you one way, but after seeing the
(05:53):
final movie had probably impacted another way. Talk to me
about the powerful nature of the movie.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I feel like horror has such a I want to
say modern horror, but I don't. I don't watch a
lot of horror, but since like for me get Out,
horror has been such a powerful tool for for empathy,
for building empathy with audiences, whether it's you know, someone
who looks so different from you, what experiences the world
(06:21):
in a different way from you. The horror, I don't know,
it triggers all those like instinctive like adrenaline and and
and anxiety and your sweat glands, and now you feel
an iota of what it might feel like to be
that person in that situation. And whether it's an asylum
seeker in his house or or Daniel callua in in
(06:45):
Get Out. I feel like horror has a powerful way
of connecting people who otherwise may not understand the horrors
of humanity, that that part of humanity. So yeah, I
think it's a really powerful tool.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
You said something right there. I want to go back
and get you said you didn't necessarily watch a lot
of horror. But if I look at your career, you've
been able to do extensive work in either fantasy, this
being horror or science fiction. Is that by chance or
choice that you've been in a world of make believe?
Let me put it that way.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I mean, for me, the story, the story the messages
that are told in these in these projects, whether it's Sinners,
Lovecraft Country, even in Loki, the story of like a
Crisis of Faith, the story of of of of of vampires,
(07:44):
of a vampire, spiritual or actual or uh or or energetically,
that taking trying to take what you have, your gift,
your you know, it's the story that matters. It's the
character journey for me that matters. I feel very lucky
that I've been in part of projects that really the
(08:08):
story has moved me. The stories have changed me the
way I look at the world, the way I interact
with the world. So yeah, horror is to me. It's
for me. It always boils down to the story and
the lessons that I learn and with the way I'm
challenged in my way of thinking. And it just happens
(08:31):
to be that some of the most creative ways of
storytelling have been through horror in the last few years.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
For me, are you someone who is there the first
night to watch audience reaction to a movie like Sinners,
to see you on the big screen? Are you someone
who doesn't ever want to see yourself on the screen
and doesn't want to critique your own work.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
That's really interesting. I've never done that. I've never gone
to the cinema on opening night to see the the
audience response. But my husband was thinking saying the other day,
maybe we should do that on Friday, and maybe I will.
I think maybe I will, but it's not. I don't.
Usually I've never done that before, but with this one,
(09:14):
it feels like it might be cool to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I have a feeling you might be right. Centers in
theaters nationwide. C one be Masaku as Annie. Thank you
so much for coming on this evening and much success
for you and the movie.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It's Later with Moe Kelly CAFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty KFI.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's Later with mo Kelly. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio,
app Arriving in theaters nationwide this Friday comes to new
supernatural thriller Sinners, trying to leave their troubled lives behind.
Twin brothers and World War One veterans, both played by
Michael B. Jordan, nonetheless returned to their hometown to start again,
only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting
(00:28):
to welcome them back. But joining me right now on
the show is one of the co stars of Sinners,
actress one Mi Masaku, who you know from siries such
as Lovecraft, Country Loki and of course her TVA ties
from Loki carried over to the movie Deadpool and Wolverine.
One Mi Masaku, A pleasure to meet you. How are
you this evening?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I'm good, Thank you? How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm actually tickled because right now I've known you from
your best works such as Lovecraft, Country Loki and of
course the movie Deadpool and Wolverine, But I don't think
i've heard your natural voice until now. You grew up
in Manchester, England, and I'm always so curious about how
English actors may hear the so called American accent. What
do we sound like to you? And how do you
(01:10):
go about mastering it?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh? Well, I love hearing American accents. I love hearing
how different they are from from east to west, north
to south. It's it's a challenge, but we hear so much.
We get so many of your TV programs when we're
growing up, so we hear it a lot. And then
you know, then getting to the specificity of different accents,
(01:35):
like my character and Sinners, I play someone from Louisiana,
and you know, I had a dialect coach in Beth
Maguire who is amazing, and it's it's it's yeah. I
love doing accent work. And it's interesting because it doesn't
actually come naturally to me. But with a good teacher,
I can get it. I can't just listen and repeat,
(01:58):
but I can someone can break it down the hows
and the whys and what people are doing with their
tongue and their mouth and the back of the and
their soft palette. I find it like an really fun challenge.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Sinners is, of course a supernatural horror film. Is directed
by Ryan Coogler. And as I said, my introduction starring
Michael B. Jordan, tell me more about this story in
how you as Annie come in?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So I play Annie? Who is who? Do priestess, a
conjure woman, a healer? She is powerful and full of
love and understanding and and and and and she has
such a groundedness and connectedness with and her ancestry and
(02:44):
the spirit world. She is smokes other other half. So
Smoke is played by Michael B. Jordan. He plays Smoke
and Stack, identical twins. And she is smokes Person soul Tide,
his safe place and sanctuary. And yeah, she's someone who
has the intuition and the foresight and knows what's going
(03:08):
on before most people know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
What y'all doing?
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Just step aside and let me hang in now?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Why you need him to do that? You begining strong
enough to push basses? What?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I wouldn't be too polite, now, would it, Miss Hanny.
I don't know why I'm talking to you anyway, So.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Don't talk to him.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
You're talking to me right now. Why you can't just
walk your big ass up in here without an environ?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Admit to it admit to what that you Dad, you're
listening to this now? Now we out here playing games,
telling ghost stories in place of doing what we ought
to do, and what is it we're supposed to be
doing being kind to one another, being polite. Now we
(03:55):
is one people and we shouldn't go in barging into
other folks places uninvited.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So we've been in and out of Hill all day.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
They never need an invite. Dean. Yeah, So I ain't
had no.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
In working with someone like Michael B. Jordan and how
you are intimately tied. There's a level of intimacy with
your characters. Tell me about that production process. How much
rehearsal time might you have with him prior to doing scenes?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
We had two weeks rehearsal. Everyone got spent this time
kind of getting to know their characters, getting figuring out
their costume and spending time with Ryan and Michael and
understanding their history. We had. We had their history kind
of written out like beat by beat when they met,
you know, when she moved from Louisiana, when they when
(04:46):
he went to war, and we spent this time just
like trying to flesh out their past so that when
they're reunited after seven years of being apart all that
history into the room with them, and whether or not
you see it as an audience, you feel it and yeah,
(05:08):
so the rehearsal period is really about getting to know
each other, building that history between us and and building
trust so that we could we can move freely with
each other and safely and know like where our where
our strengths and weaknesses are, and where we need the
(05:30):
support and the space.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You know, Sinners is a powerful, powerful horror movie. And
the horror genre I would say has evolved over the
years where it was less psychological, less thriller, and more
bumps and jumps and screens, and this seems a return
to that. When you were reading the script, I'm quite
sure it impressed you one way, but after seeing the
(05:53):
final movie had probably impacted another way. Talk to me
about the powerful nature of the movie.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I feel like horror has such a I want to
say modern horror, but I don't. I don't watch a
lot of horror, but since like for me get Out,
horror has been such a powerful tool for for empathy,
for building empathy with audiences, whether it's you know, someone
who looks so different from you, what experiences the world
(06:21):
in a different way from you. The horror, I don't know,
it triggers all those like instinctive like adrenaline and and
and anxiety and your sweat glands, and now you feel
an iota of what it might feel like to be
that person in that situation. And whether it's an asylum
seeker in his house or or Daniel callua in in
(06:45):
Get Out. I feel like horror has a powerful way
of connecting people who otherwise may not understand the horrors
of humanity, that that part of humanity. So yeah, I
think it's a really powerful tool.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
You said something right there. I want to go back
and get you said you didn't necessarily watch a lot
of horror. But if I look at your career, you've
been able to do extensive work in either fantasy, this
being horror or science fiction. Is that by chance or
choice that you've been in a world of make believe?
Let me put it that way.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I mean, for me, the story, the story the messages
that are told in these in these projects, whether it's Sinners,
Lovecraft Country, even in Loki, the story of like a
Crisis of Faith, the story of of of of of vampires,
(07:44):
of a vampire, spiritual or actual or uh or or energetically,
that taking trying to take what you have, your gift,
your you know, it's the story that matters. It's the
character journey for me that matters. I feel very lucky
that I've been in part of projects that really the
(08:08):
story has moved me. The stories have changed me the
way I look at the world, the way I interact
with the world. So yeah, horror is to me. It's
for me. It always boils down to the story and
the lessons that I learn and with the way I'm
challenged in my way of thinking. And it just happens
(08:31):
to be that some of the most creative ways of
storytelling have been through horror in the last few years.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
For me, are you someone who is there the first
night to watch audience reaction to a movie like Sinners,
to see you on the big screen? Are you someone
who doesn't ever want to see yourself on the screen
and doesn't want to critique your own work.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
That's really interesting. I've never done that. I've never gone
to the cinema on opening night to see the the
audience response. But my husband was thinking saying the other day,
maybe we should do that on Friday, and maybe I will.
I think maybe I will, but it's not. I don't.
Usually I've never done that before, but with this one,
(09:14):
it feels like it might be cool to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I have a feeling you might be right. Centers in
theaters nationwide. C one be Masaku as Annie. Thank you
so much for coming on this evening and much success
for you and the movie.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It's Later with Moe Kelly CAFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.