Miles Caton Interview: 'Sinners Has Changed My Life In Every Way'

Just two years ago, Miles Caton had never acted outside of a “little play” at his church. Now, he’s the break-out star of one of the biggest and most talked-about films of 2025.

Last year, Miles made his professional acting debut as Sammie in Sinners, a role which has already earned him a Critics’ Choice Award win, a nomination at the recently-renamed Actor Awards and a spot in the running for the coveted EE Rising Star prize at the upcoming Baftas, a title which has previously gone to the likes of Tom Hardy, Daniel Kaluuya, Kristen Stewart, Tom Holland and his Sinners co-star Jack O’Connell.

Not bad going for a 20-year-old, right?

Sinners, he tells HuffPost UK, has changed his life “in every way”. “I’ve grown so much as a person, it’s taught me so much about myself,” he enthuses.

“Acting is a really strong and powerful art – you can learn so much about yourself. It’s almost therapeutic, in a way, because it makes you see things from a different perspective, playing another person. It was amazing.”

We’re speaking just hours after the announcement that Sinners has made movie history as the film with the most Oscar nominations ever, with a whopping 16 to its name.

As well as acting recognition for cast members Michael B Jordan, Wumni Mosaku and Delroy Lindo, the film is also up for Best Picture and Best Director for Ryan Coogler, while I Lied To You, the song Miles’ character performs in one of the movie’s most memorable sequences, has been nominated in the Best Original Song category.

“It’s pretty surreal, honestly,” he says of the film’s historic Oscars achievement. “It’s honestly overwhelming. I’m just so, so proud of everybody, and so honoured to be a part of this film.”

For a film like Sinners to be a success with critics, audiences and now with Oscar voters in the current climate is also not lost on Miles, and he’s “absolutely” proud of the message that sends.

“We’ve literally made our stamp in our history,” Miles continues. “This will go on to be talked about for years and years and years to come.

“I just credit it to Ryan and his storytelling, his honesty and truth to his craft and his collaboration, you know? It feels amazing.”

Miles’ road to being cast in a game-changing movie like Sinners is a long and unexpected one. He first found fame before he’d even reached his teens, when a cover of Nina Simone’s Feeling Good that he recorded and uploaded blew up online, catching the ear of hip-hop icon Jay-Z who sampled it on the title track of his album 4:44.

An appearance on the kids’ talent show Little Big Shots a year later led to more work, before Grammy- and Oscar-winner H.E.R. recruited him to become part of her live show.

It was while performing with H.E.R. in the support slot of Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres world tour that he first came to the attention of the Sinners team.

Miles recalls: “At one of the shows, H.E.R. told me that somebody in the crowd had seen me perform, and that they thought that I should audition for this top secret film.”

“There was no information on it, I just knew that it had to do with music. And I was like, ‘OK, this could be cool’.  I didn’t have much of an expectation.”

At that time, Miles had just finished the European leg of the Coldplay tour, and was planning on devoting himself to making music and “kind of just honing in on my craft”.

“Then, I got the call to audition,” he explains. “And that’s when everything changed.”

Initially, Miles didn’t really have any information about what it was he auditioned for. “The more and more I got involved in the call-backs, and more of the audition process, I started figuring out piece-by-piece, and getting more information,” he says of this time. “That’s when I finally realised that it was a Ryan Coogler movie, which was insane.”

When he finally found out that not only was Ryan Coogler directing, but that the film itself was a thriller starring Michael B Jordan, Miles recalls being “honestly blown away”.

“I watched Black Panther for the first time when I was 12 years old, and I remember being in that theatre, experiencing that movie, and just being so inspired by that film,” he says, acknowledging how “unbelievable” it is that young people might now have a similar moment watching him playing Sammie.

“Knowing that I could be a part of something like that was kind of just like, ‘woah’.”

Before Sinners came calling, acting was something Miles had considered that he might get around to trying eventually.

“I kind of grew up just a big personality as a kid – always wanting to make people laugh and being the family clown and things like that,” he explains. “So I always heard growing up that I was going to do this and do that.

“And I thought, once I reached a certain point with my music career, that I would branch off into different things and different ventures and stuff. But I never thought it would come this soon.”

Indeed, when he was cast in Sinners, Miles’ acting experience was limited to the aforementioned church play, his appearances on Little Big Shots and one audition for the musical miniseries The New Edition Story when he was “about 10 or 11” years old.

“I was familiar with being in front of the camera and stuff like that,” he notes. “But I’d never taken acting lessons or anything like that.”

Because of this, there was a lot to cram in before Miles headed off to New Orleans to shoot Sinners, and he went through both “intensive” acting and dialect coaching with Yale University’s Beth McGuire, as well as learning to play the guitar with the musician Randy Bowland.

Once he made it to the set of Sinners, Miles says that “every day was definitely like a learning experience”.

“Learning how to play certain things to the camera – it’s like, sometimes, what you think you’re doing acting-wise, you kind of have to push it and go overboard to get the actual emotion through to the screen, for it to pick up,” he explains.

“So, it was learning different cues like that, eyelines, where to stand, and using the elements around you to draw from to get deeper into the scene. It was an amazing experience, really immersive.”

Much has been made of the work Michael B Jordan put in to play identical twins Smoke and Stack in Sinners, which Miles was impressed to witness first hand.

“The time and the attention to detail that Mike put into these characters was unbelievable,” he says of his co-star. “When he stepped on set, you knew which twin was which. You didn’t have to question it.

“When he came on as Smoke, he kind of let everybody know beforehand that he would stay in character, and he would kind of be a little more cold and reserved and stand-offish. And then, when it was Stack, it was the complete opposite.”

“Now, on a technical side, it definitely was kind of tricky some days,” he admits. “Some days, he would have a body double, and then have to switch characters the same day, and then there would be other times where he would be one twin, and then the other twin would literally be a golf ball on a stick, for eyeline. So it was tricky, but it was fun.”

Of course, the scene with which most people will associate with Miles’ character is Sinners’ attention-grabbing, time-melding musical sequence, beginning when Sammie performs I Lied To You in the brothers’ juke joint.

“I remember reading it on the page, reading the montage, and it describing basically everything that you see in that scene,” he says of this immediately-iconic sequence. “[After reading it, I was] coming up with all types of ideas of how I thought it was going to go. And it exceeded all my expectations.”

Miles adds: “I remember listening to the song for the first time, and just thinking how much everything Sammie wants to say is in the song. Everything that he can’t say to his father or can’t say to his cousins, he can say it in the song.”

When it came to filming the scene, Miles says he was first played “an animated video of how the sequence was going to go” so he could get an idea of “placement”, before the shoot got underway.

“There was like 100 people on set in the scene – you have background, you have dancers, you have musicians, you have my fellow castmates, so it was an amazing experience,” Miles says of his character’s big moment.

“I felt really supported by everyone and Ryan was super supportive. It was a special moment.”

As for playing Sammie, he describes playing a character “with so much diversity” as a “blessing”.

“He has a crazy day! You know, sharecropping, he meets up with his cousins, he’s doing wild stuff in the juke joint, he’s performing, he’s killing vampires, he’s jumping off balconies,” he notes with a laugh. “Getting to play that character, I just had the most fun.

“Growing up as, like, a movie person and always wondering how it was done and what behind the scenes looks like, I feel like I really got to do everything. So, it was incredible.”

Thanks to Sinners, Miles says he’s had “so many more opportunities” come his way in the last year, and his “profile has blown up”, although he’s also having to get his head around being recognised in public, something he describes as both “cool and difficult to adjust to”.

“It’s definitely interesting. I’m still trying to figure out how they know when I’m going to be at the airport,” he quips. “That’s pretty wild. But honestly, the interaction with people has been really dope. Hearing how they resonate with the film and how much it means to them, it makes it worth it.”

Meanwhile, he also says he’s “taking my time” as he weighs up his next move.

“Where I’m at with it, I think, is trying to think things through, and just looking for stuff that speaks to me,” he shares.

“And then, just having fun. I think a lot of times people try to put such heavy pressure and expectations on you, and I just think, when you stay in the groove and stay in the consistency that got you there, stay in that pocket, you can’t go wrong. So that’s where I’ve kind of been with it.”

Voting for the EE Bafta Rising Star award is now open via WhatsApp or at ee.co.uk/BAFTA and closes at 12pm on Friday 20 February 2023.