Not many teenagers can say they played a world stadium tour and still managed to make it back in time for prom and high school graduation in one fell swoop. And yet, here was Sinners star Miles Caton, chatting casually with me via Zoom on a Tuesday morning. Relaxed and humble as ever, when I make the accusation that he’s simply too chill about experiencing the cusp of celebrity, he’s quick to playfully chide me (and his friends who tease him) about it definitely being a surreal experience – despite telling us to “chill, bro.” 

Now the 20-year-old New York native, who first went viral for his singing chops in 2017 after debuting a cover of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good,” is currently skyrocketing to fame in the acting world following his delightful turn in Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners as Sammie, a young and skilled blues guitarist who inadvertently captures the eye of powerful vampire (Jack O’Connell).

Here, Caton talks to Deadline about the value of working hard in his youth, the well-deserved payoff, and his hope for the future.

DEADLINE: Take me back to baby Miles growing up in New York before the Sinners breakthrough. What did you want to be when you grew up? 

MILES CATON: I started singing when I was three years old, and I remember the first time performing in front of an audience and the reaction that I got and how I felt in that moment. That’s when I wanted to be an artist. I’ve always been the family clown, always running around trying to make people laugh and put a smile on people’s faces by doing crazy stuff. I was also wild and running around, making jokes I definitely shouldn’t have been making. I would say that [spirit] is tied into entertainment in general, so being an artist always made sense. 

DEADLINE: Did you go to a performing arts high school? 

CATON: I went to a regular high school for the most part, but then in ninth grade, I went to Frank Sinatra [School of the Arts]. It was the same year as the pandemic, though, so it got cut short, and I wound up going back to my regular high school. But while I was at Sinatra, I learned a bit about music theory, and that’s when my voice started to change, so I worked with a vocal teacher and learned how to make [singing] adjustments. 

DEADLINE: What was your favorite and least favorite subject in school? 

CATON: My favorite subject was history. My easiest subject was art classes. And then my most difficult subject was math, 100%. I’m completely on the creative side of my brain, so I own that [laughs.] 

DEADLINE: How did you keep yourself grounded in high school for your potential music career? 

CATON: I worked on music [in my spare time.] I started producing my own stuff and writing my own music when I was about 14. I started on GarageBand, just figuring out how to make sounds and record myself. I got my studio equipment because I got a new piece for Christmas every year, a new mic, new speakers and stuff, so I just built from there. 

DEADLINE: Outside of music and prepping yourself for stardom, did you allow yourself to be a normal kid with hobbies? 

CATON: I definitely did. I was able to do pretty much everything. I went to prom, I went on my senior trip, and I got to hang out with my friends. I played video games from GTA [Grand Theft Auto] and Call of Duty. So, I feel like I had a pretty good balance being a normal kid. But, early on, I understood sacrifice and having to put some of those things aside, not being able to go to parties or not being able to hang out as long as I wanted to because I had to work. I also understood that this was a goal of mine. It wasn’t like my mom was putting pressure on me to do it because she wanted me to. It was something that I felt like I needed to do, too. So, I understood from pretty early on what sacrifice looks like and that it pays off later on.

DEADLINE: It paid off.  You become a viral singing sensation, and then H.E.R. puts you on her tour when you’re 16, and then you have to go back to high school. What was that experience like for you?

CATON: It was definitely weird at times. I would come back, literally, when the tour first started. This was when we were just out of the pandemic. We were traveling, and every time I came back home, I would go straight to school off the tour, and my friends would be like, “Yo, Miles. What are you still doing here, bro? You still go here?” And I would be like, “chill, bro.” But it was difficult because I would go back, and I had missed out on so much because I wasn’t there. My friends would let me know what’s going on, but I wasn’t in it at that point because I was traveling and living a different lifestyle. 

Then, when it came to schoolwork, I was falling behind. Then it got to the point where I had to go completely remote, but my school looked out for me and figured out a way for me to finish all my classes online. So, I basically finished the end of 10th through 12th grade completely online and on the road. We did Global Citizens in Paris, and I flew back home the next day and made it to my graduation. 

DEADLINE: Going on the road with H.E.R. also led you to being discovered for Sinners. Do you remember what excited you about the script? 

CATON: My first thought was, “Wow, this is not what I thought this movie was going to be about.” When they sent me the audition prompt, they just mentioned the character was a 19-year-old sharecropper who would’ve been [like] Sam Cooke if it were 20 years later, since the movie is set in the 1930s, when Sam Cooke would have just been born. So, I was thinking, OK, this movie must be some type of music biopic, this character plays a guitar, it’s going to be a cool film. 

When I read the script through, and mind you, the opening scene that you see in the film is not how the original script was. The original script started off with Remmick jumping in the frame, smoking, running up to the house, and banging on the door. With that context in mind, you don’t see Sammie return to the church, or anything that happens in the flashback before the movie starts. So, there’s no context that would let you know that there’s vampires in the movie. When I finally got to the point in the script, where in the film Mary [Hailee Steinfield] bites Stack in the back of the room [while having sex] at the Juke Joint, I was like, “Whoa, this is kind of weird. What’s going on? This is getting freaky.” [Laughs.] Then the script finally said, “We think these are vampires.” I was like, “Oh shoot.” And I remember tripping in my room. I’m not a big reader, but I finished the whole script not too long after that because I was so glued to it. I was blown away because this was something so unique, different and risky. I thought the script was so brilliant and that Ryan [Coogler] was going to absolutely pull this off. 

DEADLINE: What did you observe working with your co-stars on this set? 

CATON: I think collectively from all of them, I learned how important it is to find your own process. Everybody’s process is so different. When it came to working with Jack [O’Connell], for Remmick, I saw him a lot. He was always in movement on set. He was always hyping himself up or doing physical things to get himself ready for a scene. Then, Delroy [Lindo], I would see him more reserved and off to the side. He would have headphones on, listening to different audio from the 1930s and different musicians, and he would do vocal exercises. That encouraged me to ask myself, what could I do to get me into character.

Then, working with Michael [B. Jordan] taught me a lot about how to do certain [technical] things in front of the camera. This being my first experience, naturally, you want to fall deep into the world and into the character as much as possible, but you also have to remember that you’re acting, there are cameras and marks you have to hit, angles you have to be looking for, and eye lines to remember. So, learning to pay attention to all that is what I learned from Mike for sure. 

DEADLINE: Is there a scene that you thought initially wasn’t going to work, but then, upon watching it, you were like, this actually worked out great. 

CATON: Definitely, the [sex] scene with Sammie and Pearline. 

DEADLINE: Oh, that scene? I’m sure we barely even noticed. 

CATON: Yeah, that scene [laughs.] That scene was just interesting, man. When I read that on the page, I was like, “Ay, yo.” I thought this might be too much for my acting and that it might be too much, too far. 

DEADLINE: You had some conversations with Ryan, I take it? 

CATON: I sure did. We talked about that really early on, and he was like, “Yeah, bro. It’s life.” And that’s what he wanted to tell with these characters. He wanted to make them feel as human as possible and to show the experiences we all go through. So, keeping that in mind, I think Ryan gave me a lot of context for my character in general, so he made it easier to work through some of those difficult scenes. But that was one we both had to work through, for sure. Jayme Lawson was incredible and extremely professional. We also had an intimacy coordinator, Amanda Peek. So, everything was super coordinated, it was smooth, and we got through it.

DEADLINE: What do you remember about those music sessions with Ludwig Göransson and Ryan writing “I Lied to You?”

CATON: First, I learned how to play blues guitar with Randy Bowen, our amazing touring guitarist. I would travel out to Philly on Amtrak, go to his studio, and we would practice every week. And then I would come back home, and we would do Zoom sessions, and I would literally practice for five to six hours a day on blues guitar. 

Then, when it came to getting out there, Ryan sent me a blues playlist that featured Charley Patton, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters and Son House. So, I started to listen to that before I got to New Orleans to film. And then once we got out there to Esplanade Studios, Ludwig had taught me, “I Lied to You” on the guitar for the first time. It was pretty early on into filming, so I had time to work on it. But there were no lyrics for the song yet. And let me tell you about this beautiful studio, it was converted from a church, so it was a big space with incredible acoustics with a million instruments in there. Ludwig would have different musicians in there, Raphael Saadiq and a musician from Louisiana named Terry Harmonica [Bean], who was incredible and worked with Delroy for Delta Slim for this project. 

Ludwig brought me into the studio, and he played me “I Lie to You” with Raphael Saadiq’s lyrics and vocals on it, and I was just blown away. I was like, dang, this is everything that Sammie wanted to say. Everything that he couldn’t say to his cousins to his face, or to his father. He could write it in a song, and this is what he’s feeling. So that gave me a lot of help for building more of that arc for Sammie. And then they were like, “All right, now we need you to go in the studio and do your thing.” So, by then, I had already been thinking about how I wanted to approach the character’s vocals, since I feel like I have a naturally deep, soulful voice, which was the foundation. But I added a little more Mississippi to it, a little more raspiness, to kind of give it that feel you hear in the movie. So, I just made it my own, and it came out really cool, and it was fun to make.

DEADLINE: Are you excited about the potential to play the Oscars? 

CATON: That would be crazy. I’m going crazy just thinking about it. 

DEADLINE: You’ve been mingling around at parties this awards season. Have there been any meetings or conversations that have been exciting for you? 

CATON: It’s been super dope because I feel like there are a lot of other amazing breakthrough actors that debuted this year, like Chase Infiniti, me and her became really cool during this awards season, and we’ve been cheering each other on, and then I just did a podcast with Tyriq Withers, he’s killing it. I also met Leonardo DiCaprio, which was crazy. He told me I did an amazing job in the film. And I was like, “You’re a legend, bro. The GOAT.” And I spoke with Tom Cruise at the Governor’s Awards, where he got an honorary Oscar. He was telling me that I could do this career as long as I continue to be consistent. He told me I was in the right place and said, “You’re going to have one of these one day,” pointing to his Oscar. And I was just like, man, that’s crazy. 

DEADLINE: Now that you’re on the other side of this movie with all the praise that it’s getting, I’m wondering, what is it like for you to have been set on a path to become a musician and then acting comes and collides with that plan to bring you to this moment you are living now? 

CATON: It’s so crazy, even though I grew up in a musical family, there’s a bit of acting in there, too. My aunt was in Life with Mikey as a young girl singing in that film. And then my mom played an extra in Do the Right Thing. So, we’ve all dabbled with both in a way. For me, being the super energetic kid I was, I remember people saying then that I should pursue entertainment or acting. Once I got older and hit puberty in high school, I feel like that was the part of myself I pushed more to the side and leaned into my artistry. I started growing my hair, I even got locs – but then I had to cut them off for the film – that’s another story [laughs.] But I feel like entering this movie unlocked another side of myself. As a kid, I remember being more careless, not having to worry about so much, and just being 100% creative. The older you get, the more sensitive you become to people’s opinions and perceptions of you, and you lose a little bit of that childhood innocence.

With Sinners, I feel like this film helped me tap more into that, especially with Sammie, because he’s definitely naive and he’s got this [innocent] vision of the world. He’s been living in this environment in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in this constant life cycle of sharecropping, going to church, taking care of his family, and repeating it over and over again. So, I think when he gets the chance to go out and be with his cousins, he’s seeing things in a different way. So, I had to tap into that younger side of myself, and it taught me a lot. I learned that in acting, you have to be very vulnerable and dig deep to find the nuances in the character to really put on your best performance. I feel like that’s the part of art that I really like, and I really want to continue to do for sure.

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]