“[Delroy Lindo] thought he was slick because he kept fake eating it,” director Ryan Coogler said.

Here’s what the Sinners cast really ate in that intense garlic scene — and who got caught faking

"[Delroy Lindo] thought he was slick because he kept fake eating it," director Ryan Coogler said.

By Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum is a staff writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2019 and is a published author. Her work has previously appeared in *TV Guide Magazine*, E! News/E! Online, *The Hollywood Reporter*, Mashable, Bustle, IGN, DCComics.com, Inverse, *The Daily Northwestern*, and more.

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February 20, 2026 5:58 p.m. ET

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Michael B. Jordan in 'Sinners'. Credit:

The cast of *Sinners* didn't actually have to eat full cloves of garlic during filming, but according to the actors, the surprising food they consumed instead wasn't much better.

Ryan Coogler's record-breaking horror flick features a pivotal, tense scene in which Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku, and Delroy Lindo's characters eat garlic in the midst of an attack to prove to everyone still standing that they're not vampires. And while the paranoia almost leads to more violence among the uninfected humans, the test works — although it does take a lot of convincing for some characters to chow down on the spicy bulbs.

In a new interview with Deadline, the *Sinners* creator and cast revealed that while they didn't eat garlic during filming, the fake garlic on set still caused some issues.

"From a pure execution standpoint, there was a scene where everybody had to eat garlic in the circle. We really got to eat, you know what I’m saying?" Jordan said. "And the garlic was not garlic, it was white chocolate."

Michael B. Jordan in 'Sinners'.

"It was crazy sweet," Mosaku agreed.

"They were garlic bulbs or cloves, whatever you call it. And they’re huge," Jordan continued. "So, we’re in the scene and passing this around, we're eating and s---. I got gold fronts in and s---, so I can’t really eat with them in, and I’m chilling and I’m like, 'I don’t know how the f--- this is going to work out. I can’t even talk at this moment.' So as the cameras moved around, we spitting s--- out and throwing the chocolate at certain places on set."

Writer-producer-director Coogler excitedly revealed a hilarious story about how Lindo tried to make the fake garlic bulbs smaller, so that the actors would consume less white chocolate.

"As soon as it comes out, Delroy’s like, 'That’s too much chocolate,' and like, 'The pieces are too big,'" Coogler said. "But he’s in character as Delta Slim. So he’s like, 'Ryan, we can’t eat all this chocolate, man, we actors.' He’s like, 'We got to cut it down into the smaller pieces, man' ... and they all descended on the pieces, and they trying to break them smaller and smaller, and somehow Delroy became the executive of how small [the pieces should be]."

Michael B. Jordan in 'Sinners'.

Jordan added that Lindo "started rationing the chocolate out to everybody. It was a whole exercise on that s---."

When Coogler tried to tell Lindo that "it can't be that bad," the actor challenged Coogler to "try it."

"Eat one," Coogler remembered Lindo telling him. "And I was like, 'Yo.' And then Del thought he was slick because he kept fake eating it."

According to Coogler and Jordan, Lindo kept getting caught not actually eating the white chocolate garlic.

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"You were holding it in your hand and s---," Jordan said to Lindo.

"He would hold it and fake eat it," Coogler confirms. "And then Zinzi [Coogler] would be like, 'Hey, he didn’t eat that.' I’m like, 'I know.' And then when we cut it together, it kind of works because you’re not sure if he’s really eating or not."

There's a moment in the scene in which Lindo's character, Delta Slim, chokes on the garlic, leading everyone to panic believing he actually is a vampire that made it inside the safety of the juke joint. But then, after vomiting, he reveals he just drank too much beer earlier, and the nerves of the moment got to him.

Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim in 'Sinners'.

"It played to the whole suspicion of who was a vampire, who wasn’t, and stuff," Jordan said. "So yeah, that just worked out a lot better than I thought it was."

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*Sinners* is nominated for a record-breaking 16 Oscars — the most for any one film in Academy history — and Coogler went on to discuss how he feels "very blessed and fortunate" in this moment.

"I feel very blessed, awards aside, which is a symbol of a film connecting with people, but just the actual life, the actual career and experience, that has been the ultimate gift," he said.

Just do the cast a favor and don't serve any white chocolate at the Oscars after-parties.

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