Jeff Spicer/Getty for Warner Bros. Pictures
Delroy Lindomakes a habit of knocking on wood.
Perspective is important to him.
Lindo found himself embracing this mantra with greater frequency in recent years.
Delroy Lindo at the European premiere for ‘Sinners’ in London.Credit:Jeff Spicer/Getty for Warner Bros. Pictures
I’ll tell you something, he says.
So that’s what it comes out of, that I don’t take any of it for granted.
“He turns in an insane performance in that movie,” Coogler remarks separately to EW.
Delroy Lindo as “West Indian” Archie in ‘Malcolm X’.Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
“He’s always brilliant.”
Lindo hasn’t auditioned for a role in decades.
“Malcolm Xwas the last film,” he admits and promptly knocks his knuckles against the lunch table.
Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim in ‘Sinners’.Warner Bros.
He begins to laugh.
“I don’t mean to sound arrogant, laughing, but I think I’ve done enough.
I’ve done a wide range of work as an actor.
However, Lindo didn’t audition even before he amassed such a vast body of work.
They requested that I come in and audition.
And I… No.
I’m sorry.”
He points to his role onThe Good Fight.
Lindo came aboard that CBS show, starting with 2017’s freshman season, playing attorney Adrian Boseman.
Delroy Lindo as Paul in ‘Da 5 Bloods’.David Lee/Netflix
But with Lindo, it remained off.
“Maybe they fooled me,” he says in jest.
“They didn’t ask me to read from the script or anything.
Delroy Lindo; Orlando Jones as Mr. Nancy in ‘American Gods’.Eugene Gologursky/WireImage; Starz
We were just talking.
Warner Bros.
That’s ultimately why Lindo remains offer only.
Auditions conducted over Zoom, Lindo says, are “even more” unnatural.
Wesley Snipes in ‘Blade: Trinity,’ Mahershala Ali wearing his ‘Blade’ hat.Everett Collection; Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images
“It’s a funnel.
Think about this…You and I are sitting here.
You get a sense of me.
Delroy Lindo at the 55th annual NAACP Awards in Los Angeles.Unique Nicole/WireImage
I get a sense of you.
It’s immediate, and it’s not filtered through any technological anything.
I don’t know how the young actors do it.
It’s very unfair.”
“I think the first text was, ‘You play piano?'”
But the answer was, no, he didn’t technically play.
A few texts later, Lindo finally asked Coogler directly, “What’s this about, man?
What’s up?”
That led to a Zoom meeting (not an audition!)
with Coogler, as well as the director’s producer and wife, Zinzi Coogler.
Music plays an instrumental role in the story Coogler is telling.
In many ways, the film is about music and its transcendent nature.
His voice and guitar strums spark a hallucinatory sequence in which different times collide.
“There’s a spiritual aspect,” he remarks.
When “Purple Rain” came on, the crowd thrust their lighters in the air.
“That was an entirely spiritual communication,” he says.
In the scene, Delta Slim speaks privately with Sammy before his big night.
On snubs and derailments
David Lee/Netflix
Sinnerscomes amidst another upswing in Lindo’s career.
The more interviews he did in support ofDa 5 Bloods, the louder the awards talk became.
“I try not to buy into that,” he continues.
“That may seem very pious.
Lee also separately launched a “WE WUZ ROBBED” poster sale.
Lindo and Lee spoke over the phone that morning of the Oscar nominations on March 15, 2021.
“He had just gotten off a plane, and he called me.
Said, ‘Man, I just heard.’
We were commiserating,” he recalls.
“Where we ended up was agreeing, no matter what, one must keep working.
What am I going to do?
Take my marbles and go home and get in the fetal position?
No, I’m not going to do that.”
And he didn’t.
The upswing continued for Lindo that year when he landed roles in Amazon’sAnansi Boysand Marvel’sBlade.
The former project began principal photography in Scotland in 2022.
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In a statement, Gaiman denied engaging in “non-consensual sexual activity with anyone.”
It’s too bad on many levels, but I was really excited to do it.”
It’s a shame.
I could be wrong aboutAnansi Boys.
Maybe it’ll be released.
This is another reason to knock on wood.”
He performs the gesture again.
“Because there are banana peels all over the landscape.
S— can happen, man.
At any point.”
Blade, a reimagining of the comic-book Daywalker vampire hunter, was another experience.
In November 2023,Varietypublished a report about alleged creative disagreements contributing to the hangup.
Marvel has since pulled the film entirely from its release calendar, and Lindo isn’t at present involved.
“When Marvel came to me, theyseemedto be really interested in my input,” Lindo recalls.
And then, for whatever reason, it just went off the rails."
“I’m not saying that it would’ve been an out-and-out Garvey-ite.
He was a character who had, very similar toSinners, created a community, a Black community.
He was a character who was the head of this community.”
ABC eventuallypassed on that showin May 2016.
“They said something like, ‘Congratulations, man.
We’re very happy for you.
“I told my son and his friends, you never know who’s watching.
Always do your best.
Somebody may come back around.”
It won’t be “a classic celebrity memoir,” he says.
Fundamental to his narrative in the book is his work with Lee and revisiting his mother’s life.
Lindo doesn’t have a ghostwriter, either.
He’s writing it himself.
It’s fine that it didn’t work out because…” He knocks on wood.
“I’m better off writing it myself.”
Lindo adds, “Nobody else could have done that.
I had to do it.
I had to experience it.
Ultimately, on some level, it has told me what it wants to be.
I find I work like that, too.”
