Michael B. Jordan Worked with Real-Life Twins to Create His Dual Performance in Sinners (Exclusive)

• Michael B. Jordan stars as identical twin brothers in the new vampire thriller Sinners
• Director Ryan Coogler, a frequent collaborator with Jordan, tells PEOPLE they hired twin consultants to offer input on the sibling bond
• The real-life twins' "selfless love" for each other was a "big motivator" on the script and performances
  

Michael B. Jordan got tips from real-life twins before delivering two of his "finest performances" yet in Sinners, says director Ryan Coogler.

Coogler and Jordan have continued a creative collaboration since making 2013's Fruitvale Station, teaming up again on Sinners, their fifth movie together. In the vampire thriller, Jordan has dual roles as Smoke and Stack, twins in 1930s Mississippi.

Writer-director Coogler, 38, tells PEOPLE he hired his filmmaker friends Noah and Logan Miller as twin consultants to get insight on what makes that particular sibling bond unique.

"They gave us a lot of perspective on what it's like to be an identical twin and that bond that they have," he says. "Since I've known these guys, they've shared one cell phone. So you'd call and you don't know which one was going to answer the phone but you knew the other one was always going to be right there."

Coogler recalls one of the "funniest" anecdotes he heard from the Miller brothers.

"They had a period of time when they didn't have a lot of money, and they would only be able to afford a little bit of food between them. They would get into physical fights over the last piece of food but not because they wanted to eat it for themselves — they were trying to convince the other one to eat the last piece, to the point of getting into an altercation."

Jordan, 38, says that level of "protection" was a takeaway. Coogler adds, "The selfless love that they have for the other was a big motivator for these characters and what would become what I think is two of Mike's finest performances."

How did Jordan pull off portraying that connection onscreen with himself as his own scene partner?

"I've got a brother that I'm extremely tight with and close and love a lot, and best friends that are like brothers," says the star, who has younger brother Khalid and older sister Jamila.

It was all about, he explains, "imagining those dynamics and incorporating that into the body double that I was acting opposite, and premeditating those choices because once I do one, I have to go on the other side and play the other brother and I'm already going against a performance that I already did before."

"There was a technical aspect and an emotional level of building these characters that was challenging but very rewarding," adds Jordan.

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In production notes for Sinners, Jordan further shared how he differentiated his two characters, also working with dialect coach Beth McGuire, whom he first worked with on 2018's Black Panther, another Coogler film.

"She helped me with a lot of body movement, their physical posture and stand. They both stood differently, they walked a little bit differently — they held their trauma in different places," he said. "Just getting into all of the physicality really helped me feel confident and prepared."

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Smoke and Stack, Jordan's characters in Sinners, return to their hometown hoping to leave behind their troubled past by opening a juke joint. They soon find out, however, that a threat is encroaching on the area: invading vampires who are out for blood.

The cast also includes Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Li Jun Li and Delroy Lindo

Sinners is in theaters now.