Michael B. Jordan is the latest actor to take on dual roles, this time in Ryan Coogler’s new horror film. A psychologist breaks down the complexity of twin relationships and what Hollywood gets right, or wrong, about it.
Starting this week, moviegoers won’t be able to avoid Michael B. Jordan.
He’s the star of “Sinners,” the Deep South-set vampire movie from Jordan’s longtime creative partner Ryan Coogler, which could prove to be one of the biggest hits of the year. He’s also his own co-star, pulling double duty as a pair of identical twin gangsters, Smoke and Stack, in 1930s Mississippi.
Jordan’s dual performance(s) are part of a long lineage of actors playing twins. From Nicolas Cage in “Adaptation” to Lindsay Lohan in “The Parent Trap,” twins are an enduring part of the Hollywood machine. For “Sinners,” Coogler took the assignment seriously enough to bring on real-life twins as consultants to help Jordan prepare for his two roles.
But how much do movies like “Sinners” get right about the unique relationship that twins have?
“There are some extremes there that may not necessarily represent the reality of it,” says Laurie Kramer, a professor of applied psychology at Northeastern University who has studied the psychological dynamics of twins.
There’s the trope of the evil twin and the depiction of twins as having a nearly telepathic bond that stretches the truth, but Kramer says there is a kernel of truth to many of these depictions.
“The reality is that they do tend to be rather close relationships where there is a strong sense of understanding and trust and loyalty and maybe a little bit of social comparison and competition that isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Kramer says. “These things are real. A lot of it comes not just from the biology of it but from the experience of growing up together, of being able to really rely on each other, to know each other so intimately, and for other people to respond to you and react to you as being part of this really interesting relationship.”
To understand more about how twins view their relationship and identity, Kramer conducted research on 20 sets of twins, both fraternal and identical. What she found was a relationship unlike almost any other.
“They say things like, ‘Life partner,’” Kramer says. “[It’s] someone who really knows them deeply. There’s no one else in the world because they are treated so similarly by others.”
Coogler plays into this dynamic in “Sinners,” portraying the intimacy between Smoke and Stack as akin to Cain and Abel, except “What if instead of Cain Killing Abel, he killed Adam? Like, if the two siblings were so close that nothing could come between them,” he told the New York Times.
At the same time, the push and pull between who twins are when they are together and who they are apart is integral to the experience, Kramer adds. Out of the 20 sets of twins Kramer spoke with for her study, 15 of them thought it was important to establish their own identities. The other five were all identical twins who valued being together and preserving their relationship “above all other costs,” Kramer says.
Smoke and Stack are an exercise in contrast in a way that is largely authentic to the dynamics of twins. Their differences are subtle at first but materialize over the course of the film. They are not only differentiated through what they wear but how they carry themselves: Where Smoke is a grounded, intense pragmatist, Stack is a verbose charmer.
Kramer says the differences and similarities that exist in a relationship like theirs has a lot to do with both how others view them and how they come to view themselves as they develop through life.
“Twins are always confronted with an environment where people are interested in treating them either as if they’re a single person –– [like] they’re interchangeable –– or are really interested in seeing how they’re each unique,” Kramer says. “This gets mirrored in their own personal adjustment as they’re trying to figure out through development, how am I alike or different from my sibling? How similar or different do I want to be?”
However, oftentimes the differences between twins are more superficial in real life than the kind that exist with Smoke and Stack. Some of the twins Kramer talked to would describe how something like playing different positions in the same sport was a fundamental difference between them.
The challenges of capturing the intricacies of these relationships in a big budget movie that includes a centuries-old Irish vampire is not lost on Kramer. While the novelty of bringing in twin consultants, a pair of filmmaking twins who are friends with Coogler, is not lost on Kramer, she stresses the need to expand the conversation to include trained professionals.
“They’re basing it a lot on their personal experiences, which I’m sure were really rich and very informative,” Kramer says. “Having a broader context about what twin relationships are like beyond the two twins that contributed as consultants here is really important.”
Not every filmmaker will do what Coogler has done in striving for a certain level of authenticity in twin relationships. But since twins won’t be leaving the popular imagination any time soon, it’s vital to understand these relationships and why audiences are drawn to them.
“That kind of closeness and being in a relationship with someone who knows you so intimately, better than probably anyone else in the world, is such a unique experience for people,” Kramer says. “I think it is one that people who are not twins look at with a little degree of envy. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone in your life who always had your back, who totally understands exactly what you’re experiencing not only at home with your family but out in the world?”