Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
With a record-breaking 16 nominations, \u201cSinners\u201d performance at the 98th Academy Awards is highly anticipated by the Trojan family. Directed and produced by USC alumni Ryan Coogler and Sev Ohanian, respectively, the film is a prime example of how deep the Trojan network runs. <\/p>\n
Along with fellow producers Zinzi and Ryan Coogler, the three formed a company called Proximity Media. The three famously met at SCA as students and have since gone on to form the powerhouse behind the \u201cSinners\u201d production.<\/p>\n
In an exclusive interview, Ohanian tells Annenberg Media his story from his time at SCA to preparing for the big night.<\/p>\n
Describe your experience getting to work with fellow alums Ryan and Zinzi.<\/b><\/p>\n
It was incredible. I\u2019m lucky that I\u2019ve been able to work with Ryan and Zinzi many times before then, but \u201cSinners\u201d was our first time working on a project that Ryan was directing for our company, Proximity, in which we had no other producing partners. In other words, it was really like a homegrown production. On one hand, that was freeing and liberating and honestly quite exciting and fun, but on the other hand, it also came with a lot of responsibility. We had to figure it out together.<\/p>\n
![\"Coogler](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2RMFHZLELJDOFIN7DK5AK344XM.jpg\")
Britain Sinners Photo Call Director Ryan Coogler, from left, producer Zinzi Coogler and producer Sev Ohanian pose for photographers during the photo call for the film ‘Sinners’ on Sunday, April 13, 2025, in London. (Photo courtesy of Millie Turner\/Invision\/AP) (Millie Turner\/Millie Turner\/Invision\/AP) What was your reaction to all the nominations and success?<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s really gratifying because the truth is, we never made \u201cSinners\u201d thinking about awards. That was something that we read about later, after the movie had come out. People would be writing, \u201cOh, this movie might be a contender,\u201d and we were like, \u201cThat\u2019s fantastic.\u201d We never thought about that, because, frankly, we were so busy making the movie that we had no time to think about it. But for me, the end goal is never an award, the end goal is always to make more movies. If this film getting recognized [in] the way it has leads to us being able to make more movies in the future, then it\u2019s a total victory.<\/p>\n
![\"Ryan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/24CNP3VVHJH5FLG563T2ZUDT7Y.jpg\")
83rd Golden Globes – Press Room Ryan Coogler, from left, Zinzi Evans, and Sev Ohanian pose in the press room with the award for cinematic and box office achievement for “Sinners” during the 83rd Golden Globes on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo courtesy of AP Photo\/Chris Pizzello) (Chris Pizzello\/Chris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP) How did your experiences and connections at USC impact your film career?<\/b><\/p>\n
I always talk about how I met three very important collaborators in my life when it comes to USC: Ryan Coogler, of course. I met Aneesh Chaganty, who is my writing partner, and then I also met my wife, Natalie Qasabian, who was one of my number one producing partners. But, another collaborator that I don\u2019t often talk about, that I\u2019d love to talk about, is Dezi Gallegos. He was my teaching assistant when I was an adjunct professor at USC, and he was so talented and had such a great energy to him. <\/p>\n
When I founded Proximity with Ryan and Zinzi, Dezi was one of our very first employees \u2014 initially my assistant \u2014 and then went on to become one of our incredible executives, and was a co-producer on the movie \u201cCreed III\u201d recently. USC has always been where I\u2019ve made some of the most meaningful connections and, frankly, relationships, both in my professional and, of course, my personal life.<\/p>\n
What was your favorite memory from your time at USC?<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s gonna be so cheesy, you gotta throw me in the corny prison for this, but meeting my wife, Natalie. We were both in the Armenian Student Association. We had a career day where they had tables set up, and they brought all of the students who wanted to be doctors, all the students that wanted to be lawyers, business students and so forth. Then, there was a table for Armenian students who wanted to pursue filmmaking as a career, and there were only two students on there: me and Natalie. That was of course, an iconic moment for me that has realistically probably been the best event in my life because it introduced me to Natalie. <\/p>\n
Beyond that, nothing will ever beat the experience of premiering. I\u2019ve been fortunate and lucky that I\u2019ve had movies now that I\u2019ve premiered in big Hollywood theaters in London and New York all around the world, but nothing will ever compare to that experience at the USC Norris Theater when you first premiere your student thesis film to your peers, parents, family and even industry people that show up. The stakes there somehow feel larger than premiering our movie like Sinners. I have to give a shout out to the school for facilitating those kinds of life-changing moments.<\/p>\n
What advice would you give to aspiring USC film students?<\/b><\/p>\n
I have practical advice, and then I have emotional advice. The practical advice is to spend your summers interning as much as you possibly can because it\u2019s harder to land jobs when you\u2019re out of school if you don\u2019t have a lot of internships to put on your resume. It\u2019s really hard to land internships if you\u2019re not in school. If you\u2019re in the film program, I would say spend your weekends crewing up on everyone else\u2019s films. No job is too large or too small to do on a Saturday with your friends, with the school camera, whether it\u2019s a school project or not, definitely spend those weekends doing that. Then, I would say spend your evenings reading: reading scripts, reading books on scripts, watching movies. That self-education will take you even further than your traditional education. <\/p>\n
The emotional advice I have for anyone who\u2019s a current USC student is don\u2019t take the stairs, take the elevator. By that, I mean when you\u2019re in the elevator, that\u2019s when you can have conversations with fellow students. Even a little \u201cHello, how are you? How was your day? Hey, you look busy. You look stressed. What\u2019s going on? Fill me in.\u201d Those would be seeds that, in my experience, grow into full-on, 10-plus years of connections and relationships that would have real history to them now. But if you take the stairs, you\u2019re not really having conversations. So take the elevator. That\u2019s what I did. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quotes have been edited for length and clarity. With a record-breaking 16 nominations, \u201cSinners\u201d performance at the 98th…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":656334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[15797,278130,75277,1582,276,278135,278129,2961,224,5337,52116,278131,278128,121803,58210,278133,121800,10806,278132,278134,278127],"class_list":["post-656333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-academy-awards","tag-aneesh-chaganty","tag-annenberg-media","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-coogler-and-ohanian","tag-kaylee-eiber","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-michael-b-jordan","tag-natalie-qasabian","tag-ohanian-usc","tag-proximity-media","tag-ryan-coogler","tag-school-of-cinematic-arts","tag-sev-ohanian","tag-sinners","tag-usc-film","tag-usc-sca-alum","tag-zinzi-coogler"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116230619673521000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}