Miles Caton Rising Star: From Brooklyn Gospel Kid to Ryan Coogler’s $360M Sinners Breakout

Miles Caton was at the mall when his phone rang. Ryan Coogler was on the other end. He had the part.

A week earlier, Caton had done a chemistry read with Michael B. Jordan that had gone well. He was 19. He had never made a feature film. He had acted in a school play and shot a short once, but nothing at the level of what Coogler was describing. What Coogler was describing was a $90 million supernatural horror film set in 1930s Mississippi, co-starring Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, and Jack O’Connell. The character he would be playing — Sammie Moore, a preacher’s son with a gift for blues guitar — was the emotional center of the entire story.

The one problem: Caton did not play guitar.

He had two months to fix that.

Quick Facts: Miles Caton

Miles Caton’s Background: A Gospel Family From Brooklyn

Every member of Miles Caton’s family can sing or play an instrument. That is not a figure of speech. His mother, Timiney Figueroa, is a pastor and lifelong gospel singer. His aunt, Anaysha Figueroa-Cooper, is a gospel vocalist with her own dedicated following. His grandfather, Eric R. Figueroa Sr., runs two churches in New York as senior pastor and archbishop.

Caton began singing at the age of two. By the time he started school, performing in front of people was not something he had to be taught — it was simply the context he had grown up inside. Church services, family gatherings, gospel concerts. The voice was always there.

Growing up in Brooklyn, he absorbed gospel the way other kids absorb pop. Sam Cooke was a household name. Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway were reference points before they were cultural landmarks. Nina Simone’s phrasing — the way she could hold a note until it almost collapsed under its own weight before releasing it — was something he internalized before he could have named what he was doing.

That foundation, built entirely outside of any formal institution, is the reason Ryan Coogler eventually came calling.

How Miles Caton Went Viral at 12 Years Old

In 2017, a video of a twelve-year-old Miles Caton singing Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” circulated online and went viral. The recording got to Jay-Z’s team. It was sampled in the opening montage video for Jay-Z’s “4:44” — one of the rapper’s most critically praised albums. Jay-Z did not just use the sample quietly. The video became one of the most-discussed elements of the album’s rollout.

From there: NBC’s Little Big Shots, the variety show that platform child prodigies and performers, invited Caton to appear on Season 3 in March 2018. He performed Kurt Carr’s “For Every Mountain.” He returned for the holiday special in December of the same year, this time singing “O Holy Night.” On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2019, he performed live on The View alongside gospel legend Yolanda Adams, singing her song “Never Give Up.”

By sixteen, he had appeared on national television multiple times. He had co-signs from Fred Hammond, Faith Evans, Erica Campbell, and Bishop T.D. Jakes. Every one of those names is someone you need to impress before they say your name in public.

He had not yet considered acting.

Miles Caton and H.E.R.: The Tour That Changed His Career

In 2022, Miles Caton joined H.E.R.’s Back of My Mind Tour as a background vocalist. He was sixteen. They traveled internationally. He sang behind one of the most technically precise and emotionally assured artists working in R&B, night after night, in venues large enough to disorient most grown performers.

“She became like a big sister to me,” Caton said in an interview with Variety.

When the tour ended, H.E.R. made a call. She told Caton that someone had been in the crowd watching him and wanted him to audition for a film. She thought he would be right for it. She did not tell him who the director was.

It was Ryan Coogler.

Caton submitted an audition, went through a lengthy process of callbacks and chemistry reads, and eventually sat across from Michael B. Jordan in a room and performed. A week later he was at the mall in Brooklyn when his phone rang and Coogler told him he had the part. He received the full script shortly afterward and discovered — to his significant surprise — that the film involved vampires.

How Miles Caton Learned Guitar in Two Months for Sinners

Sammie Moore, the character Caton was playing, is a Delta blues guitarist. The film’s entire supernatural mechanism hinges on what Sammie can do with a guitar. His playing is not incidental to the story — it is the story’s trigger.

Caton did not play guitar.

He had two months before filming began. He worked with Randy Bowland on the fundamentals daily, putting in five to six hours of practice each session. Coogler sent him an essential blues playlist — Son House, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters — and he absorbed it the same way he had absorbed gospel as a child: not analytically, but physically, until the phrasing lived in his hands rather than in his head.

He also co-wrote the original song “Last Time (I Seen the Sun)” alongside Ludwig Göransson, the Academy Award-winning composer behind Black Panther and Oppenheimer, and singer-songwriter Alice Smith. His character’s performance of the song is the film’s inciting supernatural event.

Wunmi Mosaku, his co-star, watched the process. “It’s like he was born with it in his hands,” she told Digital Spy. That quote, accurate or not, captures what appears on screen: a performance of blues guitar by a first-time film actor that convinces you completely.

Miles Caton in Sinners: What the Role Required

Sinners — directed by Ryan Coogler and released by Warner Bros. in April 2025 — grossed over $360 million worldwide. It had the biggest opening weekend for an original R-rated film of the decade and became the fifth highest-grossing horror movie of all time. The film’s critical reception was strong, with particular attention paid to Caton’s debut performance.

He played Sammie Moore, the son of a preacher who disapproves of his musical aspirations. Sammie wants to play blues in juke joints. His father wants him in church. The film is set in 1930s Mississippi during Prohibition and Jim Crow, and those dual pressures — spiritual authority and racial terror — form the world Sammie is trying to make music inside of.

Caton prepared the Mississippi accent with dialect coach Beth McGuire and worked with Göransson on the emotional architecture of each musical moment. What he had to carry on screen was not just a performance but an argument — that music can reach across something supernatural, that some voices are loud enough to disturb forces that should not be disturbed.

“Sammie is trying to find his voice — in music and in life,” Caton said. “He’s got dreams and ambition, but he’s also navigating pressure from family and the world around him. That felt real to me.”

Miles Caton’s BAFTA Nomination and Awards Recognition in 2026

For his performance in Sinners, Miles Caton received the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer in 2026. He was also nominated for the BAFTA EE Rising Star Award — the only BAFTA category decided by public vote — alongside Robert Aramayo, Chase Infiniti, Archie Madekwe, and Posy Sterling.

The BAFTA Rising Star list that year is a document worth saving. Every name on it is an actor who delivered their best-known work in a single twelve-month window and had the industry taking notes. Caton sat on that list with one acting credit. One film. Shot in two months, half of which he spent learning an instrument from scratch.

He was also nominated for a SAG Award and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Breakthrough Performance. Time and Variety both named him to their Actors to Watch lists.

Actors like Archie Madekwe spent years building screen presence before Saltburn opened doors. Owen Cooper had no acting credits at all before Adolescence. Caton sits between them — a decade of professional music performance, a single acting role, and a BAFTA nomination before his 21st birthday.

What Comes Next for Miles Caton

Caton has said publicly that he wants to continue acting, while making clear that music remains his core identity. “I’m a musician at heart,” he told Billboard. He co-wrote music for Sinners, has a solo debut single in release, and describes his artistic ambition as existing across both forms rather than in a competition between them.

He has also made one specific and very pointed statement about the future. In an interview with Variety, he referenced a potential Marvel Cinematic Universe role, noting with a grin: “I mean, my name is Miles.” Miles Morales — the Spider-Man of the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse films — is named Miles. The character is Black, New York-born, musically inclined, and torn between personal identity and inherited expectations. The connection is not subtle, and it was not accidental.

He has not confirmed any Marvel project. He has made clear what he is angling for.

His music career continues in parallel. He performed the Sinners soundtrack at the LA Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl, bringing the 1930s Delta blues arrangements to concert settings. He remains managed by the same team that brought him from Brooklyn church stages to Ryan Coogler’s casting room.

He is 21 years old. He has one acting credit. It grossed $360 million.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Miles Caton?

Miles Caton is a 21-year-old American musician and actor born on March 3, 2005, in Brooklyn, New York. He is the son of gospel singer Timiney Figueroa and grew up in a family of musicians and church leaders. He made his acting debut as Sammie Moore in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025), for which he won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Young Performer and received a BAFTA EE Rising Star Award nomination. Before Sinners, he toured as a background vocalist with H.E.R. and went viral in 2017 when Jay-Z sampled a video of him singing Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” in the rollout for his album “4:44.”

What is Miles Caton’s role in Sinners?

Miles Caton plays Sammie Moore in Sinners (2025) — a young Delta blues guitarist and preacher’s son living in 1930s Mississippi during Prohibition. His character’s musical ability becomes the supernatural trigger of the film’s central horror event. Caton had no prior acting experience when he was cast and learned to play blues guitar from scratch in two months before filming began. He also co-wrote the original song “Last Time (I Seen the Sun)” for the film’s soundtrack with composer Ludwig Göransson and singer-songwriter Alice Smith.

Did Miles Caton know how to play guitar before Sinners?

No. Miles Caton did not play guitar before being cast in Sinners. Once he received the role, he worked with guitar coach Randy Bowland for five to six hours per day over two months to learn blues guitar well enough to perform convincingly on screen. He also studied blues legends including Son House, Buddy Guy, and Muddy Waters on a playlist Ryan Coogler provided. His co-star Wunmi Mosaku described his playing after the preparation as looking like he “was born with it in his hands.”

Was Miles Caton nominated for a BAFTA?

Yes. Miles Caton was nominated for the BAFTA EE Rising Star Award in 2026 for his performance in Sinners. The category is the only BAFTA Film Award determined by public vote. His fellow nominees were Robert Aramayo, Chase Infiniti, Archie Madekwe, and Posy Sterling. He also received nominations for a Screen Actors Guild Award and an NAACP Image Award, and won the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.

What is Miles Caton doing next?

As of 2026, Miles Caton has not confirmed a specific next acting role, though he has expressed interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — specifically suggesting, with deliberate ambiguity, that his name being “Miles” might be relevant to a future casting. He continues to develop his music career alongside his acting work, having released the debut single “This Ain’t It” in 2023 and performed the Sinners soundtrack at the LA Philharmonic and Hollywood Bowl in 2025–2026.

How did Miles Caton get discovered for Sinners?

Miles Caton was touring as a background vocalist with H.E.R. in 2022 when someone from Ryan Coogler’s team noticed him performing. H.E.R. later called Caton and encouraged him to audition for an unnamed project. He submitted a self-tape, went through multiple callbacks, and eventually did a chemistry read with Michael B. Jordan. Coogler called him approximately a week later — while Caton was at a mall in Brooklyn — to confirm he had been cast as Sammie Moore.