An Oscar hopeful for A24’s poignant carceral drama, Domingo discusses his early career in educational theatre, his transition from character actor to leading man and his efforts to redefine traditional masculinity. By Yasmin Omar
‘Heartfelt, impactful, vulnerable and tender.’ That’s how Colman Domingo wants you to describe his body of work and, candidly, you’d be hard-pressed to find better adjectives. He’s heartfelt as the loving father supporting his pregnant-teen daughter in the achingly tragic romance If Beale Street Could Talk (2018). He’s impactful as the civil-rights reformer, arm in arm with Martin Luther King Jr, marching on Washington in the Oscar-winning docudrama Selma (2014). He’s vulnerable as the trombone player explaining the importance of faith in the August Wilson adaptation Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020). He’s tender as the warm-hearted NA sponsor prescribing tough love to Zendaya’s self-destructive addict in HBO’s Euphoria (2019–). Even if his characters have lost their moral compasses – the villainous sex trafficker in Zola (2020), the abusive partner in The Color Purple (2023) – the projects themselves espouse his values, distilling sociopolitical issues into captivating, empathetic stories.
Euphoria (2019–)
‘I can see the line,’ Domingo says. ‘What I’m concerned about as a human being is very consistent, and I’m happy that it arrives in my work.’ His latest film Sing Sing, which was released in the summer and is back in the conversation as an awards contender, further extends this line. Within the crushing despair of the titular maximum-security prison, a fraternity of incarcerated men sow seeds of hope when they come together to stage a play as part of the real-life, recidivism-reducing theatre programme Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA). Domingo plays John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield, a founding member of the group and the pillar of its community, who is serving a 25-year sentence for a homicide he didn’t commit. The rest of the cast is largely populated by what Domingo calls ‘real reals’ (i.e. people who did time at Sing Sing, where they were part of RTA). ‘My heart is connected to this story because I am a Black man in this world who could be wrongly accused of a crime and end up in one of these institutions,’ the actor observes, gravely. ‘It’s really uncomfortable for me to watch the film because it taps into something so deep within me.’
Domingo is outstanding in Sing Sing. He carries the burden of his character’s pain lightly – goofing around with the guys, pirouetting down corridors – until he is crushed under its weight, and must find his way back out. The director Greg Kwedar often frames his face in searching close-ups that register every flicker of emotion, from the twinkle of satisfaction at an aced audition to the wince of disappointment at an unfavourable clemency hearing. With nowhere to hide when staring down the barrel of the lens, Domingo ‘gave everything I could’ to convey Divine G’s truth. ‘I had to pour more of myself into this role than I think I ever have,’ he admits. ‘I realised I had to bring my own vulnerability, my own fears of being incarcerated and having my dreams deferred. I literally put myself into this man’s shoes.’
Sing Sing (2024)
Domingo channelled this soul-searching into a moving, resoundingly authentic performance that breaks your heart and sutures it back up again. It earned him the top acting prize at the Gotham independent-film awards this week, which augurs well for his chances this Oscar season. Perhaps, after making history as the first Afro-Latino gay man to be nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award last year (for the activist biopic Rustin), he can best his own record and achieve the feat two years in a row?
It’s quite the accomplishment for Domingo to be recognised as a leading man, considering Sing Sing marks only his second time at the top of the call sheet. Until recently, he was known as a respected character actor, popping up – and drawing focus – in films by Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg and Lee Daniels. Opportunities had dried up to such an extent in 2015 that he thought about quitting acting. He’s glad he persevered. ‘It’s been such a long journey,’ he says. ‘I feel like I’m made for the moment because I know what it was built from. There’s a lot of energy coming at me, but it’s all loving energy.’
Rustin (2023)
The actor has certainly come a long way since he started out on the San Francisco theatre scene in 1991. From the beginning, he sought out meaningful, purpose-driven work, appearing in educational plays that toured ‘very tough’ schools. ‘I think it’s imperative that we push for more art in all institutions. I started my career with a production called The Inner Circle. I played a young boy who got a blood transfusion and became HIV positive,’ he says. ‘It was about destigmatising what HIV and AIDS was, and how to care for people. It was great training – you have to be completely honest when it comes to performance for young people.’
He applied these learnings during his stint as a clown at a Bay Area political children’s circus, which, like his early stage work, aimed to open developing minds, in this case by galvanising a new generation of voters. Doing aerial web, six-foot stilts and gymnastics, Domingo portrayed a villainous monster spreading misinformation. ‘I’ve always been a shapeshifter!’ he notes, with a smile. Despite being such a deep thinker – expounding big ideas on art and the universe – in conversation Domingo is soulful, but never solemn, laughing easily and loudly in that booming baritone of his.
Sing Sing’s Kwedar believes the actor is ‘a teacher at his core’, which is part of the reason he was the number-one choice to play Divine G. Besides Sean San José – with whom Domingo had previously collaborated on Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s 1994 educational play The Yellow Boat – none of the performers in the film’s troupe had been on a set before, or had any on-camera experience. Back in the day, Domingo had his own difficulties transitioning from stage to screen. ‘When I was a younger actor, I needed to show everything I felt in big ways,’ he admits. ‘I’ve learnt the power of stillness and trusting that I can tell the story behind my eyes. That’s something I wasn’t so confident with.’ He, in turn, passed these tips onto his Sing Sing colleagues, suggesting they dial down their volume to dial up the resonance of their words.
Sing Sing (2024)
The teaching between Domingo and the RTA alumni was reciprocal. ‘They helped take me back to my early days of discovery, not knowing exactly what to do, but being open to try,’ he says. ‘I leaned into another level of vulnerability. They were coming with such open hearts that I had to meet them with an open heart.’ This emotional transparency shines through in the film. To quote one tear-choked RTA member: ‘We’re here to become human again [...] and do things that are not in our reality.’ The men find solace in each other – whether sharing personal stories, group-therapy style, or waging make-believe battles with cardboard swords – and enjoy a welcome respite from their daily suffering.
‘The RTA programme creates a tender space to have all these feelings and do all this deep soul work in a dangerous environment. I thought that was an act of revolution,’ Domingo says. ‘In our world, there’s this idea that – not only men of colour, but men in general – are not supposed to be soft, not be tender, not be joyful, not to love on one another. That’s something I’m very concerned about.’ Sing Sing, however, ‘smashes these tropes left and right’. In the movie, as in life, the imprisoned men don’t use the n-word, instead calling one another ‘beloved’, which, Domingo believes, ‘tears down walls in history’. He reveals that ‘everything in my body just melted’ when Andrew Garfield referred to him as such at a chance encounter in Paris. ‘It’s just saying, “You’re my brother and you’re loved and you’re beautiful.”’
Sing Sing (2024)
In an offhand comment, the Sing Sing castmember Clarence ‘Divine Eye’ Maclin alerted the team to this particular use of ‘beloved’. Domingo, who is also billed as an executive producer on the film, insisted they incorporate it into the script. He’s a true multihyphenate, someone who’s written plays (Wild With Happy, 2013; A Boy and His Soul, 2014), and directed a 2015 revival of August Wilson’s Seven Guitars (1995), as well as a trio of episodes on the zombie show Fear of the Walking Dead (2015-2023). As such, he was given a lot of creative latitude on Sing Sing. Beyond his actor-EP responsibilities, he weighed in on the production design, the blocking, the craft services... ‘I had an opinion on everything,’ Domingo says. ‘Greg [Kwedar] and producer Clint Bentley used all my skills as an actor, director, writer and producer. It felt so welcome. I’m in the position now to really guide and be the soul of the production, which is an incredible responsibility.’
Domingo and Kwedar on set
He carefully considered the questions ‘How do we start and end our days? What’s the vibe on set? How do we do the work?’ on Sing Sing, and will undoubtedly do the same for his upcoming film, a biopic of Nat King Cole that he will write, direct and star in. It’s his sophomore exploration of the jazz singer after 2019’s Lights Out – a dark, Brechtian stage musical that deconstructs the American Dream through the prism of an American icon – which Domingo co-wrote. He describes preparing for his feature directorial debut as ‘another extraordinary challenge’. ‘I’ve been finding my own visual language,’ he explains, ‘taking everything I’ve learnt as a leader, as a character actor, as someone who’s done musicals, and moving it to another form.’ Don’t expect a plodding, cradle-to-grave portrait of the artist. ‘I’m never usually happy with a traditional biopic,’ he says. ‘I always like to centre it on a moment.’
Next up, Domingo will be reprising his Emmy-winning turn on Euphoria, whose third season is due to shoot in January, and portraying the domineering patriarch Joe Jackson in the forthcoming docudrama Michael. Generally speaking, the actor – who, after 34 years in the entertainment industry, is now strictly offer-only – is looking for roles ‘that will challenge and change me, and speak to something that I have questions about in our culture’. ‘I want to work with open-hearted, top-of-their-game creatives, who want my full brain and heart,’ he continues, ‘people who really put their money where their mouth is.’ These are the kind of people he worked with on Sing Sing, which employed a pioneering equity payment model whereby everyone, from the costume designer to the composer, was paid the same rate. ‘I desire to always be in service to the work, to build communities. Art equals empathy, and who doesn’t need more of that?’ As long as Colman Domingo keeps working, there’s surely plenty more empathetic art in store.
