Colman Domingo is the man who can
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If you ever get the chance to have breakfast with Colman Domingo, you must: he’ll arrive at Café Chelsea in New York right on time – impeccably turned out in a cherry-red windbreaker and crisp white T-shirt, sunglasses on, too many gold rings to count – and playfully pour your coffee as if you were old friends. Amid the murmur of power players in the swanky French bistro, he exudes a disarming warmth.
At 55, Domingo appears genuinely at ease, not unlike his role as Ali Muhammad, the truth-telling NA sponsor who befriends Zendaya’s agitated Rue Bennett, in the HBO series Euphoria. He is in New York for The Kelly Clarkson Show and a cocktail reception to fête Indhu Rubasingham’s appointment as artistic director of London’s National Theatre; tomorrow, there’s the photoshoot for HTSI, then it’s back to Los Angeles, where he’ll finish shooting the pop biopic Michael with director Antoine Fuqua. He’s so busy that “I’m not even gonna see my own show this time,” says the Philadelphia native, referring to Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole, the off-Broadway play he co-wrote with Patricia McGregor, which recently finished after a debut run at the New York Theater Workshop. “I love that I have this relationship with New York now.”
Years ago, this relationship was defined by a merry‑go‑round of auditions. Today it’s the place where he promotes numerous high-profile projects as an actor, director, playwright and producer, or attends fashion events like the Met Gala, which he co-hosted this year. Besides winning an Emmy for Euphoria in 2022, Domingo has been nominated for the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Academy Awards: he got an Oscar nod for his affecting turn in Sing Sing as John “Divine G” Whitfield, the incarcerated playwright and novelist, and for his portrayal of civil‑rights activist Bayard Rustin in Rustin. Next, he’s in an as yet untitled sci-fi flick with Steven Spielberg and will direct his first film, Scandalous!, starring Sydney Sweeney. The Running Man, Edgar Wright’s remake of the ’80s sci-fi thriller based on the Stephen King novel, is out on 14 November.
Last week, it was also revealed that he is the voice of the Cowardly Lion in Wicked: For Good, the second of the two films based on the hit musical, which will be released 21 November. “I’m very excited for people to enjoy it,” says Domingo. “I was a fan of the first film and I’m so honoured to be part of the second. It’s going to be a great, epic adventure.”
Domingo’s career has arguably been a great epic, adventure too. “It’s funny,” he says, “because I try to tell any young person who’s like, ‘Oh, I want a career like yours…’ – I want you to have a career like yours, first of all. But I also let them know it’s [only] what they see right now. I think people want to skip ahead to the red carpets and the fashion moments and all that. No, do the work. It’s more important to do the work.”
In The Running Man, Domingo plays Bobby Thompson, the bloodthirsty host of a reality TV show in which contestants try to outrun their death. Director Edgar Wright says that casting him was a no-brainer. “I have long been a fan of Colman’s versatility on screen,” he says. “I knew in hiring him that he was going to bring a furious and funny energy to the part and boy, he did not disappoint. Before the end of the first day, the crowd of supporting artists were chanting his character’s name when we weren’t even rolling.”
For Domingo, the “charismatic, dynamic, most famous game-show host in the world” was just fun to play – “he harkened back to my theatre roots”. But it also gave him perspective on our current political climate. “It’s amazing that Stephen King really just had the foresight and thought, ‘This is what’s going to be for sale: our humanity,’” he says. “He saw what’s happening when it comes to all the advancements we’re having with technology... It will bring you together, but it will also incite people to their uglier selves.”
Michael is set to be released next spring. Domingo plays Joe Jackson, the infamously domineering patriarch whose name often evokes his children’s stories of abuse; he co-stars with Michael Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, Nia Long and Miles Teller. Delayed three times, the project was haunted by rumours of costly rewrites and reshoots. The third act of Jackson’s life is a tricky enough proposition, but the Jackson estate is signing off on the film, which raises another question: will we get an unflinching portrait of Jackson, or something closer to Broadway’s MJ the Musical?
“When I was approached with it, I thought, ‘Wow, Joe Jackson, me?’” says Domingo. “ I looked in the mirror and I was like, ‘I don’t see it.’” Ultimately, it was an old photo of Michael laughing with Joe that helped him separate the man from his villainous persona. “Everything I’ve attached myself to, whether it’s Rustin or Sing Sing, I’m trying to humanise [the character] and give the whole picture of who they are, and then it’s for the audience to distil what they feel. I think that’s what our director is on board for as well.
“Joe Jackson comes from the league of men that I understand,” Domingo continues. “One of them is my stepfather.” Clarence Domingo sanded floors for a living and had a third-grade education; Domingo’s mother Edith, an Ivy League dropout, went back to college in her 40s. (Domingo’s biological father left the family when he was nine.) They were affectionate, hard-working, resourceful, supportive. His stepfather raised him “to believe the world was set up to do more good than harm”. His mother encouraged him to stay curious. “She wanted me to be a citizen of the world,” Domingo says fondly. “She was a profound influence.”
Ultimately, he hopes that audiences will give Michael a chance. “I think that people will come away with the fact that this family is a unique experiment in America, especially at that time. I think people will walk away with more of an understanding of the family, and that it wasn’t easy to navigate any of this.” It is, he adds, “daring to tell a biopic about Michael Jackson. But I think, arguably, everyone can agree that there hasn’t been a performer like that. He deserves to have his story told.”
In the early ’90s, a teacher at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Domingo was studying journalism, told him to consider acting. He dropped out and moved to San Francisco with $70 borrowed from a friend. Regional theatre gave him his start. Directing and producing followed, then writing, most notably in the form of his heartfelt stage memoir, A Boy and His Soul. But the breaks were slow in coming. He hustled – working customer service at Macy’s during the day, bartending at night and auditioning and taking acting classes in between. There were periods of “unemployment, pounding the streets... working shifts that are terrible for money”, he says. “I was always doing a bunch because I knew the only person who could make it happen was me.”
On primetime TV, he played everyone from Maya Angelou (The Big Gay Sketch Show) and a Black turn-of-the-century doctor (The Knick) to police sergeants and a schizophrenic heroin addict in Law & Order. He dazzled on Broadway – particularly in Stew’s rock ’n’ roll musical, Passing Strange – and parlayed that success into bit parts in films like Spielberg’s Lincoln and Ava DuVernay’s Selma. “It was rare air,” he says, but the meatier roles still eluded him, even after he received Tony and Olivier nominations for The Scottsboro Boys in the West End. “I thought, ‘Well, maybe this is where my career ends,’” he says, “and I leave it, and I leave it without bitterness.”
After years trying to make it work, Domingo gave himself six months, switched agents and only took roles he felt were worthy of his talent. “The first thing I booked was Fear the Walking Dead,” he says, of playing the morally murky Victor Strand in AMC’s acclaimed zombie horror series. “That was about a month after I changed my agent.”
Today, he lives in Malibu with his husband, Raúl, his partner of 20 years. Life together is blissfully simple: mornings, he makes up the bed, puts on jazz and surveys his property. Then he heads inside, reads emails and waits for Raúl to make his second cup of coffee. They’ll buy dozens of plants at the nursery and spend hours in their garden; they frequently travel. He has always been open about his sexuality. “I knew many people who were hiding that part of themselves,” he says. “And I thought, well, I naturally don’t...”
Domingo is an enthusiastic advocate for fashion. “I love to dress,” says the man who wore a Yves Klein blue-coloured Valentino cape to the Met Gala, where he was a co-chair for the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” theme. “I love having a sense of style, I Iove feeling like myself,” he adds. “It’s truly simple storytelling, and I love to inspire other people to do the same.”
Anna Wintour, who invited Domingo to co-chair the Gala, says that he took his role very seriously: “We’ve had a lot of amazing co-chairs over the years, but Colman was something special. He was just so invested and involved, both creatively and intellectually in the exhibition. He asked so many smart questions of the curators and truly helped rally public interest in the show. I’d say he became an honorary member of the curatorial team.”
Recently a student asked Domingo: “Colman, do you understand that you’re doing something unique in this industry that hasn’t been done before? You’re an openly gay Black actor/movie star who plays straight, you play gay, you write plays, musicals, you direct television, film, you produce theatre...” The kid had a point, he admits. “It hasn’t been done at the level I’m doing it.” Not that his values have changed. Nothing is off the table for Domingo – and that’s what keeps it fun: “When I walk out into the world, there’s so much love and spirit and joy.”
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