In light of his recent Oscar nomination, Colman Domingo is sailing on to new projects, including A24’s upcoming film Sing Sing. While on the Oscars 2024 red carpet speaking to Orange Is the New Black actress and E! host Laverne Cox, Domingo spoke candidly about the roles he chooses.
“I'm very careful about the stories that I tell. In every depiction, I want to humanize all these men that I play, whether they're heroes or villains,” he said, when asked about playing both queer civil rights leader Bayard Rustin in Rustin and the villainous Albert “Mister” Johnson in The Color Purple in the span of a single year, adding, “I want [audiences] to see that I care deeply about depictions of Black men in the world, making spaces for women in the world and all of our communities as well. That’s the person that I am and the industry has seen me at my fullest and has seen how I actually shape and reshape this industry with everything that I have.”
He added, “I want to shine like a diamond.”
That much is clear not only from Domingo’s roles in 2024, but from the ones he’s chosen as his follow up projects. In Sing Sing, Domingo plays a prison inmate who participates in a stage play as part of an arts rehab program established at the infamous prison. In January, it was announced that Domingo would play patriarch Joe Jackson in the upcoming biopic Michael.
Whether or not Colman Domingo emerges triumphant in the best actor race this evening, his nomination has already made history. He is both the first Afro-Latino actor to earn a nomination in the best actor category as well as only the second out gay man to be nominated for playing a queer role, according to WPVI.
Domingo previously said that he woke up at 5 a.m. on the morning of the nominations to watch the announcement with his husband because “my body knew what day it was.”
“When they said my name, he literally laid on the floor. We had a little cry together. It’s unbelievable as someone who has been doing this work for three decades,” he told Variety.
Speaking about the historic nature of this accolade, he added, “Hopefully, I won’t be the last. There are incremental changes, but we need more people to champion these stories. It doesn’t have to look like you to be about you.”
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