Colman Domingo

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Colman Domingo, an American actor, playwright and director, was named by Time magazine in 2024 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was born on the 28th of November 1969. Recognition on that scale arrived late in a career that began in regional theater and passed through years of small roles.

  Three questions run through his story. What kept him working through those years of minor parts? Why did a performer with a growing list of credits still doubt his place in the business? And how did an actor known for supporting roles end up carrying entire films?

  111

• 2. Philadelphia Beginnings

  ›

  Colman Domingo was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the third of four children in a working class household. His mother, Edith Bowles, was a homemaker of African American heritage who also held a job at a bank. His stepfather, Clarence, earned his living sanding floors.

  His biological father came from Belize and had relatives in Guatemala. That father left the family when Domingo was nine years old. As a child, Domingo had a lisp, and his mother sent him to speech therapy classes.

  Domingo graduated from Overbrook High School in 1987. He then studied journalism at Temple University. Soon afterward he moved to San Francisco, California, where he began acting, mostly in theatre productions.

  From 2009 to 2017 he lived in Manhattan Plaza, a federally subsidized building for artists. Before he reached that address, though, he spent years on the fringes of film and television.

  131415710

• 3. The Passing Strange Breakthrough

  ›

  A 1995 direct-to-video feature called Timepiece gave Domingo his first on-screen credit. He acted only sporadically through the rest of the decade. His television debut came in 1997 on the police procedural Nash Bridges, and in 1999 he took a small role in Clint Eastwood's True Crime.

  The independent films Desi's Looking for a New Girl in 2000 and Kung Phooey in 2003 followed, along with the crime drama Freedomland in 2006. He also played minor parts in Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Trial by Jury. On Broadway he had already appeared in Well in 2005.

  In 2006 Domingo auditioned for the musical Passing Strange. His mother died the next day. His stepfather had died only a few months earlier.

  The rock musical became the turning point of his stage career. Domingo played Mr. Franklin Jones, Joop and Mr. Venus. After a successful 2007 run at The Public Theater, the show opened on Broadway on the 28th of February 2008. In spring 2008 he shared an Obie Award with the Off-Broadway ensemble.

  Spike Lee directed a film version of Passing Strange, in which Domingo repeated his role. It premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Lee also cast him in Miracle at St. Anna in 2008, and from 2008 to 2010 Domingo appeared in the sketch series The Big Gay Sketch Show. Lee would hire him once more for Red Hook Summer in 2012.

  181920710

• 4. Writing For The Stage

  ›

  In 2010 Domingo's one-man autobiographical play A Boy and His Soul premiered Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre. It won him a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show. He was also nominated for a Drama Desk Award and a Drama League Award.

  The Scottsboro Boys brought him to Broadway in 2010. In May 2011 he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, and that year he was also nominated for the Fred Astaire Award for Best Principal Dancer on Broadway. When the show opened in London, he earned a Laurence Olivier Award nomination in April 2014 for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical.

  His own plays kept coming. In 2012 he starred in the premiere of Wild With Happy at The Public Theater. His play Dot premiered at the 2015 Humana Festival of New American Plays, directed by Les Waters, and reached the Vineyard Theatre in 2016.

  In 2017 People's Light, outside Philadelphia, premiered Lights Out: Nat "King" Cole, which Domingo co-wrote with Patricia McGregor. Two years later he returned to that theater to direct a production of Dot. In 2018 he wrote the book for the Broadway musical Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.

  In 2023 Domingo co-produced the play Fat Ham, a sign of how far his work had moved beyond acting.

  2223242526

• 5. Close To Quitting

  ›

  In the opening scenes of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln in 2012, Domingo played Private Harold Green. Spielberg had cast him once before, in a small part in a George Gershwin biopic that was cancelled. Lincoln was both critically acclaimed and a box office hit.

  Minor supporting roles in other successful films followed. They included 42 and The Butler in 2013, and Selma in 2014.

  From the 14th of June to the 18th of July 2014, Domingo returned to Broadway as Billy Flynn in a revival of Chicago. That same year, according to The New York Times, he considered "quitting the acting business over the rejection." He was missing out on many film and television auditions. One was for a small part on Boardwalk Empire, where casting directors allegedly said his skin was too dark.

  Domingo has described breaking down emotionally after losing a role that he and others felt was perfect for him. He decided his talents might be better used in a business photographing headshots.

  Raúl Domingo, whom he met in 2005, became his husband in 2014, the same year as the Chicago run.

  A friend then introduced him to a manager. The manager changed how Domingo approached auditions and put him forward for different types of roles. Those changes helped him win his breakout part in Fear the Walking Dead, the AMC spinoff of The Walking Dead. Domingo later said the show "gave me a new footing back in the industry, believing I had something to give."

  34229337

• 6. Strand, Ali And Directing

  ›

  Victor Strand first appeared in the fifth episode of Fear the Walking Dead's first season, titled "Cobalt." In December 2015, Domingo was promoted to series regular for the second season. IndieWire called Strand "easily the most vivid character in the sometimes gray apocalypse." The series ran from 2015 to 2023.

  In 2016 Domingo played Dr. Russell Daniels in The Knick, Father Frank in Lucifer and Dr. Evers in Louis C.K.'s Horace and Pete. In 2017 he joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a member of the Actors' Branch. That year he also voiced a dragonfly in an episode of the fourth season of the animated series BoJack Horseman.

  In 2018 Domingo joined the Directors Guild of America as a director on the fourth season of Fear the Walking Dead. He became the first actor from the series to direct an episode within The Walking Dead franchise. He directed three in all: "Weak," "Humbug's Gulch" and "Alaska."

  Also in 2018, Sam Levinson cast him in Assassination Nation, their first collaboration. Levinson then gave him the recurring role of Ali Muhammad, a recovering drug addict, in the HBO drama Euphoria, which ran from 2019 to 2026. Domingo won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2022 for the show's second season.

  In 2020 he signed a first-look deal with AMC Networks. In 2025 he played Danny in the Netflix series The Four Seasons, released on the 1st of May 2025, and earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Netflix renewed the show for a second season that same month.

  236374648

• 7. Awards Season

  ›

  "I was living in so much darkness for the first couple weeks and I had to really work it out." Domingo said this about shooting The Birth of a Nation in 2016, where he played Hark Turner. The film retold the story of Nat Turner, an enslaved man who led a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. Domingo added, "It's in the soil; it's in the air."

  In 2020 he won acclaim as Cutler in the Netflix adaptation of August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, alongside Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. The next year he played X, a ruthless pimp, in Janicza Bravo's crime film Zola, released by A24. That role earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Male.

  In 2021 he also served as an executive producer on the short film Leylak, directed by Scott Aharoni and Dennis Latos. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival and qualified for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

  George C. Wolfe directed Domingo as Bayard Rustin in the 2023 Netflix biopic Rustin. When his casting was announced, the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice wrote to him directly: "Your powerful voice helps amplify Bayard Rustin, Godfather of Intersectionality, Planned the March, Brought non-violence to the Movement, Inspired the Freedom Riders, Lost to history because of who he loved, Who he was. Angelic Troublemakers unite!"

  The performance brought nominations for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. It made him the first Afro-Latino nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award. He was also the second openly gay man, after Ian McKellen, nominated for playing a gay character, and the first American to be.

  In 2023 he also played Mister in the film adaptation of the musical The Color Purple. He and the ensemble cast received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

  Domingo then played John "Divine G" Whitfield in the prison drama Sing Sing, which premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. A24 picked it up for theatrical release the following year. It brought him the same four Best Actor nominations, giving him consecutive Academy Award nominations.

  4562635958

• 8. Michael And What Comes Next

  ›

  To play Joe Jackson in the 2026 musical biopic Michael, Domingo wore heavy prosthetics, including colored contact lenses. He also shaved his mustache to a pencil-thin line. He said the film's controversy did not shape his approach: "It's about the character, more than anything." He later described the movie as "an examination of how Michael became Michael, before we deal with anything else."

  Critics were divided. Monica Costillo of The A.V. Club described his performance as "scenery-chewing." Robert Daniels of Rogerebert.com called it his "worst, most caricatured performance of his career."

  His voice work ranged widely. In 2023 he played Batman in the Spotify podcast The Riddler: Secrets in the Dark. The next year he took over the role from Winston Duke in the second season of Batman Unburied. In October 2024 he sang the role of Masai on Warriors, a concept album by Eisa Davis and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

  In 2025 he voiced Norman Osborn in the Marvel Studios animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. He has said he would like to play the character in live action. That year he also co-chaired the Met Gala, played radio host Fred Temple in Gus Van Sant's Dead Man's Wire, and starred in Sabrina Carpenter's music video for "Tears" in August.

  On the 10th of May 2025, American University gave him an honorary Doctor of Public Service and he delivered the keynote at its School of Public Affairs commencement. He had previously taught classes and given lectures at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, the O'Neill National Theater Institute in 2015 and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016.

  Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day, with Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell and Colin Firth, will be Domingo's second film with the director. Domingo said, "I finished reading the script and I bawled. I thought it was one of the most beautiful scripts about our humanity." He is also due to appear in the thriller An Innocent Girl, and he is attached to True-ish with Sandra Hüller and Strange Arrivals with Demi Moore.

  In the fall of 2026, he is set to direct and star in Unforgettable, a Nat King Cole biopic he co-wrote. It returns him to the singer he had already written about for the stage in Lights Out.

  7980819686