A Valentine to Colman Domingo

Love was definitely in the air on Valentine’s Day, as Colman Domingo received SBIFF’s Montecito Award from his unabashed admirer Roger Durling and Montecito’s favorite doyenne Oprah Winfrey. 

“Tonight is super special,” said SBIFF Executive Director Durling in his opening remarks. He described first seeing Domingo onstage in the 2008 Broadway musical Passing Strange, where he had “an incandescent charisma which made him incredible to me.” He continued, “he’s a character actor inside the body of a leading man — a very attractive leading man.” He then introduced a montage of Domingo’s work that was, literally, a valentine to the actor, who is up currently for an Academy Award for Best Actor. 

“I was bringing more of myself to this part than any other part I’ve done,” said Domingo of his role in the film Sing Sing, a moving story, based on a true one, about a group of incarcerated men who work together to stage an original theatrical production in prison. (See my review here.)

He continued speaking of the film: “It’s a quiet act of revolution. I have such loving relationships with the men in my life. We are holding each other and touching each other. And I want more of that. … If I’m going to have an impact, if I’m going to do this work that I think is meaningful and can really change lives… I think a film like Sing Sing is really changing lives. It’s actually doing work. So I have to give everything.”

In a wide ranging conversation that covered much of Domingo’s early life and career, he also talked about his early training as a journalist (“I love researching and learning.”), his work with Steven Spielberg on Lincoln, with Ava Duvernay on Selma, and on other films including If Beale Street Could Talk, Zola, Rustin, and The Color Purple, as well as his work on Broadway, and on television in shows like Fear the Walking Dead, The Madness, and Euphoria. 

Talking about persevering through the ups and downs (and current up, up, ups) of his long career, Domingo said, “I just kept going and believed that the love I was seeking would also be seeking me. I just always believed that.”

The other person who always believed in Domingo’s talent and destiny for greatness was his mother Edith Bowles, who Winfrey shared had religiously written letters to the then talk show host about her wonderfully talented son. Winfrey said she agreed with Edith about Domingo’s special gifts: “When I saw what he did in Sing Sing I thought, I have never seen anything like this.”