Colman Domingo on His RuPaul Impression, First Job at the Circus & Working on the Movie Sing Sing

our first guest is an Oscar nominated Emy awardwinning actor playwright and director his latest movie sing sing is in theaters now please welcome Coleman Domingo [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you know I knew I this I knew you're going to be here so this morning I spent about an hour thinking what is he going to wear you're kidding me what is he going to wear what do what am I going to wear because of what he's going to wear you are so fabulous these clothes where did you get your sense of style well first of all I got to thank my stylist Wayan and Micah they they dress me and they've been really championing me for this whole season that I've been on with all these clothes now I get my style I think from people in Philadelphia I come from West Philly I'm always you mean Philadelphia thrill Adelphia yes and you know we know we know how to dress you know I grew up with men who wear pinking rings and literally I'm wearing a pinking yeah yes yes you are just like you know men who like kept their nails clean and long and like love to wear like high-waisted suits and I feel like I dress like Teddy Pendergrass you knowley brothers and the stylistic the sound of Philadelphia I dress like the sound of Philadelphia that's exactly now here's a picture of you um Vogue magazine asked you to come and be fabulous in a fashion show wow now now who who are you wearing here I'm wearing balma balma Bal Bal gorgeous isn't it beautiful yeah now you know it seems like in the past three or four years you are everywhere when when did that shift because you've been around for a long time when did that shift happen I've been around for a long time and and I think this shift started to happen around doing shows like Euphoria yeah and then like you know yes thank you yes but I say list listen I'm a Jour I'm a journeyman actor and I've been working in the theater for a long time and then I kept popping up in things like selmore if Bill stre can talk and you know smaller roles but I guess very you know significant in a way so I feel like my career is just really I feel like I'm just starting another career yes in another way because I feel like now I'm more of a leading man and doing other roles where people were like I'm sort of the center of these Productions but it's been a long time coming you know I started out my first job was in the circus what yeah I was doing what I I was an aerial web artist you know that long rope that you would climb up and around to do that I was um I would did juggling I did tumbling I was in this really kind of hippie dippy circus in San Francisco called make a circus it was a children's political circus in San Francisco so what I'm hearing is that you're willing to do whatever the client ask you to do absolutely yeah whatever needs to get done well you know uh that G back me up on this that is what Hollywood is all about am I right that's right yes you do what needs to be done exactly you got to do yeah you have to do it no matter what yeah he said no matter what no matter what okay and com so what have you not done that you are itching to do in this business what have I not done I think I'm ready to do more like romantic comedies I think something right you know you know have some fun be on the Run be in love do something like that because usually I'm in a lot of like heavy lifting you know dramas you know and I'm about to go do a comedy actually with uh Tina Fay and Steve Carell called the oh yes the Four Seasons which is a remake of a a film from about 40 50 years ago love that film I mean I remember that filmm like like when it came out maybe I was like I don't know I was a kid watching it but maybe I shouldn't have been watching it but it was car brunette and Alan Aldi yes and um what's his name uh um he's got big nipples um Alan Alo no not Alan Al I'll think of it Lou Lou K Karo Lou how do you know he has big nipples because I've seen that movie and I I I like big nipples and it just stayed with you yeah stay with with me does everybody love big nipples maybe I don't know I don't know I wonder if there'll be some big nipples in the Four Seasons REM are you going to be showing nipples maybe some big ni mine aren't actually that big mine are like little like chocolate chips yeah okay well you know you can put lipstick on them and make them bigger like like porn style yeah or maybe they have uh nipple Prosthetics that that you could put on I guess so but then that's sort of like black exploitation I guess it would be yeah but I would I would enjoy it I would enjoy it yeah now have you ever done drag I have done drag I've did I you know I was on the show I was on this show called the big gay sketch show where I did I played Beyonce I played uh Oprah I play obviously obviously I played Fantasia and I played RuPaul what exct exactly what yeah how do you prepare to play rup pool well you know that's a very difficult role to play uh so you know I just had to you know honestly I just played it you know like you know the time has come to lip syn for your life this is the r i no it was in the very beginnings of that show yeah and I love the fact that we we just like did everything a little over the top the lighting was just like way extreme and beautiful and it was like a blast you could barely see my face because you know we didn't know what kind of lighting you were using or what kind of you know lenses that you were oh no I tell you what lens we were using a Navajo blanket in the beginning of our show because you can barely see me because it's so much vaseline on the list but you know beautiful though yeah beautiful and okay so you're doing you want to do a romantic com you're going to do a romantic comedy you're doing you I you're in so many movies right now uh it Broadway you know I first heard of you through a mutual friend of Ari Gold which is um which he's not no longer with us but just a lovely lovely Soul this guy arri gold was like the light of New York City yeah and we all sort of like went around that light and we all sort of knew of each other through Ari and then our friend arri he unfortunately passed away a few years ago but he always wanted us to get to know each other and he was always trying to connect people oh you should get to know Ru you'll love Ru and then I feel like though it feels like that divine nature of of the universe Ru and I have become friends after AR's passing that's right and you know I I think of him all the time I think of his his energy is still there you know I think he's with us right now he is with us right now that's right that's right now I want to talk about sing sing sing sing is is your new movie uh we're going to show a clip later I saw a little bit of it your your your inner dialogue as an actor is so rich when did you realize you could do that kind of work I think you know I think early on in my career the way I've even started my career was very much like feeling it out and I didn't have a lot of training when I started but I had a lot of feeling and I could be very raw and then I had training came later I I knew how to dial that in and calibrate a performance and so I started to understand that I was I was very I was a shy kid and I watched people all the time and I didn't know that that's exactly what needed to do the work I know how to I watch human beings all day long and I still do the same thing and I download aspects of them and their soul to be able to portray it and to portray it in a way that to respect them and love them but let them be like villainous and loving and ugly and human all at the same time and you're not deterred by the restraining orders never no no no not deterred by thein no not at all it's funny because I feel like I feel like my job is to give Humanity to every single character which is why I can play a pimp and I can play like you know Miss the color purple or I could do like bu Rustin CU I feel like but it's the same Essence I want to make sure that they're humanized in some way shape or form and I'm looking at them through my lens the lens uh on their interior life and not the lens that everyone else is looking at them do you do you watch yourself on on camera can you watch yourself I can but I watch myself more technically more for like the set and where the cameras are going and the lighting so I can fit into the picture but I don't watch it for performance I feel like I've divorced myself from that I'm like no I just have to trust being in the moment and trust that my editor and the director is going to find the right way to calibrate the film do you feel sometimes I just gave too much I just gave way too much of myself I think we all feel that way once in a while in certain situations well you know I did too much yeah well you know because I'm just I'm just amazed by your talent when we come back we're going to have a little clip from uh sing sing I want everybody to see this because it's a fabulous movie all right we'll be right back after this it's uh it's been a program that was established to help uh the population with management skills and it's turned into something a bit more uh I don't know um wonderful because it helps uh people get more in touch with their feelings and able to process and actually move through and uh truly get some Rehabilitation so are you acting at all during this interview absolutely not oh my goodness welcome back I'm here with colan Domingo that's what I'm talking about right there that's what I'm talking about right there I I can feel you I can feel that does it embarrass you to to show that no but I but I feel like you got to I've always learned you got to give a little bit of your soul in your work and I think that that film in particular I wanted to give even more than my soul because it was about humanizing these men who are incarc at and they're doing the work through this Rehabilitation through the arts program to heal themselves not only heal themselves and heal some of the wounds or some of the things that have got them into the circumstances but also to really do the Deep dive of the work to find the path that got them there and what they can do to like heal their soul yeah truly and so it's a very healing movie it's also funny and you're you're watching these men discover tenderness for each other and for themselves and I think that that's kind of revolution especially as black and brown men yeah the movie is called singing is it filmed uh is it about singing prison yeah it's it's about a program at at singing prison called Rehabilitation through the Arts and it's a program that has worked so successfully you know these men go into this program to like put on plays and and with putting on plays if anybody's been in the high school you know theater you know that it gives you different tools about building community and being in touch with their feelings so much so that this this program has had a less than 3% recidivism amongst the inmates who've gone through this program compar me understand what recidivism sure I don't know what that is sure recidivism is you don't go back into prison okay once you're out you're out instead of 60% Nationwide that's the usual average of of people who get out um uh who come out of prison okay so it's less than 3% all right and where did you film this thing we filmed this in Upstate New York at a decommission prison called downstate where many of our castmates most of my castmates at least 90% of them actually went through this program you're kidding me yeah so uh so it's only three professional actors besides myself and um the rest of my casts are all formally incarcerated men wow now uh uh have you ever been arrested I've never been arrested have you I have never been I've come very close I've come very close I'm not going to tell the story cuz I'm going to tell my so but you know I used to party a lot what you're thinking but more but more yeah but I come very very close I think of angels who who who saved me from but but you've you've never been arrested or anything like that even arrested no never even been would you like to be you you never know with the the horror stories that I hear about like in absolutely not no no no I'm always trying to be on the right side now so and did you talk to some of the the uh formerly uh actors about their experiences absolutely but you know even in our process I wanted to take them from where they were like where they were because a lot of these men had been incarcerated for over 15 years and they were now on the outside doing doing the thing that one of my castmates Clarence Macklin who you will see in the movie who's extraordinary he says you know it's so us so we can go back out into the world and heal these communities that we may have caused harm to in many ways wow you know so it's like so it really is like how do we rehabilitate it's not only rehabilitating w yourself but you're rehabilitating a community as well you know years ago there's a movie uh directed by the governor of of California's wife Jennifer Nome about it's called The Mask we live in and it's about how young boys in our culture are told to shut their emotions off at around 12 13 years old how are you able to Sid step because your emotions are right there how are you able to sidestep uh that that restriction me personally okay first of all now you're going to give me all emotional I think I grew up I was told that I was loved every single day it's true I was told that I was special I was told that I had a voice these are things that I know a lot of these men were not told and I and I grew up in Inner City West Philadelphia but I was like and I was I was shy and I was you know you know soft and but that didn't that didn't frighten my family they were like they just wanted to protect me more the Beautiful thing is they wanted to protect that softness I think they knew that we needed that softness in the world and even when I think about it now really that's really beautiful that's a beautiful thing because it's it's actually revolutionary you know especially for us as black and brown men to be to have feeling and to know that it's part of our helping us with our mental health these days to say that we we must acknowledge all of these feelings and for you to see us completely human and for us to like deconstruct and smash those tropes of toxic masculinity that has never worked for us never worked for any of us it doesn't help anyone anyone in society so the more that we can the thing that I feel very um strongly about is that we show True moments of tenderness between these very masculine men of of because that's what they did whether they told me explicitly that that was part of their process they were holding each other accountable to be and um to bring their feelings to the Forefront to name their feelings to say how do you feel how does that make you feel and a very dangerous place to show feelings and tenderness that they were holding that to be true so this program is a program that truly works and it's beautiful and it's necessary and I think if there's a line in our film that Paul Ry says he says something like who who could imagine that the healing of the world could begin right here Behind These Bars in Sing Sing wow and for me that's that's kind of um extraordinary because saying if we can do the work in a place like this to become more human imagine what we can do out in the world beautiful that's really beautiful I love that that's that's really what it's all about right there that's really what it's all about Hey listen we're g to all go see sing sing and we're gonna love it and we're gonna because the revolution starts right here yes it does right here thanks Coleman Sing Sing is in Select theaters now and Nationwide on Friday not L after this the