Civil-rights activist Bayard Rustin was a man ahead of his time. Colman Domingo tells Screen why the role of the gay political organiser — who was challenged by the homophobia of his era — was one he was born to play.
With acclaimed performances in two awards contenders, Colman Domingo is having, as he puts it, “an exceptional moment” in a 30-year acting, writing and directing career.
In the ensemble of The Color Purple, nominated for the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) cast award, Domingo delivers a freshly nuanced take on Mister, the abusive husband of central character Celie.
It is for his screen-dominating title performance in biographical drama Rustin, though, that Domingo has earned the loudest plaudits, as well as Oscar, Bafta and SAG lead actor nominations. It is, says the actor, “the role I was born for”.
Bayard Rustin was the 1960s civil-rights activist who became the architect of the 1963 March on Washington, where more than 250,000 people heard Rustin’s friend and nonviolence ally Martin Luther King deliver his “I have a dream” speech. Directed by George C Wolfe and produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground as the company’s first narrative feature production, the Netflix-backed film — which launched last year at Telluride — recounts how Rustin’s vision and brilliant organisational skills were essential in making the march a reality. The film also shows how the charismatic, openly gay activist was largely denied his place in history.
Philadelphia-born Domingo, who had been aware of Rustin since his youth and had even played the activist briefly in a stage play, was initially shown the Rustin film script (from writers Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black) by originally attached director Lee Daniels. When Daniels moved on to another project, Domingo suggested Wolfe, for whom he had recently appeared in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. And when Wolfe signed on and offered Domingo the title role, “I couldn’t say ‘yes’ fast enough.”
The actor’s preparation involved extensive research on Rustin’s life and, through a combination of research and dramatic licence, the development of the distinct physical presence of a man who, says his portrayer, “had a very large sense of being in the world. From interviews and footage, I got a sense of his body and the way he used it, and of the mid-Atlantic accent that he crafted.”
Research was not necessary, however, for Domingo to tap into another key aspect of Rustin’s life. As a queer Black man in America himself, the actor easily identified with what his character in one scene describes as “exalted rage” in the face of racism and homophobia.
Even in a world 60 years removed from Rustin’s, says Domingo, “I understand it completely. Your being is challenged every single day, and that has not changed.” In any given space, “I know that I have power to move through it with grace, but I also have that spirit to burn it all down at the same time. I understand what ‘exalted rage’ is.”
For similar reasons, it was important that Rustin was played by a gay actor, Domingo affirms. “There are certain things that I know I can access in my spirit and from my experience that are not things I had to act,” he says. “It’s important because [Rustin] was openly gay at a time when it was out of anyone’s mind to be open. I’m sure it meant a lot to everyone who loved Bayard and to the [LGBTQ+] community, because everyone was just overjoyed and supportive.”
What Domingo does not believe, however, is that gay roles should always be played by gay actors. “I think that limits the imagination,” he says. “As long as the opportunities are available for queer actors to audition, it should be the best actor to play the role. It’s important for all disenfranchised groups to have an opportunity to represent themselves.”
Versatile talent
Domingo’s own opportunities began several decades ago when he made a mark on the San Francisco theatre scene in the mid-1990s. Since then he has written and directed plays produced on and off Broadway as well as in Australia and London (where this month the city’s Critics’ Circle will present him with the Derek Malcolm award for innovation).
For the screen, meanwhile, Domingo has delivered in supporting roles in an impressive list of films including Lincoln, The Butler, Selma, If Beale Street Could Talk, Candyman, Zola (which brought him a Film Independent Spirit Award nomination) and Ma Rainey’s (which produced Independent Spirit and SAG cast nominations). In television, he recently finished an eight-season stint in Fear The Walking Dead and won a guest actor Primetime Emmy for Euphoria.
Rustin, surprisingly, has given him his first lead role in a feature, but it is not a fact he has wasted any time pondering. “I’ve been too busy working to consider it,” he explains. “I don’t operate in this business waiting for it to give me something. Ever since I was 21 years old, I’ve built theatre companies and production companies and given myself permission to create.”
This year will see the versatile and industrious hyphenate appearing in at least two more lead roles and perhaps adding another kind of credit to his extensive filmography.
Domingo is completing the shoot for his starring turn in The Madness, a Netflix action thriller miniseries that is also, he says, “about who we hope to be, uncovering our culture and society”. For the big screen, Domingo will appear as part of the ensemble of Ethan Coen’s action comedy Drive-Away Dolls and as the headliner of Sing Sing, a drama about a prison theatre group with a cast including formerly incarcerated actors. He has also been cast as family patriarch Joe Jackson in Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson biopic Michael.
Sing Sing — bought for the US by A24 after its buzzy premiere at Toronto last year — is “a film that’s very near and dear to my heart”, says Domingo, not just for its content but also for its production model, under which all cast and crew members got a share of the equity pool based on the duration of their involvement. It is a model Domingo believes “can be replicated over and over again. We wouldn’t have these stalemates between studios and unions if we start to think of new ways to make sure everyone feels valued.”
Domingo is also developing projects through his Edith Productions banner — including a film musical about Nat King Cole, in which he will star and make his feature directing debut from a screenplay he co-wrote. For Edith, he serves as executive producer on Greg Jordan’s It’s What’s Inside; Netflix swooped following the indie horror film’s Sundance premiere in a splashy $17m acquisition.
In the immediate present of his “exceptional moment”, however, Domingo says he is “trying to be still about it. I’m just listening and trying to feel what’s next for me and what makes sense. What the next move is, because I want to continue to advance.”
1 Readers' comment