Colman Domingo, 56, Says He’s in His ‘Harvest Period’

Colman Domingo has two Oscar nominations, an Emmy, an AARP Movies for Grownups award and, in the biopic Michael, a $577 million global hit. This summer, he’s part of Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi spectacle Disclosure Day. At 56, he is having the biggest professional moment of his career.

But for years, Domingo worked without the kind of attention he is receiving now.

“I had a lot of experiences where I was doing good work, and the work was being respected and seen, but I wasn’t getting the shine,” Domingo told The Hollywood Reporter. “So, I started to make the agreement with myself that maybe the shine wasn’t for me. That’s just not part of my story.”

Domingo has a name for his current stage of life and work.

“Maybe it’s because I’m sort of leaning into the third act of my career,” he told THR. “For a long time, as artists, we’re in our ‘planting seeds’ phase. I feel like I’m in an incredible harvest period.”

Domingo had steadily built a career across theater, television and film, with roles in Fear the Walking Dead, If Beale Street Could Talk and Euphoria, the HBO drama in which he earned an Emmy for playing Ali, a recovering addict, in 2022.

Then Domingo received back-to-back Oscar nominations in 2023 and 2024 for playing civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin in Rustin and the real-life John “Divine G” Whitfield, incarcerated for a crime he says he didn’t commit, in Sing Sing.

Domingo is also a three-time AARP Movies for Grownups Award nominee, having earned nominations for Sing Sing and The Color Purple and winning best actor for Rustin.

But before Domingo’s late-career ascent, Chadwick Boseman had already singled him out.

Domingo recalled arriving at the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Night Before party around the same time as Boseman, who was coming off the global success of Black Panther, the 2018 Marvel film that made him one of the most visible actors in the world. Boseman pointed Domingo out to the people around him, according to Domingo.

“ ‘Y’all need to know this guy right here,’ ” Boseman said, as Domingo recalled to THR. “He said, ‘No, I’m telling you, know Colman Domingo’s name. I know this man. Keep your eye on him.’ ”  

(From left, foreground) Chadwick Boseman, Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman and Michael Potts in a scene from “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Boseman’s final film paired him with Domingo.

Alamy Stock Photo

The two shared the screen in what would be Boseman’s final performance, in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Boseman played Levee, a gifted, volatile trumpet player whose ambition is sharpened by trauma. Domingo played Cutler, the trombonist who tries to hold the band together. Boseman died Aug. 28, 2020, at 43 from colon cancer after keeping his diagnosis private. His performance earned him a posthumous Academy Award nomination. For Domingo, Boseman’s absence is tied to the level of fame he is now navigating.

“Of my contemporaries who really come from my experience, whether it’s growing up in the inner city or just being an African American man, there’s not a lot of men who hold that space in this rare air,” Domingo told THR. “Not many who you can ask, ‘When I go through this part, what should I look out for? How should I advocate for myself? Or, for others?’ Chadwick had been one of them.”