From his Emmy-winning role as Ali on Euphoria to his Oscar-nominated portrayals of a wrongfully convicted man in Sing Sing and the civil rights leader Bayard Rustin in Rustin, Colman Domingo has become Hollywood’s go-to for characters with depth and gravitas. But in The Four Seasons, Netflix’s ensemble comedy cocreated by Tina Fey, Domingo trades intensity for laughs and, as he says, “a lot of sweaters.”
The show is a reimagining of Alan Alda’s 1981 film, and Fey personally tapped Domingo to costar as Danny, her character’s best friend. “I don’t know what she saw in me,” he jokes, “because I’ve been doing all this heavy soul work.” But comedy is nothing new for Domingo, who cut his teeth in the theater, often portraying the clown in Shakespeare plays. Because of that stage experience, he knew that he had good timing. “If I could make a really old, old joke work, I can figure out how to navigate a half-hour series,” he says. In The Four Seasons, he gets to show a softer side, playing half of a stylish, happily married gay couple opposite Marco Calvani.
But The Four Seasons is just one facet of Domingo’s recent work. He also stars in The Madness, a taut Netflix thriller in which he plays a media pundit wrongly framed for the murder of a white supremacist. “It challenged me physically,” he says. “I’m pretty much in every single frame.”
And then, of course, there’s Euphoria, to which Domingo returns for the long-awaited season 3, reprising his role as the brutally honest Narcotics Anonymous sponsor of Zendaya’s Rue. “You can’t get me off your television!” he jokes. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
In The Four Seasons, you are married to Claude, played by Marco Calvani.
Isn’t he gorgeous? He’s beautiful, he’s Italian, and he’s actually a friend of mine. We met a year prior to the show, at a dinner party, and we became fast friends. His husband, my husband—we all get together. I had very strong opinions about who I wanted to play my husband on the show. And my actual husband, Raúl, said, “What about Marco Calvani?” I thought, Well, I love him as a friend, and we can make some magic on camera. He auditioned and got the part.
This is the first time you’ve played a gay man in a modern setting.
Yeah, I don’t have a wig and a messed-up tooth, and I’m not organizing a march on Washington like I was in Rustin. I’m just playing a regular old gay. Actually, I envisioned Danny as the kind of gay man I wanted to see and represent. He’s an architect with class and style, and he’s really witty. It’s like myself in another universe, because I also have a husband who is an immigrant as well. And my husband chose my husband, which is kind of cool.
And then there’s The Madness.
It’s like my James Bond. He’s an ordinary man caught up in extraordinary circumstances, running from a lot of dark events.
And he’s from Philadelphia, like you.
It was beautiful because there’s a scene where we run right by my childhood home, and we end the series in my childhood park, which is kind of awesome. It’s meta in a way, because my character is actually from West Philly, and even the car that he drives is similar to my own. I understood this man who lives in many places—being from the inner city, but also being well-educated. He’s maneuvering through societies with dexterity, because he code-switches and he knows how to navigate all of it. That’s something I understand.
Domingo wears a Valentino jacket, shirt, and pants; John Lobb shoes; Domingo’s own watch and jewelry.
Soon you’ll be back on Euphoria. What can you share about the third season?
It’s some years later, and you find our characters in other circumstances. We get the treat of actually peeling back a little bit more of the Ali that we’ve come to know. We have to understand how he got there.
What would you say is the biggest difference between doing film and TV?
With television, you get to live with a character a little longer. When you’re doing a film, the time you have with them is more compact. I’m working on a film with Mr. Steven Spielberg right now, and he gave me the scripts early and I was able to really get into it, because I know that I don’t have a lot of time with them. I just dropped the fact that I’m doing a movie with Steven Spielberg. [Laughs] That’s really just terrible of me.
Have you ever crashed a wedding or a party?
When I was in college, at Temple University, on a Friday or Saturday night we’d roam around downtown Philly, and when we’d see a friendly crowd of people going somewhere, we’d go and crash, because we had no money and we wanted to have a drink and a good time. I also knew the timing of places that had happy hour with free wings, crudités, and things like that. I know how to get a meal for free.
What was your first big fashion purchase?
It was when I got my first Broadway show, Passing Strange, and I thought I needed to look like a Broadway leading man. I went out and I bought two Tom Ford bowties. One was gray with little black polka dots, and one was black. I still have them. They are propped up in my closet, because they’re symbolic. At the W party, I met Tom Ford in the elevator and I lost my mind. It was just me and him, and I said, “You have no idea what you mean to me.” He was like, “Oh, thank you very much.” And I said, “No, really. You helped me aspire in so many ways.”
Is there any dialogue from your films or TV shows that you’ve stolen?
The first thing that comes to mind is Ali, because he has words of wisdom. He says that you’ve got to believe in the poetry, because everything else in the world will fail you. People have stopped me on the street and said, “What does he mean by that?” I say, “Poetry is that heightened thing about this life. You’ve got to believe in the things you can’t even put your mind to sometimes.” It’s your heart, it’s your soul, it’s dance, it’s feeling—that’s the poetry. You’ve got to believe in that, because that will carry you through more than anything.
What’s it been like becoming a top sex symbol in your 50s?
It’s wild, because I was called “pretty” three times in one week, and I thought, I’ve never been called that my entire life, and I’m 55. I don’t know if something has changed on the outside. I think it’s something that changed on the inside. Maybe I do feel pretty.
Hair by Chaz Hazlitt at Art Department; grooming by Jamie Richmond for Charlotte Tilbury at Exclusive Artists.
Produced by AP Studio, Inc.; executive producer: Alexis Piqueras; producer: Anneliese Kristedja; production manager: Hayley Stephon; production coordinator: Kaitlyn Fitzpatrick; lighting technician: Eduardo SilvA; lab: picturehouse+thesmalldarkroom; retouching: picturehouse+thesmalldarkroom; fashion assistants: Tyler VanVranken, Amir La Sure, Celeste Roh, Lila Hathaway, Natalie Mell; production assistants: Linette Estrella, Ariana Kristedja, Sammi Kulger, Ryan Carter, Cameron Bevans, Chase Walker, Rory Walsh; hair assistants: Courtney Peak, Austin Weber, Simone Domizi; makeup assistants: Mika Iwata, Anna Kurihara, Nana Hiramatsu; manicure assistant: Rieko Smith; set assistants: Kevin Kessler, Cedar Kirwin, Paul Levine; tailor: Lindsay Amir Wright; tailor’s assistant: Natalie Wright.
