Colman Domingo

In 2012, the movie Lincoln did not, in my opinion, get nearly as many awards as it deserved. One of the ones it lost that bewilders me most is the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. For one thing, only eight actors are listed in the nomination, as opposed to thirteen for the winning Argo. For another thing, the cast of Lincoln is simply astounding. There are even several people who would become much bigger names going forward. People in minor roles who only appeared for a minute or two are played by incredibly talented actors. And one of the first of those, the person who delivers the first lines in the entire movie, is Colman Domingo.

Now, Domingo wasn’t exactly new to Hollywood when he appeared in Lincoln. He had been kicking around the industry since the ‘90s, mostly not making it. He did a lot of stage work, winning a few awards and being nominated for a lot of others. He appeared in the musical Passing Strange, then in the Spike Lee movie version. However, his screen appearances were fewer and further between. He apparently even lost a role on Boardwalk Empire because his skin was too dark, which is a hell of a thing to happen.

Fear of the Walking Dead was really Domingo’s breakout. From there, he got more and more roles. He’s done 109 episodes of the show, and it was interspersed with a lot more noteworthy content. He was working with directors such as Stephen Spielberg and Spike Lee, and the quality of content was much better than a few episodes of Nash Bridges. He began to be visible to audiences beyond viewers of AMC zombie fare.

There’s something about being a prominent black actor that means appearing in a lot of biopics. Domingo has been Ralph Abernathy, Freddy Fallows, and Hank Turner. But the most notable performance, of course, is his Oscar-nominated turn as Bayard Rustin. Rustin was one of the most important figures of the Civil Rights Movement. He is generally left out of discussions about it, though, because he was gay. Domingo would be nominated for an Oscar for his performance, losing of course to Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer.

It doesn’t look likely that Domingo is going to win this time around, either. But there are not a lot of black actors to be nominated for Best Actor two years in a row. There are not a lot of openly gay actors to be nominated for Best Actor two years in a row. Domingo is the only openly gay black actor to be nominated at all, from what I can tell. He has also played both Bruce Wayne and Norman Osborne in voicework. Not bad for a man who was considering leaving acting altogether a decade ago. The next decade of his career should go even better.