West Philly’s Colman Domingo Is Ready for His Close-Up

West Philly–born and Temple-educated Colman Domingo, photographed in 2024 / Photograph by Emman Montalvan/Trunk Archive

Forty years ago, he was a nerdy, bespectacled, unpopular kid in gym class with Will Smith. He was shy. He had a hard time talking to people. Today, Colman Domingo, 56, is an Oscar-worthy Hollywood heartthrob and a very, very busy hometown hero. Here, he tells us how he prepared to host Saturday Night Live and perform as Joe Jackson in the big Michael Jackson biopic and passes along a message to his former neighbor Quinta Brunson.

Hi, Colman. I know you’re about to get on a plane. Heading anywhere exciting?
I’m off to London to shoot the cover of Men’s Health UK. I’m staying at the fabulous Corinthia hotel, and they’re going to photograph me doing some weightlifting, some running. Things like that. I’m very active. It’s part of my job. You have to stay fit: mind, body, and spirit. You need all three to do the kind of work I do.

The last time I spoke to you was in 2021, ahead of the release of the movie Zola, in which you played a dastardly pimp. A lot has happened since then.
Indeed it has!

I’m going to miss stuff, but let me see how well I do: two Oscar nominations for Best Actor, for Rustin in 2024 and Sing Sing in 2025¹. You voiced the Cowardly Lion in last year’s Wicked follow-up. You courted some controversy by playing a drag queen in lingerie in Sabrina Carpenter’s “Tears” video. You landed on the covers of Esquire and GQ. How am I doing?
So far, so good.

Well, April was a big month. Euphoria — the HBO hit — returned after a long hiatus, with you resuming your role as sobriety coach to Zendaya’s character. You hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time. And you’re now appearing on movie screens all over the world in the Michael Jackson biopic Michael, in which you play Joe Jackson, the family father.
All true! [Laughs]

West Philadelphia, in particular, is rich with talent — a lot of people there really know how to ‘bring Philly.’”

That’s all well and good. But this is Philly Mag. What readers really want to know is just how much of a Philadelphian are you?
[Laughs] Well, I grew up in West Philly at 52nd and Chancellor — three blocks from Quinta Brunson — and went to Overbrook High. Questlove lived some blocks down the street. West Philadelphia, in particular, is rich with talent — a lot of people there really know how to “bring Philly.” My most famous classmate is Will Smith. He was a grade above me, but we had gym class together. He was popular. Me? Not so much. I was the nerdy kid on the school newspaper. There are some impressive graduates from Overbrook, including Guion Bluford,² the first Black astronaut.

You mentioned Quinta. How is it that you haven’t been on Abbott Elementary yet?!
I certainly hope to make that happen! Quinta did mention me in a recent episode, though, talking about me by name and about the way I dress, which was pretty awesome. So I have been “on” the show, but I look forward to being physically on it.

After Overbrook, you wound up at Temple for journalism. I’m always curious why the hell other people pick this field.
[Laughs] I wanted to tell other people’s stories. I was always a fan of photography from war-torn places, of capturing life and how other people were living. So photojournalism interested me.

How did that wind its way into acting?
My family saw me as a really shy kid, but my mother knew I had a bit of a personality. It was just hard to make it come out. So she encouraged me to take an acting class as an elective, to help me out of my shell. I knew immediately that the theater is where my heart lies — I could still tell people’s stories, but in a different way. My teacher, Chris Wolfe, pulled me aside one day and asked if I ever thought of pursuing acting professionally. I had never thought about that. Didn’t even know what that was or what it would look like.

So did you leave Temple with a journalism degree?
I didn’t graduate. I left early to pursue a theater career. I moved to San Francisco for 10 years and eventually New York, where I did Broadway and off-Broadway shows.³ Then, after I got some great TV jobs, I moved to L.A.

When was the last time you were on the stage?
Thirteen years ago.

Think you’ll get back to it?
Yes, I do. I’ve been having conversations. But I’m trying to find the right thing. I’m very critical of stage work because I know the impact it can have. So I want it to be the right fit. I also live in Malibu now. So if it were something on Broadway, something that would take me away from my people, my family, I’d have to be incredibly passionate about it.

Theater and scripted prerecorded TV are their own things. Something like Saturday Night Live is different, though. How did you prepare?
I started by researching past episodes of SNL, especially the opening monologues, because they can kind of really make or break an episode. The ones I appreciate the most are from tried-and-true comedians like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. And I actually did sketch comedy in the past: The Big Gay Sketch Show with Kate McKinnon, back in 2006 or so. My whole career, I’ve done a bit of everything, including being in the circus — yes, the circus, where I juggled on five-foot-tall stilts and did aerial work.⁴ I also did drama, musicals, producing, writing. I’m pretty limber, and I have that in my back pocket when approaching something like SNL.

A couple of years back, I saw Fat Ham by South Philly’s own James Ijames at the Wilma. Until I read the program, I had no idea you were one of its producers. How did that come to be?
I knew James as an actor. He was in one of my plays at Baltimore Center Stage. Occasionally, he would send me scripts to read, which is when I realized he was a multi-hyphenate like me. I saw Fat Ham when it debuted at the Public Theater in New York in 2022, and I couldn’t get out of my seat fast enough to say, “We need to push this show onto Broadway.” We did just that in 2023.

James Ijames (center) at a pre-Tonys party hosted by Colman Domingo (left)

I know you have a brother and sister still in the Philly area, and you came back to Temple last month to deliver the commencement address. Is there any one spot you must visit when you return?
I always stay at the AKA, right on Rittenhouse Square. There’s just something about Rittenhouse Square — it’s such a great center of life in Philadelphia. When I was a kid, I would go there with my mother. I have a lot of memories — I always go back. And I simply must go to South Street for a cheesesteak at Ish­kabibble’s.

So, Michael. How did you “become” Joe Jackson?
The cool thing about playing a public figure is that there’s plenty of research material available, whether it’s past interviews with him or with family members about him, and photos. And Jaafar Jackson, who plays Michael and is the grandson of Joe,⁵ was able to tell me personal, human things about him.

But Joe was, by many accounts, a harsh father, and, by other accounts, downright abusive. Of course, without him, the Jackson 5 and, by extension, Thriller would never have existed.
All I know is I had to go through the lens of Joe’s eyes and find the father, find the blue-collar man who’s from a certain generation, pre–Civil Rights, and what he was up against as a Black man and what he was determined to give to his family — and how to keep them protected and strong and together and not have them succumb to the inner city. I had to flip into Joe and figure out how he moves and flexes through the world, how he survived and made his children thrive.

There have been complaints that Michael whitewashes the sexual abuse allegations against the title character.
The movie is a celebration of Michael. I think people will understand this when they see it.

And now for a really controversial question: best Michael Jackson song?
“The Girl Is Mine”!

Hmm. Good tune, but I just have to go with “Billie Jean,” as obvious as that is.
That’s a good one too!

Finally, I’m a huge sci-fi nerd, so I was enthused to see that you’re co-starring as a conspiracy theorist in Steven Spielberg’s alien movie, Disclosure Day. There’s a lot of hush-hush surrounding the movie. But what can you tell me about it?
This is a movie about hope and the question of whether we are alone in the universe. And if we invite that question in, what would it do to us? Would it dismantle our civilization, or would it rebuild it in some way? I think it’s really about who we are in this big thing called the universe — and what’s possible for us.

Footnotes:

1. Major critics called his portrayal of the incarcerated leader of a prison theater group in the film Sing Sing “magical,” “electric,” “Oscar-worthy,” and “a triumph.” ↩
2. Bluford, now 83, lives in Ohio and flew four Space Shuttle missions. ↩
3. Domingo’s big Broadway role was in 2008’s rock musical Passing Strange, in which he played three characters. It’s widely considered an important influence on and precursor to Hamilton. ↩
4. He forgot to mention that he did all of this while costumed as a giant salamander. ↩
5. Jaafar is the son of Jermaine, who is said to be a big fan of Michael. Janet? Not so much. ↩

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Published as “Colman Domingo Is Ready For His Close-Up” in the June 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.