Life is sweet for ‘Candyman’ star Colman Domingo
Colman Domingo, who stars in the new “Candyman” sequel and the zombie series “Fear the Walking Dead,” is not a horror fan. It’s been decades, in fact, since he’s seen a scary movie.
“Man, no. I don’t watch horror. I was scared,” he says with a laugh. “The last horror movie I think I saw was ‘Carrie’ when I was like 9 years old.”
The chance to work with horror auteur Jordan Peele, however, changed Domingo’s mind. Peele, who co-wrote the script with director Nia DaCosta and Win Rosenfeld, created the role of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green resident William Burke specifically for Domingo.
“I didn’t even know what the role was initially. I really, honestly was willing to do this, no matter what. Even if I had two lines or held a C-stand or something,” Domingo, 51, says. “He sort of deconstructed the horror genre for me so I knew that it wasn’t just horror. It’s about what kind of trauma you’re working through: psychological, environmental, social. I thought it was just some dude in a mask trying to chase some white woman and popping out of a closet. Now, I’m a fan of the genre.”
The new “Candyman,” released Friday in theaters, is a direct sequel to the 1992 original that starred Tony Todd as the titular character and Virginia Madsen as a graduate student writing a thesis on urban legends.
It was a success upon its release and is considered a modern horror classic. (A pair of sequels is best left ignored.)
Todd returns for the new film, set in present-day Chicago. The Cabrini-Green public housing towers that Candyman terrorized have been converted into luxury condos for millennials, including visual artist Anthony (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and gallery director Brianna (Teyonah Parris). Plagued with creative fatigue, Anthony learns of the Candyman legend from Domingo’s seemingly kindhearted laundromat owner. Anthony soon becomes obsessed, filling his work with violent and racial imagery that inevitably conjures something more sinister.
There is blood and violence here, to be sure. But this “Candyman” draws some of its biggest scares through broader themes of gentrification, racial violence and police brutality. It offers smart commentary on art and commerce and ultimately warns viewers that we are doomed to repeat past horrors without difficult moments of examination.
“That’s unpacking a lot of things that have to do with our racial reckoning of last year,” Domingo says. He’s referencing 2020’s worldwide protests calling for police accountability and racial justice, among other things, including unprovoked attacks against Asians and the removal of racist monuments.
“I thought it was profound how it was building on the legacy of ‘Candyman,’ of this urban myth, and how it was really doing such a deeper examination of art and criticism and Black Lives Matter.”
As a genre, horror movies have proved a beacon for an industry still struggling to course-correct in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the past year’s biggest moneymakers are full of scares, including “Godzilla vs. Kong,” “A Quiet Place Part II” and “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.” Even “The Final Purge” and “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” managed to find respectable audiences on modest budgets.
Domingo thinks it’s no coincidence.
“We are all living in a horror movie that is America. On the daily, some people are experiencing horror a bit more, whether it’s because we’re Black, of a different religion or gender or sexuality, you name it,” he says. “We’re looking for an access point. We’re looking for somewhere to unpack this stuff, laugh about this stuff, skewer this stuff. So I think it’s the safest playground for it, to send up tropes, to send up ideas and ideals.”
Domingo himself has been having a great year, in horror and beyond, because he consistently surprises audiences. He’s earned big praise for roles in the Netflix musical drama “Ma Rainey’s
Black Bottom,” the dark comedy “Zola” and the HBO series “Euphoria.” He returns for Season 7 of “Fear the Walking Dead” in October. His “Bottomless Brunch At Colman’s” web series, created during the pandemic, finds him getting boozy with Regina King, Patti LaBelle, Julia Stiles and others.
Those are sharp turns away from the “fatherly characters and historical figures” he’s previously taken on in such films as “Selma” and “If Beale Street Could Talk.” According to him, it’s all part of the plan.
“Everything is in design order. Everything happens for a reason. I feel like I’m part of a larger conversation, which feels even more impactful as an artist, to be very honest,” Domingo says. “I think that’s part of my intentionality and my purpose with the way that I create art or any platform. Or even the way I dress. I know it’s about the way I represent myself. I know it’s about telling a story. I know it’s combating tropes about Blackness, about being a Black man, about being a gay man. I have a huge microphone right now, and even when I had a smaller microphone, I had intentions behind my work and eventually how it will be a part of my legacy. I have to be responsible for that and call myself on that all the time.”