Rise in Hollywood staged in Bay Area
Colman Domingo got his start acting in the S. F. region’s theater companies
Two of the season’s most significant shows have one thing in common: Colman Domingo.
In Netflix’s adaptation of the August Wilson play “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” which begins streaming Friday, the actor appears opposite Viola Davis, who plays the titular 1920s blues singer, and the late Chadwick Boseman, in his final role, as her rebellious trumpet player, Levee. Earlier this month, HBO dropped a special episode of Sam Levinson’s controversial teen drama “Euphoria,” in which Emmywinning series star and Oakland native Zendaya’s troubled Rue has one of the alltime great filmed conversations with Ali, her Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, played by Domingo.
Philadelphiaborn Domingo is a veteran New York actor, writer and director who first honed his craft on such Bay Area stages as Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and Berkeley Rep.
“I don’t think I’d be able to do anything that I’m doing without my time in San Francisco,” he told The Chronicle. “I spent 10 of the most formative years in the theater in San Francisco. I still feel like I’m a Bay Area artist, just in Hollywood and on Broadway.”
Domingo’s upcoming movies include “Zola,” “The God Committee,” “Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse” and Jordan Peele’s reboot of the horror franchise “Candyman.” The Chronicle caught up with Domingo while he was in Austin, Texas, on set for “Fear the Walking Dead,” where he’s reprising his role of con man Victor Strand for the AMC series’ seventh season.
Q: Let’s start with that remarkable special episode of “Euphoria.” It’s mainly just you and Zendaya talking about your characters’ fears and failures on Christmas Eve in a sad diner, but it was also loaded with wider existential truths.
A: Sam sent me the episode in July. There were fires in the streets, it was complete civil unrest in every single way. I read it and I was brought to my knees. I called Sam and said, “My brother, you have created a sermon for
the soul of America in 2020.”
It was about us just sitting down across the table, having a difficult conversation about things that are on our minds and our hearts. I thought that was tremendous.
Q: What was it like to film that in the middle of the pandemic?
A: It was the first thing I shot under COVID19 protocols, and I was really nervous. I’d barely left my home except to go do essential things, and being with a group of people was terrifying. But every protocol was met with so much grace and dignity and care. You could tell from the energy of the whole crew that everyone felt so privileged to be able to do this work.
Q: You and Zendaya weren’t aware that you’d met long before “Euphoria,” were you?
A: Here’s the skinny: We were shooting season one of “Euphoria,” and on some downtime, we were getting to know one another. When she told me she had roots in the Bay Area, I told her that I began my career there, did work at Berkeley Rep, ACT, Cal Shakes.
She said, “Oh wow, my mother ran the box office for Cal Shakes.” She told me she used to go there when she was very little and remembered one show in particular that she wanted to see over and over again because this guy showed up out in the glen area on a white moped, wearing all white, and played with her.
I said, “Wait a minute. That was me in a production of ‘ All’s Well That Ends Well’!” I remembered playing with that little girl who couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old. She stood out because it’s 9 p. m. and Shakespeare, and I was really curious why she was there. It turns out it was little Zendaya, and that was our first interaction.
Q: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” has two really goforbroke performances by Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman. Your guy Cutler, the trombone player in Ma’s band, struggles to be the calm center amid all the explosive conflict.
A: Cutler is essentially the glue between Ma Rainey and the band; he acts as the proxy for Ma when she’s not in the room. He’s the bandleader, tries to keep things moving forward. He’s also the first face that, let’s say, the systemic racist systems that are in place see, like the recording industry. He’s had to learn to be the gobetween, and he has to do it with a sense of grace and integrity.
Q: None of you knew that Chadwick was coping with fatal colon cancer while making the film.
A: I saw no ounce of sickness or illness. Honestly, as I look back at our experience, I felt that this film probably helped him in his struggle. It sort of gave him that rigor and that hope and that feeling he could do something.
He worked harder than anyone. He learned his instrument in an incredible way. I think we needed to be proficient, but he became exceptional. He put his whole life into it, and I think that’s what people are recognizing. That man put every ounce of pain, trauma, joy, interrogation, light into that work.
Q: And I know you have this super distinguished theater resume, but it looks like you’re on quite a roll in film and television now.
A: I’d be a fool to say I didn’t agree with you. I’ve been working for 30 years, and this does seem like an enormous difference. It feels like my name is more in the zeitgeist, it’s associated with things I’m very proud of, groundbreaking film and television.
But it all goes back to my roots in the theater. I’ve always been a part of things like “Passing Strange” or “The Scottsboro Boys,” projects that moved the needle in some way. I feel like I’m on the front lines, but I do recognize that I’m having a great moment.