Colman Domingo — who stars in the box office hit The Color Purple — recently spoke with The New York Times about past experiences auditioning in Hollywood. The Tony nominee opened up about the early days of his career, like the time he was rejected from a role because of his skin tone.
Recalling the decade-old moment when he banked on landing the role of a maître d’ in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, Domingo revealed he didn’t get the part because he wasn’t “light-skinned” enough for the “historical” role.
“This is the one that’s going to change it up for me,” he thought. “This is the one that’s going to finally be my big break.” However, his agent informed him that “Boardwalk Empire had passed”, as the role would be more historically accurate if filled by a “light-skinned” Black person, despite his stellar audition.
“That’s when I lost my mind,” the 54-year-old recalled. He also remembered telling his agent at the time, “I can’t take it anymore, I think this is going to kill me.” Since those humbling days of auditioning, Domingo has become an award-winning “offer-only” actor — meaning he’d only accept roles he doesn’t have to audition for.
“I became an actor that was ‘offer-only’ probably sooner than the industry thought I should have,” he said. “But I decided I have a body of work. You can go and look at it, you can ask other directors about me, and you can make me the offer or not.”
Over the past years, Domingo has gone on to win an Emmy for Euphoria, and also star in Oscar-nominated films If Beale Street Could Talk and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He most recently led Netflix’s Rustin and can currently be seen playing the role of Albert “Mister” Johnson in The Color Purple adaptation in theaters now.
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