Speaker
Colman Domingo
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Colman Domingo's mother Edith repeatedly wrote letters to Oprah Winfrey urging her to discover her son while he was a struggling actor in San Francisco in the 1990s.
Colman Domingo attended the same Philadelphia high school as Will Smith, who was one grade above him and performed with Jazzy Jeff at the Wynn Ballroom.
Within the span of about a month, Colman Domingo received honorary doctorates from both Swarthmore College (Doctor of Arts) and his alma mater Temple University.
Colman Domingo earned approximately $150 a day on the film Sing Sing, which he also co-produced, describing it as a labor of love.
Colman Domingo lived in a Tenderloin District studio apartment in San Francisco in the 1990s, sharing it with three others and paying $625/month total — sleeping in a walk-in closet.
Colman Domingo met his husband Raul in 2005 after they both posted on Craigslist missed connections following a chance encounter outside a Berkeley, CA Walgreens.
Colman Domingo's sister's fondest memory of their late mother Edith is that she was dancing in the aisles of a Pathmark grocery store just one week before her death in 2006.
Colman Domingo wrote his first play, 'Up Jump Springtime,' in 1997 in San Francisco — a coming-of-age story about a young queer man, with three actors playing all roles.
A 70-year-old car driver in Toronto gave Colman Domingo the life advice 'hope for everything, want for nothing' when Domingo was turning 50, which he says transformed his approach to work.
Colman Domingo shot Rustin, Sing Sing, and The Color Purple in overlapping succession, and the combination ignited what he calls his 'leading actor phase.' He had always been the Equity deputy on theatrical sets — the person everyone went to for advocacy. Now he finally had the roles to match the leadership he had always quietly carried.
Steven Spielberg calls in to Good Hang before Colman Domingo arrives, describing working with Domingo as like riding in a self-driving Waymo. Spielberg first met Domingo while casting a Porgy and Bess film, later cast him in Lincoln, and now has him leading Disclosure Day.
Spielberg invented a solution to nervous auditioners: invite everyone to cook together in a kitchen. Starting with Raiders of the Lost Ark, actors who came in covered in flour and fumbling with eggs instantly became their best, most relaxed selves.
Jaws had just come out in June 1975. By October, Spielberg was sitting in the audience at the very first SNL broadcast, knowing something generational was happening. After the show, John Belushi dragged him backstage to meet Dan Aykroyd, launching a lifelong love of stand-up and comedians.
Colman Domingo was a bookish, awkward teenager who never went to school dances. At 18, he worked at Barnes & Noble and devoured self-help books in secret, deliberately trying on new ways of walking, speaking, and dressing. The transformation was, as he admits, largely manufactured — and it worked.
While Colman Domingo struggled as a young actor in San Francisco, his mother Edith quietly mailed letters to Oprah Winfrey asking her to help her son — about eight times. Years later, hiking on Oprah's Maui property, he finally told her. Oprah stopped, squeezed his hand, and said: 'I don't know if I got the letters, but I know I got the message.'
A 70-year-old Uber driver in Toronto, unprompted, gave Domingo the best advice he ever received: 'Hope for everything, want for nothing.' Eliminating want — the perpetual grabbing — is what allows Domingo to walk into any room and give freely rather than take.
Amy and Colman first bonded nonverbally on a dance floor at an Emmy Night Before party. Their shared Gen X approach to dancing — full-body, take-no-prisoners movement — is even going viral on TikTok, where the contrast with barely-moving Gen Z is a whole trend.
Colman Domingo argues that an actor who leads with love and empathy doesn't just perform well — they transform a set's entire ecosystem. Even playing villains like Joe Jackson or a pimp in The Color Purple, he finds the human truth first. That refusal to judge is why Steven Spielberg, Ava DuVernay, and others keep returning.
Will Smith was a grade above Colman Domingo at their Philadelphia high school, already performing with Jazzy Jeff at the Wynn Ballroom. Domingo, meanwhile, was a self-described nerd who never went to dances, barely knew the social scene existed, and didn't tear up a dance floor until his second year of college.
Colman Domingo was hospitalized as a child with severe asthma. When his mother Edith picked him up at night, the city's Christmas lights were blazing. She looked at him and said, 'They all put up their lights to welcome you back home.' That single sentence captures the entire foundation of who he became.
Colman Domingo crossed paths with his future husband Raul outside a Berkeley Walgreens in 2005 and couldn't stop thinking about him. Three days later, scrolling Craigslist missed connections to post his own ad, he found that Raul had already posted one — just an hour earlier. On their first date, Domingo told him, 'I think I love you.'
Analysis
What they talk about
- Society & Culture 88%
- Arts 12%
Connections
Shows they appear on and people they share episodes with. Drag to explore.
