Colman Domingo is an actor, playwright, director and producer born in Philadelphia on November 28, 1969, whose work has moved between the stage and several kinds of screen production. He started his career in regional theater before moving to Broadway in Well in 2005, followed by Passing Strange in 2008 and Chicago in 2010. Television audiences came to know him through roles including Ali in Euphoria. His performance in that series earned the 2022 Emmy for outstanding guest actor in a drama series.
Long before that recognition, Domingo was building a theater career in San Francisco. In a 2024 interview with British GQ, he recalled working at the Kennel Club and finding opportunities through fellow theater artists. Doug Holsclaw invited him to write for Theatre Rhinoceros, where Up Jumped Springtime was staged in 1998. In the interview, he also speaks directly about being Black and Afro-Latino, identities he discusses openly in his public life.
Writing remained part of his professional life as his acting career expanded. His solo play A Boy and His Soul reached audiences at the Vineyard Theatre and in London and Brisbane. Wild with Happy was produced at the Public Theater. His play Dot appeared at Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival and subsequently at the Vineyard, where Susan Stroman directed it.
His stage acting included Passing Strange, directed by Annie Dorsen, and The Scottsboro Boys, directed by Stroman. On screen, his roles have ranged from the historical civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin in Rustin, directed by George C. Wolfe, to a producing and acting role in Sing Sing, directed by Greg Kwedar, a drama built around a prison theater program.
The Academy nominated Domingo for leading actor at the 2024 ceremony for Rustin. A second leading-actor nomination followed at the 2025 ceremony for Sing Sing. Those nominations made him the first Afro-Latino actor nominated for Best Actor, and the first performer to receive consecutive Best Actor nominations since Denzel Washington in 2017 and 2018.
