The Making Of Prison Drama ‘Sing Sing’: How Colman Domingo, Non-Professional Actors & Equal Pay For Cast & Crew Made For A Surprise Hit
deadline.comColman Domingo first met Clarence Maclin on a Zoom call in 2022. Domingo’s slate that year included playing Mister in the remake of The Color Purple and the title role in Rustin, a biopic about Civil Rights activist Bayard Rustin that would earn him an Oscar nomination.
Maclin, by contrast, was a decade out from serving his sentence of 15 years in New York’s notorious Sing Sing prison for robbery. “We started talking about the bonds of brotherhood that Shakespeare illuminates,” says Domingo.
Shakespeare, they agreed, was key to the film they were about to make together. Sing Sing, director Greg Kwedar and co-writer Clint Bentley’s prison-set drama — more than eight years in the making — first screened to rave reviews at the Toronto Film Festival in 2023.
Now, after a slow build, it is a buzzy Oscar contender. Domingo plays John Whitfield, A.K.A. Divine G, a leading force in the prison’s theater group, supported by New York’s Rehabilitation Through the Arts (R.T.A.) program.
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