Interview: Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin on Finding Freedom, Family and Hope in ‘Sing Sing’
It took time for Sing Sing to come to life but that’s something the stars of the film know a little something about; time and waiting.
Based on the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison, the film centers on a group of incarcerated men involved in the creation of theatrical stage shows through the program. The film stars Academy Award-nominated actors Colman Domingo and Paul Raci, alongside many real-life formerly incarcerated men who were themselves alumni of the program during their incarceration, including Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin and Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez.
The film had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival where Domingo was awarded the TIFF Tribute Performer Award. The entertainment industry was still deep into double strikes from writers and actors (with certain independent productions like Sing Sing exempt from not being able to have actors promote their work) and the film was held until summer of 2024 for release. In his review for the film after it screened at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, AwardsWatch writer Kevin. L. Lee called it “one of the most soul-searching films in recent years.”
Cut to this week where both Domingo and Maclin earned acting honors at the Gotham Awards for their lead and supporting performances in the film on top of the Social Justice Tribute from the org, celebrating the cast, producer Clint Bentley and writer/director Greg Kwedar.
I spoke with Domingo and Maclin last month about how Sing Sing came to them, the extraordinary news of Velazquez’s exoneration (in part due to the film), the changing language of the imprisoned. “Words are things, you got to be careful with them,” says Domingo, quoting Maya Angelou.
Erik Anderson: [Looking at my question cards] I’m not off the book, so I’m going to have to read. Is that ok?
Clarence Maclin: You not off book?
EA: No, I know.
CM: [to Colman Domingo] He’s not off book. (laughs)
Colman Domingo: Know your lines, Erik. (laughs)
EA: I know how that looks, for this specifically! (laughs)
This project’s been in the works for nearly a decade, and you’ve both been a part of that at different periods. Can you talk about working with Greg and where each of you came in?
CM: Greg had gotten in with… He got in touch with Rick Buell, who was played by Paul Raci.
After he and Clint had read an article in the Esquire about the program, Rehabilitation Through the Arts. He read about a play that we had done. That Esquire article called “Breaking the Mummy’s Code.” It’s based on Sing Sing Follies. So they get in touch with him. Brett tells him, ‘if you really want to know the story, you should hear it from the men that lived here.’ He invites us all to breakfast. So we meet at a few breakfasts, a few dinners, a few drinks, and we talk about everything under the sun. Besides the play, the movie or the script.
So we’re just feeling each other out basically. Because others have came and tried to use our story and we didn’t think that they was going to use it in the fashion that we wanted. So we never activated off of that. But when we got back Greg and Clint, they seemed really genuine and sincere about keeping the integrity of our program intact. They were sincere about that. So once we figured that out, it was a no-brainer. We was going to do it.
CD: I came in after they had been doing their work talking about it, figuring it out. And then I came in when there still wasn’t a script, but they had formatted these ideas. They said that they were… Greg would say that he was writing a treatment. He sort of dusted it off, going back to it and dust off a treatment. And he wrote my name at the bottom.
And then through circumstances we really met up. I think it was an agent or my publicist can’t remember, but somebody said, you really need to know these artists. They have a film, Jockey. Have you seen Jackie? Yeah, I love Jockey, it was great. And I love the whole feel of it. I think they are filmmakers you would love to work with. So we met up and I thought we were just talking and then he talked about this idea and I said, well, send me the script. He said, well, we don’t have a script. So he sent me the Esquire magazine article. That’s what’s been getting around. So they sent that and I thought, this is fantastic. And then they invited me to come onboard in every way, as a producer, as an actor, whatever skills I have. As a director and writer to help shape this. And so the first thing they did was introduce us. And so I think that we were sort of central in helping to really create what is now the film.
Because it really became about this brotherhood. So we talked about what was important to us, not only as actors, but as men. And what these characters could be. And so I think that’s what… I said to them. I think once it was locked in on Clarence and I, we knew what the script was.
CM: Yeah, that became the thread that you see throughout the whole movie.
CD: Yeah, that’s what it’s about.
CM: Before that it wasn’t shaped that way. It evolved into that once they edit… I think that’s because of the chemistry that you and I had.
CD: Yes.
CM: The chemistry that we had. Just on the Zoom meeting…
CD: They were like, oh, that’s it. Yin and yang right there. And then you find that they need each other. It is about brotherhood, basically.
CM: Right.
EA: Colman, obviously your circus and theater background make you really perfect for this, and you also get to work with Sean [San Jose], who is your best friend. Did you find that having those things and working with Sean an advantage going in, or was it an extra challenge?
CD: I thought it was… I don’t know if it was a challenge, but I knew that I had what I needed to be a part of this story because based on the character that I play, John Whitfield. He is a leader. He is someone who advocates for others. He’s a part of this program, a founding member of the program.
CM: Yeah, he was a founder.
CD: And an actor, writer, director. I thought, well, it’s just ticking off boxes. We have so much in common. I have so much in common with this man. So even the idea that he was wrongfully accused of a crime and he’d been fighting for his liberation for years. The fact that I’m like, you know what, I could very well be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s nothing too dissimilar, he from mine.
So, for me, it was allowing me to bring all those parts of myself and vulnerability and all that stuff with all the stuff that I knew about him to create a hybrid of a character that is very much him, but it’s very much me at the same time. So we are more alike than unalike.
EA: That was literally my next thing, there were so many similarities between you guys. But yeah, where is it for you to honor a real person and to make them also your own?
CD: I think if you’re concerned about mimicry and all those details that make up a person, you’re not giving yourself dramatic license and freedom to create. For me, it was creating in every manner. An amalgamation of him, probably my brother Rick, probably myself, probably my cousins. Probably this dude I’ve never met. That dude I probably saw on the bus somewhere. You know what I mean? It’s probably an amalgamation of a lot of men, but through the circumstance, it’s a lot of their truths.
So I think when… There’s something about… There is that word that’s been used a lot today, alchemy. There’s something that I do understand. If I’m concerned about the soul of the person and detailing their truths, I will get to that person. So much so that my cast may just say, oh my God, you’re just like him right now.
CM: Yeah. There’s been times when I’m sitting here talking and I look out of the corner of my eye real quick, and it’s him over there. But I swear it’s Divine G. In the purple hoodie, everything. Walk, everything.
EA: You squint a little bit and-
CD: I feel like in that picture they use a lot of me and you, me sitting there up with the hoodie. And you’re sitting there like this. I feel like… I look at that sometimes like, oh no, that’s not me that’s Eye and G. (laughs)
CM: (laughs) You captured him.
EA: Clarence, was there a time in your youth that performing was something that maybe you had wanted to do, or did it just come later with the program?
CM: Well, actually, art’s always been in my life. I always been an artist, but I never had considered performing. I like to draw, paint, create with my hands, and I stay in my imagination all the time. So arts have always been a part of my life when I was younger. Then at some point I suppressed that because I wanted to roll with the in-crowd. The jocks and the kids that are popular. Because a lone artist over here, just drawing on his sketchbook ain’t the popular kid.
So I gave it up for a little term in my life, and I went back to it a little bit briefly when I was dealing with graffiti on the trains and stuff like that. But that was still me trying to fit in, and even a graffiti artist is a nerd in the hood really. I started getting in with the wrong crowd, and that eventually led me to going to prison and things of that nature.
Once I had come across RTA, Rehabilitation Through the Arts and I watched and I got to watch a play. I had already knew about the program, but I never went down there because I really thought that it was a pity party going on. It was some people coming in here just trying to-
CD: Y’all are crying on the floor, emotions…(laughs)
CM: Yeah, and then go home and be like, well, I helped some prisoners today. (Clarence and Colman keep laughing) I didn’t want to be a part of that. I didn’t want to be a part of that until I got down there and I got to watch a play for the first time. Watch what they was doing. I’d seen my brother Dino Johnson up on stage. Now, I know Dino and a few of these guys from the yard. I know them in a different capacity. I don’t know them to be up here doing this.
CD: Right, right, right, right. In costumes and whatnot.
CM: But to come in and to see them doing that, and it was beautiful. It was great, man. The movie, I mean, the play was fantastic. It was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
CD: Wow.
EA: Oh, wow.
CM: That’s what they was doing. And the way they did it, man, it was so good, man. I was like, yo, I need to be a part of that. I need to be a part of this program, what I got to do. So now I got to stay out of trouble for a whole year. This is difficult for me at the time because I’m a hot boy. I’m doing everything, I got everything going on. I got to stop everything for a whole year just to get in the program. But I do it. I go down [inaudible 00:09:31], nothing. I’m good. I’m on deck now. Now I’m on deck. I get in the program and I get a part in a role. Because when you come in first, I’m a stagehand and you’re not getting a role off the rip. You’re going to do stagehand work. Put the little block and Xs down on the floor and all that.
I had to do a soda curtain with the dip through floors.
CD: But you loved it though, right? You loved just being a part of it.
CM: I’m here, on deck. I want to be a part of this thing. But now, one of the guys that actually had a role, he drops out. Now, that frees up a role, they give it to me. Now I’m in my glory. (laughs)
CD: (laughs)
CM: I get up on stage and I got no lines. All I’m up here doing is posturing, gesturing to move my mouth as if I’m having a conversation.
CD: Give that man a line.
EA: That’s like the kid that plays the tree in the school play though.
CM: (laughs) Yes.
CD: (laughs) And you know he’s going to ‘the tree?’ No, the tree ain’t for him. He’s got to do more than that. (laughs)
EA: Yeah.
CM: This is how the director did it, Peter Barbierro from Jacob Ferns at the time. He was coming in to help us with the craft, help us teach us. And he said, hold up. Well, you’re posturing really good. He got two lines for me. I got two lines. Once I got those two lines, I was bit man. Now I need more lines. I need to be the lead now what I got to do. So that’s how it happened for me, man. I got bit by the bug with two lines.
EA: I love that.
CM: That’s it.
CD: That’s all you need.
EA: Exactly. That’s all it takes. But there’s an element that sort of speaks to exactly what this is, where you give an opportunity and a person’s trajectory is changed.
Colman Domingo: Wow. That is the most succinct way to put it. You give possibility, imagine where that person would fly.
CM: Right.
CD: And pour their hearts into it and then be vulnerable and learn new skills and then be different. That’s the blessing.
EA: I didn’t know until recently that the structure of the film had equal pay rates for everybody. And there had to be a feeling of real equality and equity amongst everybody with that.
CM: Empowerment.
CD: I think so. I think that was key when they invited me to be a part of it, and they told me, okay, now we have you attached. We can go out to studios you have relationships with. Your name it. Or there’s another way where we keep our overhead low and we keep our… That overhead low and everyone, because it’s very community based. These people have given their stories and it’s just… What if we did it where everyone above and below the line are paid the same way. Based on how many days they work, things like that.
EA: Yeah.
CD: And it seemed like a no-brainer. It seemed like that’s the right way to do it. But also it felt like, I don’t know why it felt like, of course that’s the way we should do it. It just felt like, of course. And so there was no pushback or anything. I’ll be very honest. At first, my agents and managers were like, wait, what? Because certain rates you start to get as you been doing this for a while.
EA: Yes.
CD: And they said, are you sure? I said, yeah, that’s the only way to do this. We have to do it this way. I feel like everyone has ownership of it. We’re all equal. And they got behind it and they were like, okay. They were unsure, but I was like, no, I’m telling you it’s a good thing. Now they absolutely know because we do all have a sense of ownership. That’s his film. That’s my film. We own this film.
EA: Yeah. Exactly.
CD: That’s Dino’s film. That’s Sean San Jose’s film. That’s Ruta..
CM: Everybody.
CD: Everybody. They’re like, that’s my film. It really is their film.
CM: Ruta was in charge of continuity.
CD: Not just for producers, everyone gets their fee, everyone benefits. And that’s what feels good about it.
EA: I’d love to see more of that.
CM: And it changes how we do the film. You’re going to bring 110% every day because it’s yours. It’s yours.
CD: That scenic over there that’s yours, actually. So you want to fix that. You know what I mean? It really works like that. It needs to be done.
EA: No job too big. No job too small.
CM: No job too big. No job too small.
EA: No matter who you are.
CD: Yeah. I remember one day I saw Monique coming in after plunging the toilet, it’s one of our producers. She’s like, it’s got to get done. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah.
EA: That’s that. I know you recently screened the film at the first San Quentin Film Festival [in October], which is just revolutionary to me. It feels like a major step towards earnest efforts by the system for rehabilitation. Does it feel like it?
CM: It’s a long walk with that, man. But I think they’re raising their eyebrows.
CD: Is that the system doing it or is it us? I mean, think it’s like… If it’s the people, I don’t know if the system’s doing it.
CM: I don’t know either. I know that the people are going to have to wake up first before we can start pointing fingers at the system or anything like that.
CD: Exactly.
CM: We got to take accountability for… When I go into the prisons and speak to the men, this is the message that I have for them. Is that listen, we not going to allow, we are not going to wait for the Department of Corrections to correct our behavior because we grown. We are going to do this on our own. The brother next to you on your left and the brother next to you on your right, those are the ones you need. And y’all got to look out for each other. Don’t wait for nobody to do it for you.
CD: And that’s what I think. I think even the festivals and how they’ve been happening, I don’t know if the system has been making these film festivals happen. I think it’s the people.
CM: It’s the people.
CD: It’s the people who are saying that we need it. And the people inside and the people are saying, we need this. We need this for each other.
EA: Which then becomes the force for change.
CD: Absolutely.
CM: After that it can be successful. Now the system want to get on board now they want to get some recognition.
CD: Exactly. The system has to do some reckoning for themselves to know that okay… Because it’s always, I mean, I’m not going to get deep into the prison industrial complex…
EA: Yeah.
CD: It’s about money. And I don’t know. I’m skeptical. I just feel like it’s still about the people. Connecting the people to it and have programs like this to exist.
EA: Yes.
CM: Right. This works.
CD: I feel it’s not money involved, and you know, supporting that system. It’s supporting true rehabilitation.
EA: It would be impossible to not mention JJ [Alvarez] and what happened on September 30th.
CM: Brother got exonerated.
CD: That’s extraordinary.
EA: Quarter of a century.
CM: 24 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
EA: I talked with Greg about this at the JustFund event a few weeks ago. That it’s a wonderful thing and it’s a celebratory thing, but it’s also so bittersweet because it took all of these things to get one person exonerated.
CM: Right. And it is crazy when they knew. You knew that this man ain’t commit this crime, you have the evidence in your possession that tells you, this man didn’t commit this crime.
EA: It took minutes to make that decision. Something that I’ve been thinking about a lot with this, and it feels recent, just kind of where society is with language. Whether it’s gender or race or sexuality. Words are really crucial in humanization or dehumanization of people. And in speaking about prisons and people in prisons, we’ve really… The language has changed.
CM: Yeah.
EA: And using incarcerated persons versus prisoners. I wonder if that is something that you think about. Do words like that hold some importance?
CM: They do. This is the reason why in the movie, when you see that we change the word, the N-word, to “beloved.” Because these words do have power. And if we continue to label ourselves with derogatory words or allow others to label us with these derogatory words, we may begin to believe that that’s our identity. And it is very important to not believe that someone else’s negative view of you or negative opinion of you or negative whatever can be stuck to you. The only way that can happen is if you allow it.
EA: Yeah.
CD: Maya Angelou said, “words are things, you got to be careful with them.” Because they’ll get into your clothes. They’ll get into the way you walk. You know what I mean? So be careful about the words you say and the words you speak. So I do think that there’s more consciousness over the words we choose. How do we describe folks who have been incarcerated.
EA: Yeah, exactly. And it really struck me just this… since the film, how we are using words better. And another thing I keep thinking of is, I think it’s Dino’s quote.
CM: Human again.
EA: Yeah. “We are here to become human again and enjoy the things that are not in our reality.” It just keeps resurfacing as the cornerstone, the foundation of the possibility of rehabilitation.
CM: The here that he’s speaking of is the space that we called out in the prison. No matter where we are in the prison. It could be in the school building, the auditorium, the chapel. Wherever we are. This is the here we talk about. We talk about this space that we are occupying.
EA: Yeah.
CM: Wherever that is-
CD: You create it yourself, right.
CM: We’re not in prison anymore. When we are in that space. We’re free.
CD: I’ll end it there.
EA: I love that. I’m going nowhere after that. That’s perfect.
CD: Thank you, Erik. Good to see you again, my friend.
EA: You too. It’s always good to see you. Thanks guys. Thanks so much.
CM: No problem brother. Good to see you.
A24 will re-release Sing Sing in theaters in January.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- Predictions for 2024 National Board of Review (NBR) and AFI’s Top 10 - December 3, 2024
- Interview: Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin on Finding Freedom, Family and Hope in ‘Sing Sing’ - December 3, 2024
- 2024 New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC): ‘The Brutalist’ Wins Best Film, Carol Kane Surprises in Supporting Actress - December 3, 2024
Predictions for 2024 National Board of Review (NBR) and AFI’s Top 10 
Interview: Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin on Finding Freedom, Family and Hope in ‘Sing Sing’ 
2024 New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC): ‘The Brutalist’ Wins Best Film, Carol Kane Surprises in Supporting Actress 
2024 Gotham Awards: ‘A Different Man’ Takes Best Feature; Colman Domingo, Clarence Maclin, ‘Nickel Boys’ Win Big