Colman Domingo has been awake since 4am. His cover shoot isn’t scheduled to start for another six hours, but a combination of jet lag, anticipation and knowing what he needs to get ready for the day has him up with the lark. If he was back home in Malibu, he would have woken up in his beautiful brutalist Japanese home, the one that Denzel Washington played a role in him buying, which he describes as all glass windows and surrounded by nature. He most likely would have been woken up by the sound of Gilbert – a bird that he says hello to most mornings and recognises because of his distinctive white belly. But today, he woke up in a hotel in London and had a full day before his actual day began.

For the first hour, he just lay in bed taking in his new surroundings and preparing himself for what was about to unfold. Next, he went down to the gym and hit some cardio, followed by a bit of yoga and a little meditation. Then, and this is a constant whether he’s in London or Malibu, he went in search of his morning coffee. Today it was provided by Starbucks. ‘I just know it has that high-octane caffeine that I need,’ he says. With a shot of coffee coursing through him, he headed back to the hotel and found his way down to its thermal pools and sauna. He explains that at 56 years old, rest and recovery have become increasingly important in his life. He wishes he’d made the discovery sooner ‘because I travel so much, I need that’, he says. Finally, Domingo starts actually getting ready. He grooms his hair himself because his barber is still in the States and puts on today’s outfit, which he explains is a mixture of high and low – a Ralph Lauren jacket, paired with white socks picked up from discount superstore Costco. Before he steps out of his room to meet me, he takes five minutes for himself, no phones, no distractions, just a moment for him to stare out the window and summon the energy he’ll need for the day.

I arrive at the hotel at 9.30am. There’s no sign that Domingo is jet-lagged, tired or has been awake for the past five and a half hours. He’s warm, friendly and engaging. Exactly as he appears in every interview or podcast appearance you can find of him online. We step into the taxi and start winding through London’s back streets. It moves quickly through a city that Domingo knows well, having lived here for 18 months in the 2010s while performing on stage at the Young Vic, the Garrick Theatre and what was then known as the Tricycle Theatre. Once pleasantries are out of the way our conversation starts on the topic of introversion.

‘I’m a reformed introvert,’ he says as we discuss how a shy and sensitive child from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – a child who spoke with a lisp and didn’t have the confidence to even wear the name Colman – became Colman Domingo. At Overbrook High School, he preferred to be known by his middle name Jason, or Jay for short. Today, he displays a flamboyance and self-assurance that appears innate. He explains the transition from introvert to extrovert was, in fact, very much deliberate. Over the years he’s learned how to switch between the two. I see it in glimpses throughout the day. In front of the camera, Domingo is every bit the storyteller, using his body and physicality to convey what he needs it to. There are moments, though, that he takes for himself. At one point, he steps out of the former squat we’re filming in, and for a minute or so just basks, alone, in the sunshine. These moments appear precious; they’re also fleeting because today isn’t a day for his introverted side. Today is a day for him to put on a pair of red Christian Louboutin boxing shoes and allow the extrovert in him to come to the fore.

The Journeyman

Domingo was neither a popular or particularly athletic kid. At school, he was very much on the outskirts. In his formative years, he wanted to be a photojournalist who travelled to war-torn locations and reported back. ‘I’ve always been an observer,’ he says.

In the year above him at school were Willard Smith and Jeffrey Townes (yes, that Will Smith and that DJ Jazzy Jeff). He remembers Smith as one of the popular kids. ‘He would perform with Jazzy Jeff at the Wynne Ballroom and my fellow students would go there. I didn’t because I come from a working-class home – I didn’t have any money to do extra things outside of school.’ Domingo says he and Smith now share the same barber and plan to meet up for a coffee soon. ‘Because we come from the same place, it’ll be nice to really connect.’

His home was working class and full of love. Stepfather Clarence Bowles taught him discipline and work ethic, while his mother Edith cultivated his sensitive side. He has her name tattooed on his arm and his production company is also named after her. Both his parents passed away in 2006, and he can see the difference in himself before and after their deaths. ‘Now I live without apology. What I feel is what I feel. What I say is what I say. How I love is how I love.’

Also in the house were his three siblings. His older brother and sister, Derek and Averie, and his younger brother Phillip Bowles. Together with his mother, his elder siblings were protective of him. It was Derek who he first came out to in the early 90s. His older brother had taken him to a strip club, when Domingo asked him to go outside. He hadn’t come out to anyone at this point and there was some trepidation about admitting his sexuality to his tough, older brother. But he knew he ‘came from love’. ‘I told him that I was gay. He looked at me and was just like, “What?” He just couldn’t believe it,’ says Domingo. ‘Eventually, he said, “I don’t care, man. I love you anyway.” And he just hugged me. Then he said, “Have you told anyone else? I said, no. He said, “Alright, this stays between you and me.”’

Two days later, his sister was on the phone. ‘She was pissed off. I said, “Look, yes, it was really hard for me to tell him.” She said, “No, no, no. Why didn’t you tell me first?” She was pissed off because she didn’t get the information first,’ he laughs recounting the story. Not long after, that Domingo delivered the news to his parents. His mum took it in her stride and, like his brother, agreed to keep her son’s sexuality to herself. ‘Twenty minutes later, the phone rings and she says, “I talked to your stepfather.” She puts him on and he says, in his blue-collar masculine way, “You’re a good boy and there’s nothing you can tell me that would make me stop loving you.”’

Domingo started to come into his body when he left Philadelphia for San Francisco in his early twenties and adopted a ‘hippie’ lifestyle. ‘I moved there, grew my hair out and I was going to nude beaches and retreats like Harbin Hot Springs.’ He also picked up a job at a ‘political children’s circus’, called Make A Circus. (He isn’t sure how a political children’s circus makes sense, either.) ‘I played the evil salamander monster in this one production that toured all over. It was about politicians lying, and as they would lie they got more power. Every time I got more power, I would go higher and higher on stilts. So I start growing and then I’m on five-foot-tall stilts.’

He didn’t know it at the time, but he was taking his first steps to becoming the physical actor we know today. This was really honed in the theatre, where, he explains, everything is about preparing for the 7.30pm stage call. ‘You’ve got to be really fine-tuned with your body because you’re performing on stage every night.’

What a lot of profiles about Domingo get wrong is that this stage of his life is deemed at worst unsuccessful or at best a precursor to his success. During this time he was a successful theatre actor and playwright. Just being a jobbing or ‘journeyman’ actor would have been enough for him. In 2001, he moved from San Francisco to New York to continue his theatre career and in the years that followed he was nominated for everything from a Tony Award to a Fred and Adele Astaire Award for Outstanding Male Dancer. Occasionally, he’d appear on TV. He was blown up on an episode of Nash Bridges – ‘My mother hated that episode. She’s like, why do you always die in things?’ – or Law & Order – ‘My sister was like, “Oh wow, you’re really doing it.” I was like, “I’ve been doing it. What are you talking about?”’

What it is fair to say is that screen success eluded him. He remembers a time he was training at Equinox gym on East 43rd Street; he’d been auditioning for multiple parts, week after week, and hearing rejection after rejection. He auditioned for a part in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, and everything about it said this part was his. They were looking for a dancer and showman, and he stormed the audition. Everyone in the room loved him: the producers loved him; the director loved him. ‘Then I get a call from my agent,’ he says. At the 11th hour a researcher raised their hand and said hosts in Harlem at that time were all fair-skinned. ‘I just yelled, “They knew what I looked like before I got there. I feel like everyone’s fucking with me.” And I literally just leaned up against the gym equipment sobbing in the middle of Equinox.’

Domingo was in his early-to-mid forties and ready to leave the industry. Serendipitously, a friend of his got in touch, saying that his manager wanted to meet him. The change in representation lead to a role on Fear The Walking Dead and later, Oscar-nominated roles in the likes of Rustin and Sing Sing, as well as a career-defining TV turn in Euphoria. ‘When I met Domingo I knew he would be a big part of my life. He has a generosity of spirit and his talent is unparalleled,’ Euphoria creator and director Sam Levinson told me over email. ‘He’s rooted in a way that few are. He knows who he is, what he values and he has such a dedication to the craft. You see it in every single frame. He’s a blessing. He brings out the best in everyone.’

Second-Half Fitness

Back in the car our conversation turns to body image. Domingo explains to me that like any man in his fifties, he’s had his own issues with how he looks to deal with over the years. As a kid he was ‘very skinny’ and ‘very awkward’. Although not skinny any more, he’s still lean. A few years ago, as he turned 50, he started to wonder whether bigger would be better, even if it was achieved artificially. ‘You look at your lean self and your very natural self and you think, well, maybe I could use a boost,’ he says. ‘I went to a doctor to see if I would qualify for or need more testosterone, and he told me my testosterone levels were as high as they were when I was 16.’

Domingo’s physique, the physique you see in these pages today, is all natural, but it has been crafted. For the past 10 years he’s been working with his friend and trainer Vann Duke to make the most of what he has. Duke is the founder of SecondHalf Fitness, a fitness company that caters to the 50-plus crowd. He explains that his sessions are often cardio based. Because getting bigger isn’t what he’s aiming for any more, resistance training is less frequent. Flexibility and staying lean are what really matter to him now. ‘For the fashion world that I’m a part of, I need to look good in clothes. Because I’m 6ft 2in and 183lb [13st], and I can wear sample sizes, so I need to stay that way,’ he says.

To stay lean, Domingo has also had to learn to eat differently in recent years, too. Coming from Philadelphia, he loves soul food and still has a particular penchant for the meatiest, cheesiest and greasiest varieties. When he was younger, that didn’t matter. Nowadays he has to be more selective with what he eats. Meals these days usually consists of meat or fish and vegetables. He does allow himself a treat occasionally, but he realises that there’ll probably need to be a trade-off somewhere else. ‘I don’t count calories; I barter with them,’ he jokes.

While filming The Madness for Netflix, his weight shot up to 205lb (14st 9lb) for the first time. It was a tipping point and the moment he decided that he needed to pull back. This was around the time of the writers’ strike in 2023. Domingo used the break to make some tough choices, deciding that he couldn’t just eat anything any more and had to be careful with his sugar, alcohol and carb intake. ‘I went back to work and I was much leaner than I was before. I can see it in the cuts. I know the difference of a scene where I was 205 and a scene where I’m 20lb lighter.’ His colleagues could see the difference, too. ‘My costume designer looked at me and said, “Oh, you lost your middle.”’

Heroes and Villains

After six hours of filming, we jump back in the car and get started on the second part of our interview. This time we discuss Domingo’s upcoming work. Spring and summer 2026 will see four new projects released, including the Netflix global comedy drama hit The Four Seasons, and a reprisal of his role of Ali Muhammed in Euphoria. In the show he plays a recovering addict and sponsor to Zendaya’s Rue. It’s a part for which he’s received critical acclaim and an Emmy award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. He’s also got a couple of films being released, too – he’s part of an all-star cast in Steven Spielberg’s first film in four years, Disclosure Day, and, more controversially, Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson biopic, Michael.

We discuss the projects in turn. On Euphoria, Domingo references the iconic diner episode he shared with Zendaya, where the two go back and forth bearing their souls to each other. He says the episode was one of the first times anyone had written something like that for him and believed he could deliver it on TV. ‘It was the first thing we shot after the pandemic and it felt like a sermon,’ he says, teasing that in some ways, his appearance in season three of the show will top that.

About Disclosure Day, which at the time of our conversation has just released its trailer, there’s not much he’s allowed to say. What he can divulge is that it’s a film full of humanity. ‘I saw it a couple weeks ago and I wept,’ he says. ‘I don’t think people usually weep for a sci-fi film. I called Steven Spielberg afterwards, and we talked for half an hour. I said to him, “You wrote this because you believe in us. You believe in the power of people coming together.”’

It’s when we start discussing Michael that Domingo is most considered. Most people know his character, Joe Jackson, as the monstrous head of the Jackson household who is accused of beating his sons with a belt buckle or the cord of an electric kettle. For the role, Domingo is hidden under heavy prosthetics. His physical approach to acting means he’s also shielded behind the way Jackson walks and moves through the world, too. He doesn’t believe he’s portraying a villain in the film, nor does he view the world in such binary terms. He took the role because he believed he could deliver a fully-rounded character. ‘I looked at him as a blue-collar man who was raised at a certain time,’ he says. ‘It was his job to put food on the table and to be the provider and to make sure his children were safe and they were the best that they could be and even took it a step further to be better than who they were. And so that’s the way I tapped into Joe Jackson.’

The accusation of violence is another thing, but he says he knew men like Jackson – men who were the disciplinarians of their family and left nurturing to wives and mothers. His own stepfather could fit that description. He describes their relationship as loving, but it wasn’t warm or soft, he says. ‘He was the one that when he came home from work, the energy changed in the house and he was checking, “Are your chores done? Is your homework done? Are things in order?” That’s what he required.’

Our journey ends with Domingo discussing his stepfather’s work ethic and how he inherited it from him. After we’re finished, he has another interview to do, though there’s no sign that his energy is starting to flag yet. We go our separate ways with a handshake. Later that evening, as I’m going over our conversation in my head, I think about Domingo returning to his hotel room. I wonder how his inner introvert will reflect on the day.

Photography: Chris Floyd
Styling: Eric Down
Grooming: Mata Mariélle using Danessa Myricks Beauty

This interview features in the June 2026 issue of Men’s Health – out now. Subscribe to MH by hitting this link.