The Color Purple star “lost his mind” after losing role over skin color

❘ Published: 2023-12-27T20:36:54

Warner Bros. Pictures

The Color Purple star Colman Domingo reveals that he was passed up for a major TV drama role due to skin color.

Over four decades after its original release, The Color Purple, a novel by Alice Walker that then turned into an Oscar Award-winning movie and Tony Award-winning musical, is still going strong amongst fans.

The book and its adaptations follow the life of a young African American woman named Celie who, after being torn from her sister, tries to navigate life with her abusive husband with their help of her numerous sister-like figures.

A reboot of the story has recently been released and one of the stars of the film — Colman Domingo — has revealed his own struggle with discrimination as he lost out on a major drama TV role due to his skin color.

Domingo thought acting was over after Boardwalk Empire rejection

During a conversation with the New York Times as part of his promotion of The Color Purple, Colman Domingo, who plays Celie’s vile husband Albert “Mister” Johnson, opened up about losing a certain role on a major drama TV series that almost broke him as an actor.

In 2014, he was auditioning for “under-five” roles or roles that only offered him a just line or two of dialogue.

One of those roles happened to be on the HBO’s hit drama series Boardwalk Empire, a period drama that was loosely based on real political figures who rose to prominence and ended up controling Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the Prohibition period of the 1920s and 1930s.

The show was looking for a maître d’ at a Black-owned nightclub and Domingo auditioned for the role wearing a tuxedo and ended up impressing the producers by singing and tap dancing, but it wasn’t enough.

Though his agent confirmed that his audition had been a hit, a historical researcher on the show “reminded producers that the maître d’s in those nightclubs were typically light-skinned, and Domingo was not. ‘Boardwalk Empire’ had passed.”

“That’s when I lost my mind,” Domingo said, adding that he told his agent, “I can’t take it anymore, I think this is going to kill me.”

The experience of losing the role almost caused Domingo to leave acting, but it taught him a valuable lesson as he told the NYT, “I’ve had many moments where I just needed that little shine or that little push or that extra scene that I know we shot, but decisions were made. It happens. You can shoot a film and do some of the best work of your career, and they leave out three incredible scenes, and you’re like, ‘That could have made me. That could have changed everything.'”

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