Colman Domingo

Domingo's screen career started modestly — early television appearances included roles in various incarnations of the Law & Order franchise and a stint as part of the main cast of The Big Gay Sketch Show (Wikipedia). Not exactly the résumé that signals future Oscar contender. But his stage work was running parallel and building serious credibility: his Broadway debut in Well (2005) was followed by Passing Strange (2008), and then the role that genuinely announced him to theater audiences — Mr. Bones in The Scottsboro Boys (2011), which earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Wikipedia). He reprised that role in the 2014 West End production and picked up a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical (Wikipedia). In 2018, he wrote the book for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical on Broadway (Wikipedia). Playwright, performer, director — he's been working all three angles for a long time. The television breakthrough came with Fear the Walking Dead, the AMC series where he played Victor Strand from 2015 through 2023 (Wikipedia). Eight years on one show is a commitment, and Strand — a morally slippery survivor who could flip from charming to ruthless inside a single scene — gave Domingo room to work with contradiction in ways that straight dramatic roles sometimes don't allow. Then came Ali on Euphoria, the recovering addict whose scenes with Zendaya's Rue in Season 2 are the kind of thing you don't forget quickly. That performance won him the Emmy in 2022 (Wikipedia). The film work has been accumulating steadily since Lincoln (2012). He's appeared in The Butler (2013), Selma (2014), If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020), Zola (2021), and The Color Purple (2023) — a list that reads like a survey of prestige Black American cinema across the last decade (Wikipedia). The consecutive Oscar nominations for Rustin and Sing Sing between 2024 and 2025 represent the current peak of that arc, though honestly, it feels less like a peak and more like a confirmation of something that was always there.