Colman Domingofirst met Clarence Maclin on a Zoom call in 2022.
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.
Colman Domingo in ‘Sing Sing.‘A24/Everett Collection
Now, after a slow build, it is a buzzy Oscar contender.
Domingo plays John Whitfield, A.K.A.
when he was working on a documentary in another New York state penitentiary, Green Haven.
Director Greg Kwedar and Colman Domingo on theSing Singset.Phyllis Kwedar/A24/Everett Collection
The organization had been helping prisoners put on plays since 1996.
It seemed to work the recidivism rate for R.T.A.
There was something about the playfulness of the work juxtaposed against its environment, Kwedar says.
The joy of the process that just leapt off the page.
I wanted to experience some of that joy myself.
He contacted Buell, who had stayed in touch with many of the oldSing Singgang.
Buell invited Kwedar and Bentley to meet them over breakfast.
Around that table, there was just a special energy, says Kwedar.
Just the camaraderie, the New York accents, the humor, the deeper vulnerability.
He started working with the R.T.A.
himself as an acting teacher; meanwhile, he and Bentley labored over the writing.
For years, it wasnt working.
What they should have done, they realized, was work the same way the theater group did.
We needed to open up our writing process, says Kwedar.
It couldnt be so traditional.
Because we were making a movie about a community, and so our process needed to embrace that mindset.
And immediately it was alive on the page in a way it just never had been before.
TheSing Singcast includes 13 former prisoners and three professional actors.
Everyone, including all the crew, were paid the same.
He wanted all of it the flat payscale, the mix of professionals and R.T.A.
They really asked for everything of me, and I gave it all, says Domingo.
And because Im with those men, I thought I cant just put on a performance.
I have to bring a bit more of myself.
Above all, he brought the positivity that illuminates Divine Gs sad story.
The parole board rejected his appeals repeatedly but, as the film shows, he never gave up trying.
There were dark years.
When I learned that about him, I thought, Oh, I understand that man.
I understand himdeeply, says Domingo.
And thats the part of myself that I brought to this film.
What happens when things are hopeless or dire?
Ive had those moments where I didnt have money, or success.
I guess the answer that you should probably sort out in your soul is: what keeps you going?
And I kept going because of faith, believing that there was something forme.
He never interviewed the former prisoners or asked direct questions.
Instead of interrogating them about their experience, I just said, Lets sit and have lunch.
Neither of them seesSing Singas a prison movie.
For Domingo,Sing Singis about the redemptive power of making art.
They shot the film primarily in a prison that had only been decommissioned two weeks before they moved in.
Every time we had a break, I needed to go outside.
People might reasonably expect the film to be gloomy.
And its really funny.
Kwedar says simply that he cant believe how far they have come.
When Sing Singhad its premiere in Toronto, A24 snapped it up the same week.
After that… silence.
And then we came back at SXSW, and it was almost more overwhelming.
They screened it in San Quentin.
And now its in the Oscar race.
