Colman Domingo felt “great weight and responsibility” on the film Rustin.
The actor plays civil rights activist Bayard Rustin — who helped Martin Luther King Jr. and others to organize the historic 1963 March on Washington — in the biopic and felt under pressure to bring the relatively unknown historic figure to life in the picture, which is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s company, Higher Ground.
“I thought it was such a travesty that we didn’t know anything about Bayard Rustin, his story and his influence on the Civil Rights Movement. Then the idea that someone like President Obama and Michelle Obama were making sure this story is told, there’s a great weight and responsibility,” Domingo said in a conversation with Jacob Elordi for Variety‘s “Actors on Actors” series.
“You want to do all you can to show a living, breathing soul, an ordinary human being trying to do something extraordinary. It’s my first leading role in a film. I wanted to do all that I could to get the nuances of his body, his voice and his mind, but also his soul,” Domingo said.
Elordi and Domingo have both featured in the TV series “Euphoria” and the “Saltburn” actor gushed about his colleague’s “transformation” to play Rustin.
“Your transformation was everything. Starting with your voice. There’s not many videos of him talking, but you nailed it,” Elordi said.
Read the full Variety “Actors on Actors” interview with Jacob Elordi and Colman Domingo here.
