Colman Domingo on his emotional prison drama “Sing Sing” and its arts rehabilitation program

The Oscar nominee previews his upcoming drama, which was filmed at the real Sing Sing: "There's no acting that needs to be done when you're in a prison cell."

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Between filming The Color Purple and Rustin, Colman Domingo went to prison.

In his upcoming drama Sing Sing, the rare summer movie that will likely make audiences cry, the Emmy winner and Oscar nominee plays Divine G, a wrongfully imprisoned man who finds a form of escape and therapy through the prison's theater group. Based on a true story about the program Rehabilitation Through the Arts (a.k.a. RTA) at New York's Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Domingo stars alongside several formerly incarcerated men as they figure out and cast their next production. Divine G is often the lead of these plays, but a new inmate — played by Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin (formerly incarcerated at Sing Sing and part of RTA himself) — challenges G's place in this peaceful part of their world.

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Getting to portray Divine G — whom Domingo got to know in real life — was made all the more enticing, Domingo says, because of G's hopefulness about the system despite it being "an institution that's set to sort of break you down in a way."

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"I thought that was an interesting perspective — someone who was using their intelligence while they were in the inside to advocate for others, using their skills, not only for themselves but for others," he explains. G, he discovered, wanted to be a ballet dancer when he was a child but stopped because he was picked on. Domingo infused some of his performance with small flourishes — a pirouette here, musically playing with his fingers there — to honor the "artist [who's] still in there... it's not dead yet."

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During a few scenes, the audience gets to sit with the theater group, listening to them share aspects of their own stories — an important function of the script to help portray these men "as human and not in cages," Domingo says. "How do you distill down to a person's wants, needs, dreams, aspirations, and things that connect us all? It is not about the worst act that they may have done in their life. It's not about that. There's such a gentleness and a grace to the film that I think may be almost disarming in a way because I think you have people walking in with an expectation of what they're going to see or what they're going to feel... We painstakingly made sure that it was clear that we knew the container that they were in, but we knew what they were working through on the inside, in this program."

As for that container, the movie filmed in upstate New York at a couple of decommissioned prisons as well as a school, while exteriors were captured at the actual Sing Sing.

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"There's no acting that needs to be done when you're in a prison cell," Domingo admits. "The air is different in there because of its lack of airflow. I haven't gone in-depth in terms of how prisons are created or made, but everything about it makes you feel like you can't breathe. You can't catch a breeze. That's why we wanted to make sure with those moments where he could find a breeze and put his hand out the window, that was gold."

Sing Sing opens July 12 in limited release, expanding wide Aug. 2.

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