Colman Domingo’s performance as the titular lead character in George C. Wolfe’s Rustin is fully transformative. It’s not just the sartorial choices, hairstyle and the glasses, and it’s not even the fake teeth or the unique dialect. His whole being becomes civil rights hero Bayard Rustin, in his appearance and his bold physicality. It’s a remarkable thing to witness, and in crafting his turn, it was a vital piece of the puzzle for the actor.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Colman Domingo last month during the virtual press day for Rustin, and I made a point of highlighting the special way that he disappears into the role. As Domingo explained, it was a part of the performance that was particularly important for him, as he views the man’s outward appearance and expressions as extensions of who he was as a person and what he stood for. Breaking it down, Domingo told me,
It did take a lot of work to just really work and find the nuance of the character. I didn't want to mimic who he was, but he was a character who sort of lived with a lot of size. You know, he spoke in this [voice] like three octaves higher than I do in this Mid-Atlantic standard accent that he sort of made up himself. You know, his teeth were knocked out by a police brutality incident years before. But he still, any images I saw, it wasn't like he was trying to hide it.
As portrayed in the impressive new period film, Bayard Rustin was a key player in the American Civil Rights Movement – as he is even credited with sharing the philosophy of nonviolent resistance with Martin Luther King Jr. As a gay man who had ties to the communist party and was viewed as a controversial figure in the eyes of the NAACP, Rustin is a man you may not have learned about in school, but he played a vital role in organizing the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
When Colman Domingo looked at images of the man during his preparation and saw him regularly showing off his broken smile, he gained a special understanding of him:
He smiled with reckless abandon, with joy, pure joy. And also it was a badge of honor. He was like, you know, this is what happened to me. I'm gonna show you the ills of our civilization and how I still fight against it. I'm still gonna have joy. That's what I took it as.
Seeing the way that Bayard Rustin broadly smiled was one thing, but another was recognizing how the man held himself. In studying the historical figure, Colman Domingo saw that he would frequently keep his arms spread out wide, which he psychoanalyzed as an act of rebellion. While society may have rejected many aspects of who Rustin was, he was insistent in making his presence known and his occupied space recognized. Domingo continued.
As an actor, I've always built my characters with images and make sure they have a physical life that is true to them, that may not be of my own, the way they move through space. I love the fact that I saw images of him holding his arms wide open. The idea for a Black man, Black Quaker man from Westchester, Pennsylvania to stand in a room with open arms, I think was an act of defiance.
When you watch Colman Domingo’s performance in Rustin, pay special attention to the way he occupies any room he is in. His personality is outsized, and his physical mannerisms are perfect representations of that.
It was important for Domingo to not let Bayard Rustin be seen as some kind of caricature, which could have easily happened by going so big, but he masters the nuances of the man in a way to make it all grounded and real. He concluded,
I thought that I want to make sure that when he speaks, his arms are open wide. He moves in spaces and takes up space in rooms that were never trying to allow him to have space. So I think that's the way I constructed the character. And I knew that I wanted to make sure that he was whole and full so people can actually see a real person. And hopefully I infuse at least some of my soul into Bayard as well.
If you have a Netflix subscription and are using the coming weeks to catch up with all the great movies that have been released in 2023, be sure to do yourself a favor and add Rustin to your watchlist. You’ll not only witness a terrific performance from Colman Domingo, but learn remarkable things about a hidden figure in the Civil Rights Movement.
