WATCH: Colman Domingo And Clarence Maclin On The Power Of Reliving The Past In ‘Sing Sing’ – Essence

“I wanted to show tenderness between Black and brown men,” Colman Domingo said of his latest project, A24’s prison-based drama Sing Sing. “I wanted to deconstruct what people think about us.”

Sing Sing tells the true story of incarcerated individuals taking part in Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), a theater program enacted in maximum security prisons that engages participants in scriptwriting, directing, and acting in original stage productions. 

More than your average film, from screenplay to script to screen, Sing Sing was developed in conjunction with some of the formerly incarcerated participants, even including performances from actors playing past versions of themselves. For Academy Award-nominated Domingo, it was an opportunity to flip the typical “prison narrative” on its ear, developing the story in real-time with the men who lived it.

“I didn’t have a script to read at first. There was just an article from Esquire Magazine,” Domingo revealed. “Meeting my brother John [Whitfield, aka “Divine G”], who I play a version of in many ways, I wanted download his heart, his humanity, these key things I started to understand about him.” 

John “Divine G” Whitfield’s lived experience lies at the center of the story. Wrongfully accused and imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, he finds new purpose and a different sense of freedom through the arts via the RTA program. As an executive producer and story writer on Sing Sing, he worked closely with Domingo and the other formerly incarcerated men featured in the film to form the story from scratch.

“We wrestled with text, we wrestled with how to do it, what stories were important to us, the underlying themes of the film and the arcs of it – every single part of that, we’ve been a part of creating. So it wasn’t like something was there. We actually have our fingerprints on it to make it,” Domingo says. 

For Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, who plays himself in the film, shooting the movie was quite a different experience. He had the unique task of playing a version of himself he has since evolved past, and the even more daunting task of willingly returning inside the walls of a prison – an experience he admits was initially difficult to wrap his head around.

To go back into that same mind state, put on the greens, and voluntarily go back inside a prison, all those things created a lot of apprehension for me. A little anxiety as well,” Maclin reveals. “But, the purpose of doing it is bigger than apprehension and anxiety. The reason I was doing it made more sense to me and made me play past all that and show up and give the best performance I could give.” 

“The obligation I have to the story and to the community that brothers like me return to after damaging it – to come back to the community with a mindset to repair it, help others, be a contributor, and be responsible now. That was the purpose of doing all that.”

Sing Sing is currently playing in limited release, and opens nationwide on August 16, 2024.