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Colman Domingo has shared his delight at becoming a heartthrob in his fifties, thanks to the hit HBO drama Euphoria.
The actor plays Rue’s (Zendaya) sponsor Ali in the show, which airs on Sky Atlantic in the UK.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s The Spotlight with Jessica Shaw about the fact that a younger audience members know him from the show – which follows high school students as they struggle with drugs, falling in love and their identities – Domingo said it was “really kind of incredible”.
He added: “They’re like, ‘Oh my god, Ali!’ And usually what’s so sweet, they look at me and they want me to be their big brother, their father figure, their counsellor or something.”
But he’s also had some encounters with fans that have given him the impression he’s a “heartthrob”. “I was literally driving down the 405 in LA and a group of young girls kept looking at me and my husband was like, ‘Those girls are looking at you. Is something wrong?’” Domingo said.
“They kept looking and then eventually, I waved, and then I literally heard [screams]. So I’m a 54-year-old heartthrob as well.”
Laughing, he added: “It’s happened. I never knew it would happen, but it’s happened at the ripe old age of 54. Listen, as long as it happened at some point in my life, right?”
The actor met his husband, Raúl Domingo, in 2005 and they married nine years later, in 2014. Earlier this year, Domingo shared a story about how he met his husband in a chance encounter at his local Walgreens in California.
They didn’t speak inside the shop, but were reunited after Raúl posted a Missed Connections listing on the website. “I jumped up, I was like, are you kidding me? That’s me,” Domingo said of his reaction.
Domingo had a high profile long before starring in Euphoria, and he has appeared in the movies Lincoln, Selma, If Beale Street Could Talk, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and The Color Purple. His portrayal of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in the 2023 Netflix film Rustin earned him an Oscar nomination.
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He is also set to appear in the forthcoming Michael Jackson biopic Michael as the singer’s father, and in a Nat King Cole biopic that he is directing himself.
Euphoria will finally return for season three in 2025, with the new episodes expected to be set a few years in the future when the characters have left high school.
Many of the cast’s careers skyrocketed after the show – including Sydney Sweeney’s and Jacob Elordi’s – so scheduling issues have been partly why the next series of Sam Levinson’s show has been pushed back.
The delay of Euphoria’s third season was also inevitable due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, while further complications arose following the death of actor Angus Cloud, who played Fezco in the show.
