Colman Domingo is a cable news pundit who becomes the center of a racial and political conspiracy in the new Netflix thriller series The Madness.
Blavity’s Shadow and Act talked with Domingo about his character, Muncie Daniels, and what he learns as he fights for his life while uncovering a white supremacist deep state.
“I think Muncie is one of the most complicated characters that I was offered in a while–someone who sort of sits in a very comfortable position as being a CNN reporter, [a] pundit and a college professor who is well to do and his life basically gets blown up,” Domingo told us. “He’s got to rethink his life and think and his place in it as he’s being perceived as a criminal and an outlaw and eventually a vigilante. So I think that it’s doing a deeper dive examining this black man in America, stripping him away from all these things that sort of separated him from communities and sort of created his own bubble.”
Colman Domingo on Muncie Daniels in ‘The Madness’
The actor continued, “Now he’s got to do some deep thinking about the world that he lives in and who actually are his allies when quote unquote, the s**t hits the fan. I liked that journey for him. It was also a great challenge. I’ve never put myself in the true, psychological thriller space, which would give me some new, beautiful challenges when it comes to physically, I had to learn jujitsu for the show. I had to [learn] hand-to-hand combat, working with arms. So it was great [to learn] new challenges that I’m game for and I was ready for.”
Domingo said that the show has a great capacity to help people process today’s political and social landscape, especially after this year’s emotionally charged presidential election, an event people are still reeling from.
“I felt like this had something to say about the world that we live in, especially now when it comes to culture and disinformation, what we’re fed, who’s puppeteering all of this, and for what benefit, in keeping us divided instead of together,” he said. “So for me, the show raises a lot of questions about who we are, and especially now, a couple weeks after this last national election, everyone is reeling with a lot of questions and a lot of feelings. I think that our show can be, I don’t want to say a balm, but it can be a great invitation to think and rethink.”
Colman Domingo actually went to college for journalism
Domingo, who also went to school for journalism, talked about how the current 24/7 news cycle has made journalism less than truthful, depending more on opinion than on fact. He said that over the course of Muncie’s ordeal, he realizes that perhaps he wasn’t making the type of difference as a CNN pundit that he imagined he was.
“I think that Muncie started out as a journalist, but I think journalism has changed so much,” Domingo said. “Back when I was in school at Temple University and I was a journalism major, I thought news was news. [In] my news writing classes, it wasn’t about opinion. It wasn’t about coloring what the truth was. And so now Muncie is standing in a place [in which] it’s… not about news, actually, and he doesn’t realize it. I think that he believes he’s got a platform and whatever he says, it will affect change. He thinks he has a microphone now and this will do it and this will do the work and [the guest on his show played by Eisa Davis] says, ‘Yeah, but…who signs your checks and what narrative [are you] pushing out?’”
The impact of polarizing news
“You look at CNN, you look at Fox [News]. Both are polarizing in some way, shape or form. Both have opinions of what they want to espouse out into the world. You have NBC, PBS NewsHour and everything else,” Domingo continued. “I think what Eisa Davis’ character does so beautifully in that one scene, is she starts to raise questions, and those real complex questions that he may even have not touched on, but he may have possibly believed at some point in shape or form. Is he doing the right thing? He’s questioned, and it’s a crisis of faith, it’s a dark night of the soul, and he’s gotta go through the rabbit hole and go through this terror of being wrongfully convicted of a crime.”
He added, “But as he goes through that, I think it’s important for him to gain more tools that will help [him] really make a shift in his own life. And eventually, as we know in the show, he disconnects from being part of the media circus. He finally realized, ‘I think I’m a part of it. Actually, I’m a part of the problem. I’m not a part of the solution. So, maybe by disconnecting, things can get a little bit better and I can figure out how purposeful I want to be when it comes to making change in the world.’”
The Madness comes is now streaming on Netflix
The post Colman Domingo Says His ‘The Madness’ Character Was ‘One Of The Most Complicated Characters That I Was Offered In A While’ appeared first on Blavity.
