The story of John “Divine G” Whitfield is brought to life in the new film, Sing Sing. Oscar nominee Colman Domingo (fresh off The Color Purple‘s success) stars as Whitfield alongside a cast comprised mainly of formerly incarcerated people, alumni of Sing Sing Prison’s “Rehabilitation Through the Arts” program. This unique casting decision is not a gimmick; it adds an extra layer of authenticity and empathy to the tale of how RTA is a life-changing program for people in the prison system.

Domingo’s co-star is Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, who plays a version of himself in the movie, which is partially based on his own experiences in the prison system. In the film, Clarence is intrigued by the prospect of acting on stage, but his tough guy persona and lifetime of toxic masculinity keep him from fully committing to the arts. In the end, Sing Sing is about Divine G and Divine Eye summoning their courage, embracing their vulnerability, and reaching out in an effort to form that rarest of masculine bonds: true friendship.

While promoting the theatrical release of Sing Sing, Colman Domingo and Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin sat down for an interview with Screen Rant. They spoke about building the film as a community in the same way as an RTA production is assembled, as well as the joy they take in subverting audience expectations about so-called “prison movies” and the reductive stereotypes and cliches that have defined the genre for decades.

Sing Sing’s Colman Domingo & Clarence Maclin Flip The “Prison Movie” On Its Head

Screen Rant: I’ve seen hundreds of movies and done hundreds of these interviews at this point in my career. And there’s been maybe two or three where I’m like, “This is something that people absolutely need to go and see.” It’s so human, it’s so real, and it’s so unlike anything else that’s out there, people need to see it because it will change their lives.

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin: Thank you. Thank you for getting it.

Clarence, tell me a little bit about what made you go, “Clint and Greg, they get it. They’re going to do this story right, I will work with them to make this movie.”

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin: Well, that was born out of a lot of conversations that we had. We had a lot of camaraderie and brotherhood that was built when we were doing Zoom meetings. And when Clint and Greg came out to New York to meet me, we hung out for a little while. We went out to eat. That was the building of the brotherhood and the testing of seeing each other.

As you know, coming from where I come from, the background I have, you know, I read people really well, and I believe I get it right most of the time. And when I saw those brothers and heard their conversations, seeing where they wanted to go, I heard the genuineness in them. In the past, we’ve had “experienced individuals” that come into the prison and they want to help the “poor prisoners,” like just so you can have a better night or something or write me off as tax write off or something. We already experienced that, and we didn’t feel that with Clint and Greg.

Colman, what made you go, “Yeah, I believe in this, and I will put everything I have behind it?”

Colman Domingo: It was an idea that they were actually trying to figure out, and they’d been trying to figure it out for years. And then they asked me and Clarence to come on board, so we can do these Zooms and we can start to shape these ideas that were important to all of us.

I say this because the way this has been built from the beginning is all of us, It wasn’t something that we jumped on board. It was something that was built from the experience of these men. And there was also inspiration from this Esquire magazine article that was done about this RTA program. That was pretty fantastic. And then it was about, how do we build it from the ground up as a community? So that’s why I have to, of course, correct, because this has been built from the very beginning as a community.

Everyone has such equal partnership in this, in the way it was made, what was important to us. Clarence and I would talk about what was important to the story. The gentlemen would come do some rewrites, bring them back, present. We’d talk about it, “Oh, that makes sense. This makes sense. This is cool. This is not.” And then we do it again and again and build this until we felt like, “Oh, this is what we want to say. This is what we want to say with this material and at this time.” And so that felt, and I would use my brother’s name here, that felt “Divine.” So we knew we were in a great place to make it in a unique way.

As I’m processing it through, that’s the way things are usually made. You jump on board and someone has more agency with your story and the way you tell it. It doesn’t really include you. It just takes what you can, what you can bring. It doesn’t take all of you. For this, it was required to bring all of us on board and say, these are your roles. You’re a producer. Clarence is also a producer. We’re actors in it and we all have equal stakes in it and the way we build it in every single way. So I jumped on board when I thought I love all of it and the way it’s going to be built, that way, and that we’re going to pour our heart and souls into it.

Exploring Art & The Human Soul In Sing Sing

There are a million prison movies out there, and there’s every stereotype and cliche. A few years ago I got to work with this professor, Nicole Fleetwood, who was writing a book, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, about artists who were incarcerated. Getting to hear those conversations and experience the humanity of these people on such an intimate level was so inspirational to me. On TV, they never have people in prison talk about themselves and their art that way.

Colman Domingo: Isn’t it funny? Because all those tropes, it always keeps people from seeing folks as human. It’s designed that way, so we don’t understand that folks have hopes, dreams, and aspirations and are trying to do better and who can go, “Oh, I can find tools that can actually help me work through this stuff.” And I’m sure my brother here can talk more about that lived experience.

But I think it’s interesting what we download and what we’ve been given. And I love that our film is working in this real slick, sly way. Because every time, I know, I see it on people’s faces. They’re like, Oh, here’s going to be the scene where he gets stabbed. Here comes a scene where this happens, but it’s transformed. I think everyone’s got to unpack their own unconscious bias about what they think they know about these human beings. Clarence, what do you have to say about that?

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin: I concur, sir. (Laughs) I believe that this definitely helps individuals realign themselves and re-see us and question how they got to those assumptions, how they got to that and who put them there because you never saw us do that. You only let somebody tell you that that’s our behavior or that’s, I want to say that I’m an individual who represents a lot of people that want to be seen as they are, and not how you portray them to be.

Especially since prisons are supposed to be rehabilitation centers, but the only rehabilitation that goes on is in these programs that need to be fought, kicking and screaming, to be funded. Prison is supposed to be for rehabilitation, but it’s punishment instead. I’m so glad this movie is about genuine rehabilitation and about these people who are willing to take that incredibly difficult first step.

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin: For me, the first step was, I had to get out of my own way. It wasn’t like I was worried about how other people think about me because I was already who I was, in the prison system. They already knew me. I don’t worry about what nobody thinks, but I had to get out my own way, I had to get out of my own head. I had to get away from my own perceptions of who I thought I was, who I thought I was supposed to be. Like, it was all right for me to be vulnerable. It’s all right for me to be sitting on a hill with this nerd, who you might think is a nerd, and I’m over here learning how to talk from him. It’s all right. I don’t care how you perceive that. You know what I mean?

I had to get to that and getting in this program helped me to identify that. The guys that I may walk past in the hallway every day and we never ever interact because I don’t think he’s on my level. I don’t think that he’s cool enough. You know what I’m saying? To put it that kind of way. But to be able to get past that and to see an individual as a human being… You don’t really have to be as tough as me. You don’t have to be everything I am to just be cool with me, bro. You know what I mean? For us to be all right, for us to come together and, and create something, you know, I think diversity is a beautiful thing. If everybody was Divine, that shit would be boring as f*ck, bro.

Colman, you’ve had an incredible trajectory as an actor, from Lincoln to Fear The Walking Dead. Go back to when you were a “Wee Lil’ Colman” wanting to act for the first time. Was there a barrier that you needed to bring down to do it? What made you want to do it?

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin:I’m glad you gave me that. “Wee Lil’ Colman,” I got him now.

Colman Doingo: Aw, are you gonna call me that from now on? Listen… I’ve had such a beautiful and still have a beautiful, uh, I’m going to say, “story,” as an actor. And at the center of it, I’ve always wanted to just be a part of things that made a difference in some way, that would make people think. I can play a villain. I can play a hero. I can play all different bits of humanity. In their center, they’re complex. It’s important to me because, as I represent black and brown men, I want to make sure that you see our complexity, even if the horrible people or good people, I think people are people, you know what I mean?

A lot of people don’t, sadly.

Colman Domingo: I think that keeps us polarized. That keeps us not thinking. It’s easy. It’s easy to villainize somebody and say it’s “Them” and “Us.” That’s our whole society. We’ve all got light and dark in us. I think my job as an artist, is to toe that line and bring us closer together in some way. Like my brother here just said, if we just sat and talked to somebody, we realize, we have more in common than we imagined, but we have to be willing.

And that’s the beauty of these programs. They bring people together and there’s a commitment that we all make in theater or building anything artistic, we make a commitment to each other that we’re going to jump off this ledge and there’s going to be a safe space for us and we’re going to be all right. I would tell that Wee Lil’ Colman to follow that as his North star and to trust it. It’s medicine that people don’t know they need, and I’d tell Wee Lil’ Colman, keep finding tricky ways to get people to take the medicine.

About Sing Sing

A theater troupe finds escape from the realities of incarceration through the creativity of putting on a play in this film based on a real-life rehabilitation program and featuring a cast that includes formerly incarcerated actors.

Check out our other Sing Sing interviews here:

• Greg Kwedar
• Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velasquez & Sean “Dino” Johnson
• Cast & Crew at SXSW