Best Of: Colman Domingo / Writer Leïla Slimani

**Tonya Mosley** (0:00)
From WHOY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tonya Mosley in Los Angeles. Today, Colman Domingo. He's nominated for two Emmy Awards this year for two very different roles. In the Netflix comedy, The Four Seasons, and in the final season of HBO's Euphoria. Also, we hear from French Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani. She writes from her dual perspective as biracial with members of her family representing countries of the colonized and the colonizer.
Plus, rock critic Ken Tucker looks back at the soundtrack of the 1976 film Sparkle, sung by Aretha Franklin.
That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tonya Mosley. My guest today, Colman Domingo, is nominated for two Emmy Awards this year for two very different performances. In the Netflix comedy, The Four Seasons, he plays Danny, one half of a long married couple who vacation each year with their oldest friends. Danny is funny, vain, impeccably dressed. And now in his 50s, confronting a question he thought he'd settled long ago, whether he wants to become a father. And in the final season of HBO's Euphoria, Domingo returns as Ali, a man in long-term recovery who has spent the series trying to help Rue, played by Zendaya, stay alive. Domingo won an Emmy for that role in 2022 And this year he's nominated again for his performance in the series finale. It's the latest chapter and a remarkable stretch for Domingo, whose rise in Hollywood came after decades in the theater. He started in regional productions in San Francisco, then moved to New York where he performed on Broadway, won an Obie, was nominated for a Tony and an Olivier, and wrote and directed his own plays. In his 40s, Hollywood caught up with him, and since then he's had a steady run of roles, an Emmy, and back-to-back Oscar nominations for the film Rustin and Sing Sing. Just this year, he played Joe Jackson in the biopic Michael, and had a role in Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day, and hosted Saturday Night Live in just last month, Jimmy Kimmel.

**Colman Domingo** (2:33)
Welcome to Jimmy Kimmel Live. I'm your guest host, Colman Domingo.
I'm so happy to be here with all of you. We're going to have some fun this week. Just think of me as Jimmy if he had better clothes than Zendaya's phone number.

**Tonya Mosley** (2:52)
Colman Domingo, welcome back to Fresh Air.

**Colman Domingo** (2:54)
Thank you so much, Tonya. I appreciate it.

**Tonya Mosley** (2:56)
That was such a delight to see you on Jimmy Kimmel. Every summer, he has guest hosts who come in, and you were in the rotation. And you were in the rotation for just about a whole week.

**Colman Domingo** (3:05)
Yeah, for a whole week. And it was great. It was like the week of a lifetime. It was so much fun.
And I love that things are coming to me right now, like opportunities to do things I've never done before. Like, I've never hosted a late night show. But I love the idea of looking at myself the way someone else sees me. And if Jimmy thought that I could do it, I thought, well, let me try. But the first thing I do is I go into deep research. I went back and looked at old Jack Parr show.

**Tonya Mosley** (3:33)
Oh, you did.

**Colman Domingo** (3:34)
You went way in. Oh, yeah. Johnny Carson. I looked at the greats and I went to figure out how did they do it, and what was their style, and what would my style be?

**Tonya Mosley** (3:42)
Yeah. Well, congratulations on your Emmy nominations and on being able to host Jimmy Kimmel Live.

**Colman Domingo** (3:48)
Thank you.

**Tonya Mosley** (3:49)
The Four Seasons is such a fun watch, and it's about three couples, old friends who've vacationed together for decades, and what happens to the group when those marriages start to shift, which happens with everyone's relationship. This season, your character Danny, he's dealing with several issues within his own marriage, and he and his husband Claude have been talking about having a child, and Claude is, he's basically having second thoughts. And so I actually want to play a scene.
In this scene, Danny has just come from one of those conversations with his partner, and he's confiding in his best friend Kate, played by Tina Fey, while they look at a beach home that is for sale. Let's listen.

**Colman Domingo** (4:32)
Okay, 655 Ocean Lane.
I mean, the wallpaper is midwest funeral home, but the house! If we were smart, we would buy it and turn it into a bed and breakfast.

**Tonya Mosley** (4:47)
Oh, I'm in.