Created by Terence Winter (The Wolf of Wall Street, Vinyl), Boardwalk Empire is a drama series that premiered on HBO in 2010. The series ran for five seasons and ended in 2014. According to Variety, actor Colman Domingo spoke about his experience auditioning for the series, specifically the reason why he was not hired.
As Variety notes, Domingo spoke with The New York Times about his audition for the role of a maître d,’ specifically of a Black-owned club. The audition itself seemed to go well, and he was invited back for a callback audition. At the time, Domingo was struggling to break into the screen acting industry, but this role made him hopeful.
However, as Variety relays, his agent had called telling him that he was not hired for the role. The reason was that, after the audition, the producers were told that the role was more suitable for someone light-skinned as that was more common for historical maître d’s to be.
According to Variety, upon reflecting on this, Domingo stated, “That’s when I lost my mind.” Domingo told his agent, “I can’t take it anymore, I think this is going to kill me.”
This audition process was among the reasons why Domingo became an “offer-only” actor, which refers to actors who will pursue a role only after it is offered to them.
He explained this decision, stating, “I became an actor that was ‘offer-only’ probably sooner than the industry thought I should have, but I decided I have a body of work. You can go and look at it, you can ask other directors about me, and you can make me the offer or not.”
Colman is currently in two newly released films: Rustin and The Color Purple. In regards to the television industry, Colman won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role as Ali Muhammad in HBO’s Euphoria.