Colman Domingo Knew It Was Time for ‘Euphoria’ to Get Ali Out of the Diner: “We Already Did That”
[This story contains spoilers from Euphoria season 3, episode 7.]
Colman Domingo had only briefly appeared in Euphoria’s long-awaited third season over its first six episodes, but on Sunday night, the actor’s Emmy-winning portrayal of Ali, the recovering addict who’s acted as sponsor and mentor to Rue (Zendaya) since season one, took center stage like never before. The season’s penultimate episode, “Rain or Shine,” opened with a moving glimpse into Ali’s past, showing viewers, for the first time, the darker side he’s often alluded to. He’s shown getting high and cheating on his wife with a fellow junkie (played by Natasha Lyonne), then bringing an abusive temper back home.
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This leads into a key moment between Ali and Rue in the present, as he learns of her precarious situation trying to navigate her tenuous relationships with two rival drug gangs — and the DEA as an informant. She details her elaborate, life-or-death plan to Ali to escape the situation, which he listens in on nervously. Given the new context we get about the man, when he steps in to help, we understand it not only for the love he has for Rue, but also for how he believes he must operate in the world after causing so much pain and experiencing so much loss.
Now, with Ali also set to play a major role in next Sunday’s finale, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Domingo on tapping into Ali’s dark side, getting him out of the diner and what’s coming next.
How did Sam Levinson pitch Ali’s arc to you this season? When did you know we’d been getting this glimpse of his origin story?
From the very beginning, Sam has been so collaborative, not just laying out character and story, but really telling you what his ideas are for the character and the “why” and “why now.” This season was a great opportunity to really go into Ali’s backstory, to give you more context and understanding who he is and why he’s doing what he’s doing, why he’s been doing that for the past two seasons — and then how it propels us to the last episode of season, in a really big and dynamic way. I think that’s why he’s held off on Ali’s origin story for so long.
I love what he pitched. We get to see a little bit of some of the darkness that Ali says he can’t drop, but we never saw it, so now we get another layer — instead of just espousing [advice] like buddha at a diner, you get more context that I think humanizes him a bit more. Sometimes Sam will pitch you a bigger version of it, in a way — like a more extreme version of it. But then he’s such a smart editor, he edits himself down to just make sure that it’s honest.
What was it like tapping into the darker side, getting to show the non-diner-buddha version of Ali?
I knew that was part of his backstory, understanding that he was an addict and that he had come from a dark place of being abusive — just strung out. The idea of putting that into practice was actually really dynamic and exciting. Also, to go backwards and show Ali as a bit younger but more alive — we’ve never seen Ali outside of Rue. I like the idea of somebody putting him into other spaces we’ve never seen, where even his haircut gives us another time period, and with his wife and his two girls, you see where he came from. It doesn’t go deeply into, “Well, why did he start using?” because that’s not even necessary.
It’s obviously a pivotal moment for your characterization, now over three seasons. What was important for you to get across, within what Sam had written?
It wasn’t going to be this sad, what-made-me-a-junkie addict story. I wanted it to seem like he was enjoying himself, whatever that means. I don’t know what he’s carrying. I can say I always keep private stories of what I believe my character’s feeling when he’s under pressure. He probably just needs release. Some people go to drugs, some people do alcohol, some people have sex. And I love the idea that he’s so physical because you’ve never seen how physical he is. He’s trying to extract some demons from his body or something.
You’ve been friends with Natasha Lyonne for years, and here she plays Ali’s junkie buddy, essentially. How did that come together?
We met at the Zola premiere many years ago, became fast friends and Natasha has been angling to get a role in Euphoria for years. She would say, “Hey, Sam, you’ve got to write me in with Colman. We should do this.” It’s public information that my friend Natasha has had her own struggles with addiction, so I think that she was looking for an outlet to put that into good use. It’s a good service. The second she came up, Sam said, “That’s a brilliant idea to put us together for this conversation between two junkies.”
It’s liberating, yet sad, yet honest. That was what she was willing to offer as well. The blessing that I feel like I’ve had with the show is that Sam will populate the screen with people who actually have the lived experience. There’s an authenticity in the room, so therefore I can’t fake it or lie, I have to be really honest to the experience. I feel like that’s what Natasha offered me.
These are shorter scenes, but the chemistry between you is so strong — that leapt off the screen for me right away.
Natasha is my sister and she’s somebody who I love badly, and so we’re physical with each other — we’re loving, we’re playful. As performers, we’re very similar that way. We’re very open and we’ll go where our scene partner goes because it’s always an offering and we say yes. It’s funny because there’s of course being much more being filmed, and we’re being very physical with each other, having sex with each other [on screen] because we were comfortable with each other’s bodies. We had an intimacy coordinator, but we know that we’re like, “Oh, let’s explore where these two would go.” So we had fun with that. Then it got edited down to what’s necessary.
Toward the episode’s midpoint you have a long, emotional scene with Zendaya as Ali comes to terms with Rue’s predicament. Given what you were saying about Natasha, what was it like getting deep with Zendaya there, with the three seasons of history between you?
I knew for sure that I was hoping that Ali wouldn’t just be in a diner sounding like a bumper sticker. I was really happy. I said, “We already did that.” Instead of big brother-little sister, this felt more like surrogate father-daughter. They were both providing a need. She doesn’t have a father. I don’t have my daughters. We were really slipping into that. He said, “Just be honest with me and I can handle anything,” but that’s his ask: Just be honest. So when she doesn’t, it’s sort of a violation.
I love working with Zendaya because she’s one of the most generous scene partners, but we don’t do a lot of talking going over the day or anything like that. We just strap in. We’ve done our own work and we show up and we listen and respond to each other. I think in a way, that’s sort of the thesis of the show. I’m always telling people if they’re afraid it’s a little too salacious, like, “Go to the episodes that are slower. It’ll give you some grounding to let you handle everything else to know what it’s all about.” I love that they’re having these deeper conversations about faith. It’s kind of Biblical; there’s a lot of references to the Bible throughout. It almost feels like Sam’s writing his own testament to our faith and our curiosity of what’s bigger than ourselves.
I spoke with Sam last month, and he’s spoken about how his experiences with grief and death, related to the show and beyond the show, really informed this season. I was fascinated by the way Ali took up that space in this episode: He has that comment to Rue about her contributing to the fentanyl crisis, and he has his notebook where he writes down the names of all of his fellow recovering addicts who don’t make it. Did you feel that weight?
That’s why this season has undergone such retooling as it was being created — because there was death all around us. We kept losing people. I know Sam had to lean into that because that’s where his heart was. Knowing that we’re always losing people as we move forward, the idea of someone like Ali carrying — he’s like, “I’m putting people down. I’m investing in having hope and faith in people.” But he keeps losing, yet he gets up. He buries another woman, he buries another man, but he still has hope, faith, because that’s all he has. That’s what we’re saying: You’ve got to hold on.
With the way he looks at Rue, as he’s deciding how to involve himself in what she’s mired in, to what degree is there a desire to just keep her alive?
I think by keeping her alive, it’s keeping him alive. As we know now, he’s lost so many young people, and he’s hanging on. He really believes in this one. He said, “I can make a difference with this one.” So ultimately, yes, it is an act of generosity, but it’s also very selfish too — to keep himself alive. That’s part of his path to protection for himself. Maybe he’s a better father, maybe a better husband, maybe a better human — he feels like he’s been so ugly in the world, so I think it’s like he’s got to put that back into Rue. I don’t know if that’s fair or not, but that was when he decided he sees the beauty in her, he sees the grace in her. He’s like, “If I can give you some help, support some honesty, some reflection, perhaps you can extend grace to yourself and that grace would spread in the world.”
Have you been watching the show week to week? How have you found it?
I have. I’ve always thought that the show should have dropped all at once because I think that it’s hard to contextualize the entire arc, just getting the piecemeal of an hour a week, because there’s such great themes. Sydney [Sweeney]’s storyline, Jacob [Elordi], Maude [Apatow] — and then we want to see how it all ties together. We have new characters. It’s very much an epic. I feel like it’s cinema; Sam’s not even making television. He’s making a film. You can’t tell me it’s not cinema.
He said he wanted to just show it in theaters and unfortunately couldn’t do it. But that was his goal.
I mean, man, the lenses, the staging — he’s making a Western. I think Sam will be one of those artists that are regarded many years later, where his work will be looked at and people will see how brilliant he was. It’s textbook: When we’re looking for questions, our morality, Westerns are very clear. There’s good guys, there’s bad guys, there’s a sheriff that’s going to come in and save the day. It’s a pretty simple equation. But that’s also a very American conceit, kind of story. It is a reflection of where we are right now, what young people value. I mean, Sydney’s storyline can be looked at in many ways, but I feel like it’s really about finding power in the way people see you. It’s meta in a way too. I’m like, “Wow, this is very meta. It’s like a play on a play on a play.” There’s an awareness to it and there’s an awareness that every actor has with this.
It’s about all of us, and I think that’s what Sam has always been trying to do is just tell the story. It’s about all of us. We think it’s just about addicts in the beginning but it’s not. It’s really about: What are we all addicted to? What do we want? What do we need? What happens when we don’t get it? And what will we become until we do some deep closer examination?
You teased the finale and Ali’s role in it. What should we be looking out for?
It’s going to smack people in the face. You don’t see it coming, but the groundwork has been laid. It’s been laid for seasons. The characters are all at such a heightened state right now. I’ll just say: It can only go one way.
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