Greg Kwedar on Sing Sing, Colman Domingo and the RTA
I recently attended a Q&A with Greg Kwedar, the co-writer and director of Sing Sing, at Picturehouse Central in London and he shared a lot of interesting insights into the filmmaking process.
Sing Sing is set inside the maximum-security prison of the same name and tells the story of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) programme, where a group of inmates put on a show inside the facility. More than 85% of the cast were formerly incarcerated and had been in RTA during their time in prison. The narrative revolves around RTA veteran John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield (Colman Domingo) and newcomer Clarence ‘Divine Eye’ Maclin (as himself).
During the Q&A, Kwedar explained that he was inspired to make his movie after coming across a 2005 Esquire article about the RTA production depicted in the film:
“I reached out to the journalist that night, I also reached out to the real Brent Buell, who wrote that play, and I got on the phone with him really quickly afterwards and he was like, ‘If you want to really understand what this is all about, you need to meet the men who really lived it. Come to New York, come to breakfast at my apartment.’ Around that breakfast table, the real Divine Eye came through the door, the real Divine G came through the door and several other men who are in this movie. And it was just the energy around that table, the warmth, the care,” he remembered. “We were just like, if we could just transmit how that room feels to the screen, we have something special. It took a really long time to finally find our way to that… It needed to work in the same community-driven way (as RTA) that was so giving and magical for everybody involved so we needed to open the circle up and invite the men themselves into the storytelling with us and once we did, we finally found our way.”
Kwedar said he was immediately aware of the talent around that breakfast table so he wanted to cast the alumni in his movie as they had an innate understanding, lived experience and an emotional vulnerability. Particularly with Maclin, Kwedar considered him “a movie star” with “charisma and real depth” and asked him to play himself six years later once he cracked the story and decided to focus on Divine G and Divine Eye’s friendship.
“I remember calling him being like, ‘So do you want to play Divine Eye in the movie?’ (and he said,) ‘Was there anyone else? Of course, I am,'” he jokingly recalled. “We were aware and sensitive, having become a friend to him in the place that he is now, that (we were) asking him to revisit an earlier place in his life where he got respect through fear versus respect that he then found as an artist later than in life. Yet, he would also always say that the purpose was greater than the discomfort.”
When Kwedar wrote a quick 10-minute treatment for the film, he wrote, “Colman Domingo as Divine G” at the bottom of the page because he felt “there was really no one else that could’ve played that part”. He hopped on a Zoom to discuss the project with Domingo a few months later, before they had a script or funding, and the Oscar nominee accepted the role because he felt he would be able to teach people something.
“He is more raw than he’s ever been in a role and he attributes that with this exchange that was happening with the alumni he was acting opposite,” Kwedar praised. “He’s at the height of his powers right now and he could come in and use that as some sort of leverage over us and draw all the attention to himself but somehow he was able to command the screen but also ensure that the people around him could shine. That generosity is very rare.”
The exteriors were filmed at Sing Sing itself while the interiors were shot at a recently closed nearby prison called Downstate, where the entirety of the alumni cast had been incarcerated at one point in their lives.
I’m a big fan of Sing Sing, which is a beautiful, profound film that encourages you to see prison life from a new perspective. You can read my review here.
Sing Sing is in cinemas from Friday 30th August