Colman Domingo Wins First Emmy Award For Euphoria

Talk about euphoric: Colman Domingo won his first Emmy for his guest role on HBO’s Euphoria. Domingo took home the trophy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Ali, the Narcotics Anonymous sponsor to Zendaya’s Rue, on the Sam Levinson-created series. “I love what Ali represents in the world,” Domingo said of his character following Sunday’s ceremony (via Deadline). “To see such a positive representation of an African American man who is complex, who has his own struggles, but he’s very human. He’s very much an ordinary guy trying to do some extraordinary things just by being kind and being generous and gentle, and having a wry sense of humor.” 

Also nominated in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series were Ozark‘s Tom Pelphrey and Succession stars Adrien Brody, James Cromwell, Arian Moayed, and Alexander Skarsgard. This marks Domingo’s first Emmy nomination and win. 

“Sam Levinson and I had some really deep conversations as of last weekend actually,” Colman said when asked about Euphoria Season 3, which was renewed at HBO Max in February. “He’s talking about the arcs of all the characters and what he wants to do to expand that, to actually re-examine at times. It’s an organism, and he wants it to keep shifting it in many ways, and I think he’s going to take some really big swings, actually, with Season 3.”

Domingo continued of showrunner and series creator Levinson, “He’s someone who, once there’s an expectation of the show, he wants to smash that expectation because he truly is a consummate artist, and he wants to make sure he’s telling some really compelling storytelling. And just because we had some successes before with this season, he said, ‘Let’s not rely on that. Let’s move forward. I’m going to go deeper with these characters. I’m going to really peel away the layers of them and just get to the human heart.’” 

The actor also stars as the complicated con man Victor Strand on AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead, which is currently filming its eighth season with a cast that includes Lennie James and Kim Dickens. Domingo has served as a producer on the Walking Dead spinoff series since Season 7 and has pitched his own Strand-centric show at AMC Networks.  

Euphoria is streaming on HBO Max.