Colman Domingo reveals how he wasn’t cast in Boardwalk Emp i re just because of his skin tone. According to Variety , The Color Purple star told The New York Times that in 2014, when he was working on getting his screen career up and running, he was auditioning for what he called “under-fives,” roles that only give the actor between one to two lines of dialogue. One of those roles was for Boardwalk Empire . This particular role was one Domingo hoped would lead to bigger and better roles. The role was to play a maître d’ at a Black nightclub, and Domingo showed he was overqualified by singing and tap dancing during the audition. But when his agent called with feedback from the producers, he heard that even though the producers loved his audition, the agent said that the historical researcher for the show told producers that maître d’s in Black nightclubs were generally lighter-skinned. Therefore, the producers passed on Domingo. Domingo described how hard the news struck him. “That’s...