Sophia Soto
Euphoria has officially come to an end, with Colman Domingo’s Ali playing a pivotal role in the story’s conclusion by avenging Rue’s (Zendaya) tragic death and giving audiences some much-needed sense of justice as we say goodbye.
Back in 2022, his work in the second season won him the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series. At the time he spoke to Joey here about the joys of being an actor (and here about Rustin). Now, he is nominated in the same category once again for his amazing performance in the third season.
“This role has been a role of a lifetime, truly. It’s those roles that don’t come along often, but when they do, when someone tailor-makes a role for you and/or even for you to do things you didn’t even know you could do, that’s written by Sam Levinson. He created an arc of work for me that was outstanding for any actor. The idea that I get to play sort of the conscious of the show and the oracle in many ways, and then to deliver intimate conversations about truth and about the disease of addiction, to have an impact on people — I’ve gotten so many letters and DMs, you name it, of how episodes have changed their lives, or how they wish they had an Ali in their lives, or they rethought the way they thought about their parent who was suffering or a child.”
He continued to express, “I know it’s impacted people in an extraordinary way, and we really do hope, I think most artists do hope, that you can not just entertain but have an effect on people. I’m not a doctor, I’m not marching in the streets, but I feel like my work and my activism work is through my artist’s work, and it feels like I was given a microphone to really be a healer in many ways for people.”
In episode seven, we finally get more insight into the character’s origins, including how after every loss, Ali writes down their name and the date as a reminder of how the journey of addiction often ends.
“I think it was compounded in a way of just knowing that he was constantly investing in people and young people, and losing. Yet in the wear and tear wasn’t, I think probably in the beginning, I’m sure it was emotional, but then it just became sort of deadening for him in a way. It’s something that he’s doing, but writing their names down in remembrance so he can remember as well,” Domingo explained. “For me, to make it honest as well, some names that I wrote down there are people that I know have suffered from the disease of addiction. So there’s a couple — there’s one key name that’s in there. It’s a colleague of mine who’s still living, but I put his name in the book because that could have been his story as well. And so, those little things, those little Easter eggs, are the things that make it real and connect you to it.”
Unfortunately, Ali has to add another name to that book in the series finale: Rue. The last two episodes show just how much she meant to him, with Ali even telling Rue that he would do anything for her right before she died.
“It sort of puts a fine point and underlines the fact that in his heart and in his mind, he cares about her as his own daughter. That’s where I think we see that they [have] become surrogate father-daughters to each other, you know what I mean? One is lacking a father; the other is lacking the love of his two daughters. And so, they’ve come together. So, for me, that’s where it helps justify that line at the end when he says, ‘My daughter was here, my daughter Ruby.’ It’s quite beautiful. He’s like, I consider her my daughter, and I loved her as my daughter. So, for me, that’s a beautiful fine point that needed to be underlined before Ali went on, because once Rue goes away, simply, Ali has to, at first, he’s untethered. He doesn’t know where he is in the world, and that’s a struggle, and I wanted that to be as honest as possible.”
As for what Ali did during that month after losing Rue, he shared, “I think he just walked the streets trying to find humanity, life, and love, or a flower, a smile, or something to hold on to. And then, he went to the bottle. And later, he went to a meeting. He realized that he needed to unpack all that he’s learned and all that he’s been espousing for the three seasons. He decides to turn it on its head and say, ‘That’s not working for me anymore. I thought one thing, and now it’s something else,’ because he has evolved. In the framework of what Sam has created, which is this American Western, in Westerns there’s only good and bad. And Ali decided, he said, I’m a good man and I need to take out the bad. That’s it.”
Watch Awards Radar’s full video interview with the actor below, where we talk about how the show has left its mark on him, Ali’s bigger purpose, diving into his backstory, the overall theme of faith, and much more.
All episodes of Euphoria are streaming on HBO Max.
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