Will Colman Domingo (‘Rustin’) make history at the Oscars? He’d be a rare queer actor nominated for a queer role

The Oscars love films that tackle social issues, but when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community, voters still generally seem to prefer that those stories be told without members of the LGBTQIA+ community at the forefront. That’s why it would be historic if Colman Domingo is nominated for or wins Best Actor for his role in this fall’s “Rustin.” He would be one of the few openly queer performers to be nominated for playing a queer role.

It was a big deal when Stephanie Hsu earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” this past year. She identifies as queer, and so does her character in the film, who struggles because her mother (Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh) has yet to accept her identity. That made Hsu the first out queer actor nominated for an explicitly queer role since Ian McKellen in “Gods and Monsters” (1998) — a 24-year drought.

Now consider all the Oscars that have gone to queer roles played by actors who haven’t identified as members of the community, from William Hurt (“Kiss of the Spider Woman”) to Jared Leto (“Dallas Buyers Club”) to Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”), who won Best Actor the same night Hsu was nominated for “Everything Everywhere.” And that doesn’t count all the actors who were nominated but didn’t win, like Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (“Brokeback Mountain”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Imitation Game” and “The Power of the Dog”) and Cate Blanchett (“Tár”).

This is not to presume the private identities of the above actors (the outing of “Heartstopper” star Kit Connor illustrated the dangers of that). And it’s not to suggest that presumed-cishet actors shouldn’t be allowed to play queer roles (that’s a discussion for another day). But it does illustrate that out queer performers are still marginalized in Hollywood, such that they rarely get the opportunities or awards that so often go to performers widely believed to be straight and cisgender.

Now comes the openly gay Domingo playing Bayard Rustin, who himself was marginalized in the civil rights movement he helped lead because he was gay. “Rustin” premiered on August 31 at the Telluride Film Festival where Domingo’s performance was described as “charismatic,” “thrilling” and “tremendous.” As of this writing he ranks third in the race for Best Actor based on the combined predictions of thousands of Gold Derby users, trailing Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”) and Leonardo DiCaprio (“Killers of the Flower Moon”).

Do you agree that Domingo will be nominated? Could he even make history as the first out actor to win Best Actor for playing a queer character? Make or update your predictions here in our predictions center.

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