THE TRUE STORY BEHIND “SING SING”: INSIDE COLMAN DOMINGO AND FORMERLY INCARCERATED COSTARS’ POWERFUL NEW MOVIE (EXCLUSIVE)

The new movie ‘Sing Sing’ tells the real-life story of prison theater program Rehabilitation Through the Arts — with alumni playing themselves

Sing Sing is more than just a movie based on a remarkable true story. The film features actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves — or, more accurately, the people they were when they lived the story in the script.

Except for Oscar nominees Colman Domingo and Paul Raci, plus Sean San José, the cast of A24’s new drama (in theaters now) is made up of formerly incarcerated men. All have participated in the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), a theater program depicted in the movie that operates in maximum-security prisons, including New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

“There's this funny, beautiful hybrid imbalance that's kind of meta, but then there's narrative, it's real, but it's not real,” Domingo, 54, tells PEOPLE of the film’s quasi-documentarian approach. “We all wrestled with it together.”

Sing Sing dramatizes the development of a real RTA original, Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, a playful genre mashup that includes Egyptian royalty, Roman gladiators, cowboys and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. During its production, an unexpected friendship emerges between the wrongfully imprisoned John "Divine G" Whitfield (played by Domingo) and RTA newcomer Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin.

Like most of his fellow former prisoners on screen, Maclin, 58, plays himself — or, as he tells PEOPLE, a version of himself.

“I used a lot of instances that I witnessed during the course of my incarceration, behaviors that I saw,” says the previous Sing Sing inmate, who recreates his real-life portrayal of Hamlet from RTA’s 2005 production of Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code in the 2024 movie.

“You have this weird sort of transformation that happens when someone is playing themself, but kind of a version of themself, but also a character in a play,” explains Sing Sing director Greg Kwedar, who came from a documentary background but wanted to tell this story in narrative form.

He and his co-writer Clint Bentley began working on the film eight years ago when producing a documentary short took Kwedar inside a Kansas prison.

“It was my first time ever behind the walls,” he recalls. “There was a young man raising a rescue dog inside of his cell. It stopped me in my tracks because it completely upended all of my expectations of prison.”

Kwedar adds that the “healing that was happening in both directions” inspired him to research prison rehabilitation programs, leading him to RTA and many of its alumni.

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At the Sing Sing facility in 1996, RTA “started with a group of men that just wanted to have a voice,” recalls Sean “Dino” Johnson, a founding member and current board member of the org who also plays a version of himself in the film.

“I was an introvert. I wasn't an effective communicator at all. And being a part of the arts, it gave me vocabulary, it gave me a sense of understanding of other people,” he remembers. RTA “taught us how to work together, and we started learning from each other.”

Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez, whose wrongful imprisonment for almost 24 years garnered public support from the likes of Martin Sheen and Alfre Woodard and a presidential apology from Joe Biden, is another former Sing Sing inmate who participated in RTA productions and now stars in the movie.

“We're hoping that this film provides a pathway for healing for everyone,” he tells PEOPLE. “If we can do it on the biggest stage where people are really listening, then we're getting that message across.”

Domingo’s real-life counterpart, Whitfield, along with Maclin, served as creative consultants on the movie. Also on set was Raci's real-life inspiration Brent Buell, the thespian who put Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code together and has taught workshops at RTA for years.

“The gravity of the situation was always there,” recalls Raci, 76, of the team’s three weeks filming at an unused prison facility not far from Sing Sing. “We were not on a Hollywood set. We were in an actual place of incarceration. [But] it was a real feeling of love.”

Domingo, who produced Sing Sing with his husband Raúl Domingo, Kwedar, Bentley and others, agrees.

“There was so much love and grace and generosity [in collaborating],” he says. Yes, we have delineated roles as actor, director, writers, you name it, but we all really contributed to what it is.”

Is Sing Sing destined for awards season and is the Rustin star ready for another potential Oscar campaign?

“If that is what's on the horizon, I say, why not?” Domingo answers PEOPLE. “The more we amplify these stories, hopefully, this can make a change in the larger media.”

Maclin chimes in: “I know my brother is kind of modest and he wants it to be played down — we want all the awards. We want them all. We want everything.”

“Mic drop right there," adds Domingo, laughing.

Sing Sing is in theaters now.

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2024-08-02T17:48:33Z dg43tfdfdgfd