How Colman Domingo’s Late Mother Helped Him Bond with Oprah Winfrey: ‘It’s Magically Eerie’ (Exclusive)

Years before Colman Domingo and Oprah Winfrey became friends on the set of 'The Color Purple,' the actor's mother sent letters to the former talk show host

Colman Domingo had a connection with Oprah Winfrey long before they worked together.

In the new issue of PEOPLE, Domingo, 54, recalls how his mother Edith Bowles watched The Oprah Winfrey Show religiously and would write letters to the talk show host, 69, asking Winfrey to help her son, who was struggling to find work two decades ago.

“I was a very disgruntled unemployed actor working off- off-Broadway and bartending. And my mother said, ‘Well, you know, I wrote Oprah today.’ I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘Well, because I think she could help you.’”

Domingo was perplexed. “I said, ‘Help me do what?’ She said, ‘She just needs to see you and know you and know how fabulous and fantastic of an actor and writer you are, and get you on the show,’” he remembers.

“I'm like, ‘Mom, Oprah does not care about me. What are you talking about?’ And she said, ‘Oh, come on. You've got to play the game to win.’ And I thought, ‘Okay, whatever,’” he continues.

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All in all, Bowles, who passed away in 2006, wrote Winfrey around six times, according to Domingo. And while Winfrey admits she never received the letters among the thousands that poured in at the time, she says she received the “message.”

Winfrey and Domingo briefly worked together on the 2014 historical drama Selma, but it wasn’t until last year, after he was cast in the musical movie version of The Color Purple that Domingo shared the story about Bowles’ letters.

“I have so many relationships with mothers who have passed on and guided me to their children,” says Winfrey, who’s a producer on The Color Purple. “It's magically eerie, in a way.”

“Of all the choices that we had of actors, I was so pro-Colman, I couldn't even explain why,” continues Winfrey. He was up for the role of the charismatic but abusive Mister in the adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, and Winfrey was convinced he was the one who should play it.

“I was literally like, ‘I think it's Colman Domingo. I think it's Colman Domingo,’” continues Winfrey, who starred in the original 1985 film.

After Domingo confided in Winfrey the story about Bowles’ letters, Winfrey says she was initially “disappointed” that she never saw them herself.

“This is when we were in the days of real mail, snail mail. There were 10 people on staff to go through 10,000 letters a week,” says Winfrey. “The number of pieces of actual mail, you just can't even believe. It was just overwhelming.”

“I am sorry that Edith's letters never got to me because that would've been something I would've loved to have responded to, or at least to see who her son was,” continues Winfrey.

“So my first thing was, ‘Oh, I'm so disappointed that I never actually got the letters.’ And the second was, ‘Okay, I have seen this happen so many times before that when people pass on, they work it from the other side.’”

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“When mothers pass on, they are doing everything they can to work it from the other side,” she adds. “Somehow Edith didn't get the letter to me, but I got the message.”

From their work together on The Color Purple, a close friendship was born. “We’re family now, which is great,” says Domingo, who was a guest at a 50th birthday party Winfrey hosted in Hawaii for Selma director Ava DuVernay in 2022.

“We were just looking at the party and looking at everyone having a good time. She said, ‘Isn't it wonderful to give?’ That's why I know that she's been given so much because she has such a generous heart and a kind, kind heart,” says Domingo. “And I just love her. I just love her so much.”

The feeling is mutual. “Colman Domingo carries a light inside him that fully sees you. When you're with him, he is nowhere else,” says Winfrey. “He is 100% present and rooting for your greatest joy.”

The Color Purple is playing in theaters now.

For more on Colman Domingo, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE.

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Read the original article on People.