'Sweet Angel' – How 'Euphoria's' Colman Domingo Met His Husband Raúl

In 2005, "Euphoria's" Colman Domingo was a struggling actor appearing in a play about the Jonestown Massacre at a theater in Berkeley, California. On a break, he went into a Walgreen's. "That's when he saw Raúl: long dark hair, a lip piercing, and 'these eyes,'" Colman told GQ in a Zoom interview. Colman immediately terminated a call he was on and locked stares with Raúl, who was "arm in arm with an irritated woman who was dragging him out of the Walgreens. Colman tried to wave him back but was unsuccessful."

Raúl was equally impressed, so much so that the next day he went to the Internet to locate Colman, going to Missed Connections on Craigslist and writing: "I saw you outside of Walgreens in Berkeley..." A few days later, Colman was searching Craigslist for a used iPod Touch and checked out Missed Connections. "I literally jumped out of my chair when I saw the post," Colman told GQ. And he responded with, "To the sweet angel with the most arresting eyes..."

They went on a date, slept together and have been with each other ever since. On the first time they slept together, Coleman, thinking Raúl was sleeping, he reached over and whispered, "I think I love you."

He recently celebrated their relationship with a sweet Instagram:

Today, Colman sees how serendipitous there meeting was, especially since being 11 years Raúl's senior, he would have likely swiped past him on a dating app. "It is magical," Colman explained to GQ, "the imperfections or the off-roading and things like that. It's supposed to be like this. You never know what you're supposed to get."

Nine years later, they married "in a small, casual ceremony disguised as a house party. They invited 25 people over and greeted each one by saying, 'Welcome to our wedding,'" adds GQ.

And while his romance blossomed, so did his career. On stage he mixed numerous Shakespeare roles with more contemporary plays and musicals, receiving Tony and Olivier nominations for the Kander and Ebb musical "The Scottsboro Boys." As a working actor, he did his share of "Law & Orders" until getting his breakout role in "Fear the Walking Dead" in 2015, where he plays a mysterious character named Strand.

On film he has been seen in such prestigious fare as "Lincoln," "The Butler," and "Selma." More recently he can be seen sparring with Chadwick Boseman in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and as Zendaya's Narcotics Anonymous sponsor on HBO's "Euphoria." And on the Logo show "The Big Gay Sketch Show," in which he appeared for three seasons, he got to play both RuPaul and Maya Angelou.

But his career didn't stop with acting. On stage, he has directed classic plays by Eugene Ionesco and August Wilson, provocative new plays ("Single Black Female") and musicals ("Once on this Island"). He is also an accomplished playwright with a series of original plays produced by theater companies throughout the country, as well as co-writing the libretto for "SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical."

His multi-faceted career has even surprised him. "No one through elementary school to high school would have thought that I would have the career I have," he told Interview Magazine. "I was nerdy. I wore my sister's hand-me-down PRO-Keds. I was a pimply-faced geek. I was always doing the school newspaper and I had this little camera around my neck all of the time. I was a photojournalism major [in college]. I've always thought I was a voyeur; I wasn't someone that was going to be on the screen or on the stage. I was not in high school musicals or plays or anything like that. I was watching. But I guess that's been my journey, watching human behavior, because that's what we do."

Nor has Colman been shy about being gay, and feels being open about his sexuality has paid off. "I didn't want to put on an act of what I thought was heterosexual. I just wanted to be myself, and I'm very grateful because I feel like I've been embraced for that," he told The Advocate in 2010.

As for his name, he admitted to Interview that it often surprises people. They "constantly think I made it name up. I don't think I'm smart enough to create a name like that. It's just so outrageous. Especially being here in Mexico now shooting 'Fear the Walking Dead,' people are confused. They're like, 'Where does Domingo come from? Clearly you don't speak Spanish and you're black...' There are a lot of complications with that, people! My father's from Belize and his family is from Guatemala. My friend Robert O'Hara is a playwright, and his joke is that when people say 'Oh, where do you get a last name like O'Hara?' he'll just say, 'Slavery.' [laughs].