Ex-con Clarence Maclin taps his early artistry for ‘Sing Sing’

At 58, Clarence Maclin might be new to the big screen, but the formerly incarcerated stage performer turned movie actor has spent decades honing his chops.

In director Greg Kwedar’s film “Sing Sing,” which Maclin co-wrote, he plays a character based on himself — which is not to say he plays himself, exactly. As Divine Eye, Maclin anchors the fact-based film as a gruff, standoffish inhabitant of the New York maximum-security prison, who finds a surprising calling through theater workshops and live performance. Oscar nominee Colman Domingo stars as playwright-performer Divine G, but the rest of the cast is primarily made up of fellow alums of the actual Rehabilitation Through the Arts program.

Eating ceviche on a sunny rooftop in West Hollywood, Maclin sees his delayed path to stardom as anything but inevitable.

Growing up in Mount Vernon, N.Y., Maclin had an artistic streak, developing his craft by sketching and painting portraits. But environmental pressures nudged him away from his creativity. “I wanted to be in with the in crowd,” he says. “So I kind of suppressed my artistic endeavors. I was playing dumb to hang out with the dummies. I became something unfamiliar to what I was supposed to be.”

He eventually landed behind bars, serving a 15-year sentence at Sing Sing. Through an unexpected encounter, Maclin discovered the RTA theater program. He was initially skeptical, viewing RTA as “something that brought civilians in so they could throw a pity party for the prisoners and then get a good night’s sleep or a tax break. I didn’t want to be part of that. I’m not a pitiful person.”

But an impromptu visit to one of the group’s performances changed everything. “I started recognizing individuals onstage,” he recalls, “men that I respected in prison. And I thought, if these dudes can get up on that stage, I respect it, as I don’t think they are pitiful people either.”

Maclin had to earn his stripes; he started out as a stagehand. “I didn’t come in as an actor,” he notes. “But then, one day, someone got in trouble and his role opened up. So, I was given the part. I didn’t have any lines. I’m up there just posturing, and I guess I must have postured really well, because the director gave me two lines. And that was it. I was hooked.”

In the years that followed, Maclin immersed himself in “Jitney” by August Wilson and Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex.” Shakespeare became his guiding light. “Shakespeare opened me up to theater hard,” he says, eyes lighting up. “We had to get the Shakespearean concordance to figure out what he’s saying. Because the way I learn, I can’t go past a sentence or phrase that I don’t understand. That concordance was like a bible for me.”

Maclin was released from Sing Sing in 2012. When Kwedar first approached him about the “Sing Sing” film, the actor was working at Lincoln Hall Boys’ Haven, a facility for at-risk youth. “I had gotten my bachelor’s degree in behavioral science while in prison,” he says, “and I wanted to use that to keep other people from going down the path I did. When I got out, I found that a lot of people glorified me for all the wrong reasons. And I needed to change that perception and do it right in front of them.”

It took several more years to get the project off the ground. Once filming commenced, across several correctional facilities, Maclin collaborated closely with his co-star Domingo. “One of the words he brought us was ‘tenderness,’” Maclin notes. “Even though, us as prisoners, we know what it means and we know how to express it, we rarely ever say it.”

During a recent screening at the San Quentin Film Festival, the first film festival held inside a prison, Maclin connected with like artistic minds. “Coming from the East Coast, we always heard that prisoners don’t watch prison movies,” he says. “But I found artists — painters, musicians. It’s got to be a universal thing in every prison. People who want to change their lives are going to be drawn to something that helps them do that.”

And now, on a press tour for “Sing Sing,” Maclin is eagerly engaging with the wider entertainment world. While attending the Academy Museum gala a few nights earlier, he posted starstruck selfies with Demi Moore, Kerry Washington and Kim Kardashian. Meeting such Hollywood luminaries as Sharon Stone and Tyler Perry, he’s struck by their genuine interest in his journey. “It’s just real conversation,” he says with a laugh. “And it’s crazy that it could go like that with these people. Because in my world, they’re a lot farther away.”

Maclin hopes to continue acting but has a clear vision for the kinds of projects he wants to pursue. “I would like to do movies that have a message and have some positivity and have some hope for people,” he says. “Even westerns … I want to do a western. However, I’m not trying to rewrite history. I’m not trying to say that things didn’t happen that did happen. I’m just saying, the movies that we make, whatever we create, should try to heal some of the things that happened before.”