Clarence Maclin is the only person who could have ever played his role in the movie Sing Sing. And that’s because he’s the only person to ever literally walk in that character’s footsteps.

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Sing Sing, which A24 released in July after premiering it at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, is set in the New York penitentiary of the same name and follows a group of incarcerated men who participate in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program, which creates stage shows that are performed inside the prison. The movie stars Colman Domingo as John “Divine G” Whitfield, a character who is passionate about the program’s acting work and who takes a hardened prison newcomer—named Clarence Maclin—under his wing.

Filmmakers Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley first heard about the RTA program through an article in Esquire, and approached those involved about adapting the story into a film. By that time, Maclin, who served a 17-year stint at Sing Sing for robbery, was out and working with RTA as a consultant, along with being a youth counselor at Lincoln Hall in Somers, New York. He tells Little Gold Men that this wasn’t the first time his cohort had been approached about adapting their story for the screen.

“There was always a little apprehension, because first and foremost our intention is to maintain the integrity of the program at all costs,” he says. “We don’t want our stories to be twisted or twirled into something that’s taken far away from what we do or what we represent.”

Maclin says that the filmmakers actually won his trust through conversations that had nothing to do with the movie. “It more had to do with just chopping it up and seeing who you are and who I am. And seeing how we interact with one another, our ideals of how we see the world, how do they compare.”

He trusted them enough to agree to put his prison uniform back on, step behind the walls of a prison, and revisit the man he used to be—all for the purpose of putting a spotlight on the acting program that changed his life.

As Maclin tells Little Gold Men (listen below), his professional acting debut taught him how to perform for cameras instead of the stage, revealed a new side of him to his friends and family, and allowed him to set his sights on another genre he’d love to try next.

Vanity Fair: Like your character in the film, you stumbled onto Rehabilitation Through the Arts. How did that happen?

Clarence Maclin: I was coming down to the chapel to deal with some business that I had to take care of while I was in the jail, and the yard had gotten closed because of a severe storm, so we was all forced to go down to the chapel to meet up. And they were doing a play down there. I had already heard about the RTA program, and there were already great men involved in doing this work. When I got down to see a play, I saw guys up onstage creating this art. I expected everyone onstage to be civilians, coming in to just entertain—like this is a zoo or something. But I saw the brothers up there, and they were creating art. And they were doing something beautiful. They were respectful, they were respected. And I wanted to be a part of that.

But it takes a year without any infractions or getting in any trouble in the jail [before you can join RTA]. And that was very difficult for me at the time, because I was trouble-prone. I was always in trouble. But I did pull it off. I took a whole year without getting in any trouble, and I made it into the program.

I can’t imagine what it’s like after you’ve been out of prison for a while, and they asked you to step back into this world—into the person you used to be years ago. Did you have to think about it before saying yes?

Of course there’s apprehension about going back into a lockdown situation, to just walk back voluntarily to hell. However, the purpose of why we were doing this outweighed all the apprehension. This message that we have in this movie really needed to get out. It really needed to resonate with individuals that are locked up, individuals that are not, individuals that are locked into ideologies that keep society stagnated. Sometimes people need to be shown how to unpack emotions. Maybe that’s what theater was created for.

What did you learn about acting from working with Colman Domingo?

I learned the difference [between] the screen and stage. I learned in a prison with terrible acoustics and a poor sound system, so I had to learn how to make everyone in the room hear every annunciation and know that I’m speaking with punctuation rather than just running over my periods. Even when I whispered, it had to be loud so that everyone could hear it. And he taught me how to bring that to that eight-inch screen. You don’t need a big, grandiose space—pull it in, and boom, bring it in and pull more out.

What’s it like to watch yourself in the film?

I never used to really like to watch myself as an actor because I see the mistakes. I see the flaws. But now I’m learning to just appreciate the outcome. It came out the way it came out, and it’s beautiful.

What do your family and friends think?

Everyone loves it. They’re amazed, especially at these interviews because they don’t see this side of me as much. So now they’re getting to see that. So we have a new conversation. It’s beautiful.

What is it that they’re seeing?

They’re getting to see that I have a more broad worldview than they once thought. And once you study and once you become a student of the universe—what I really refer to myself as; I like to read and study everything—once you become that, you can give helpful advice. I do a lot of therapy in my immediate circles now.

What’s next for you when it comes to acting?

I want to do a Western really, really bad. But I just want to tell stories that have a quality of healing, a healing value. I don’t mind being the villain or the hero, the antagonist or whoever, as long as the overall story has a component of healing our society and bringing us closer together. Those are the things that I would like to do in the future.

What do you like about Westerns?

It was a period of time when it was a vast imagination of what this world could be, of what we could have made this world be. Anybody had a shot at it. And another thing I like about it is they were moving farther and farther out West to secure your little stake. It meant that you wanted to carve out something. You wanted to establish something. And I believe it’s a lot of stories in there.

Can you ride a horse?

Well, I don’t think I can ride a horse. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a horse, but I don’t think brushing up on that would be a problem.