The Color Purple star Colman Domingo is interested to see how people will react to his portrayal of Mister, a portrayal he said hopes challenges people and how they view themselves.

While talking with Shadow and Act Managing Editor Trey Mangum, Domingo said that his first goal with Mister was to understand him better as a person.

“I was very conscious to understand how hurt people hurt people. I had to first find every single reason to love about Mister. What do I love about him, what do I find human? He has dreams, needs, desires like anybody else–what happens when you don’t get that? What happens when you…unconsciously make decisions to abuse others?” he said. “He’s trying to feel stronger and have more size in the world. Maybe he doesn’t feel like he has agency in the world. For me, it’s a lot of questions around his psyche and why do people do what they do?”

“The arc of the film is that everyone starts to evolve, but he’s stuck in his own prison of toxic masculinity, of misogyny, he doesn’t have words for it, he doesn’t even know to have nuance, to be tender,” the actor. continued. “It’s looking at that trope of a of that time [when] the world is changing around him but he’s so stuck in this idea and it’s a lot of things that go that.”

As far as the possibility of putting fans off by playing a character who was so violent in the book and Steven Spielberg film, Domingo said he went into the role without any fear.

“I wasn’t afraid of playing this character at all,” he said. “It’s not my job to be liked…my job is to be in service of the character and the story and make the most compelling, complex characters that I possibly can, and to make sure that I’ve wrung out as much as possible so you see them as human beings and not just one idea.”

Watch the full interview with the cast above.

The Color Purple will be in theaters on Christmas Day.