Dominique Fishback already turned in the performance of the year — and she's just getting started

Dominque Fishback in Swarm is the kind of performance that makes careers.

It's the kind of performance that turns an ingenue into an "it" girl, a working actress into a bona fide star whom everyone wants for their next big thing. Think Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone. Brie Larson in Room. Florence Pugh in Midsommar. Zendaya in Euphoria. It's the kind of performance that makes folks sit up and pay attention. As you can see by the previous examples, those kinds of roles don't often go to Black women.

But Andrea 'Dre' Green is not just any role. And Swarm is not just any show. It's a show built to be a phenomenon. With a sturdy base of talent and audacity, it's an amalgam of many styles and many tones — the offspring of Donald Glover's previous show Atlanta — with a keen eye for meta casting (Chlöe Bailey, Paris Jackson, and Billie Eilish), former First Daughter Malia Obama in the writers room, and a story ripped not from the headlines but from Twitter threads.

The result is an endlessly fascinating satire on fandom, standom, TV's obsession with serial killers, and social media's particular brand of toxicity, all in service of one Black girl's murderous quest to be loved. And keeping it all together as the transfixing Dre is Fishback, delving heedlessly into darkness and coming out the other end with a complex, compelling portrait of human desire.

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Fishback's first major acting credit was as "Black Woman" in a 2014 episode of The Knick. This summer, she and Anthony Ramos will bring their "Brooklyn sauce" to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, a $200-million behemoth that is by far the biggest project she's been a part of to date and part of a well known franchise with an established fan base. Something she couldn't say about Swarm. She knew it wouldn't be everybody's "cup of tea," but she was sure early on that they were onto something.

"When I was washing the fake blood off of my hands after the first episode, I looked in a mirror. I was like, 'Wow, Transformers will change your life, but this is going to change your career,'" the actress tells EW.

But the 32-year-old East New York native isn't feeling the pressure of finding the next big thing, thanks in large part to Dre. "After doing this show — I knew that I was looking for freedom in my life, in general, and then I realized that I was looking for freedom as an artist — and Dre essentially gave me that," Fishback says.

"She gave me freedom in that I don't fear time any more. I used to fear time. I used to think time was an adversary. Maybe it's because of where I come from, and that so many people don't get that much time. They die very young and they don't get that much time. So I feel like I was always racing time when I was living in East New York and wanted to act. I didn't know how much time I had to do everything that I knew that I came here to do as an artist and as a person."

Here, Dominique Fishback talks her favorite Swarm scenes, what she makes of that ending, her rom-com aspirations, and how she found inspiration in Lucille Ball.

Corey Nickols/Getty Dominique Fishback visits the IMDb Portrait Studio at SXSW 2023

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I don't know if you read any reactions about the show or about your performance, but everyone's blown away. How does it feel to get that incredible response for your work?

DOMINIQUE FISHBACK: I don't even have enough words for the feeling that I have right now, because I really did give my heart and my love to Dre. I really, really did. And it was definitely a lot of work. You see shows and there's always another storyline, where you follow another character, but in this show you don't. It's just Dre. So that means essentially I'm in every single frame of the show and scene of the show. And that was a lot. It was like 15-hour days. I was giving everything that I had to the point where I took six months off after shooting it. So I do appreciate the love and the support, because I really did give everything that I had and I'm so glad it's received like that.

Have you watched the show? Do you enjoy watching yourself as an actor?

I do. I always have to watch something at least once before I have to talk about the show. I have to process the world that my character is in first, and just see... First I might be really skeptical about something, like maybe I'll have acting notes, or wish they would've [used] this take or whatever. But then after a second watch, I can remove myself as an actor and then watch it and be like, I believe that girl. I believe this, I believe that. Luckily for this particular one, when I first watched it, I was like, I believe her.

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Did you have a favorite scene or a scene that surprised you how it turned out?

Honestly, there's a lot of scenes that I like. I really enjoy episode two because I feel like there's a lot of physical comedy in Dre. I love Jim Carrey, and I love Lucille Ball, and I've always admired them. That was what I wanted to do when I first saw acting as a kid, when I was like 10 years old, I'd watch Lucy and say, "I want to be like Lucy, I want to do something like Lucy." Then I started off by doing very dramatic things. I love drama and I love acting all my characters, [but] I haven't gotten to do comedy yet. This was a little bit more of a stretch in the dark comedy and the physicality that I get to show. It was just awesome. So I was excited about that.

Can you tell me a bit about the creative atmosphere on the show? How the vibe was on set?

I feel so blessed because I met Chlöe [Bailey] and I got to spend time with her and now she's my sister. And Damson [Idris], I love him so much. We're great friends. We were friends before that, but to share a screen, and now we're talking about how we could do a film together where we really get to act more alongside one another.

And then just getting to know Billie [Eilish]. Billie is so sweet, she's so generous and so kind. She's a class act and she's so young, so famous, and she's so down to earth and so warm. Paris Jackson is also so warm and generous, and I just felt honored.

It was bittersweet because everybody had to leave; each episode there's new characters that come in, and the only remaining throughline is Dre. I had to experience different people, and so I get attached to them and then they leave, but I also knew that so many dynamic people were going to come and they were going to be introduced to my life and then I get to have them forever.

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Was there a scene that you filmed that you loved doing?

I definitely enjoyed the scene with Billie [episode 4]. That was something that I thought was really important, because up until that moment you don't hear Dre say anything about herself that is true. And you're going to have an episode where other people are going to talk for her and about her, and we'll never get this opportunity again to hear Dre talk herself about her experiences.

So it was really important to me that she told that story about her grandmother. I really asked them, I said, "Can we make this scene like a therapy scene? Can we hear from Dre's experience? I think it's crucial for us to hear from her experience, and this is the only opportunity." Because any other place, she's being somebody else.

And conversely, is there a scene that was very hard for you to get your mind around, that you had a hard time preparing for?

The last kill in the last episode, the big one, because it was Dre and it was her bare hands, and every other time it was an object. And also Dre didn't have emotional connections to any of those other kills, but she had emotional connection to this one. I just was crying. I was crying so much after that scene. I was so physically, spiritually, and mentally exhausted that I felt like when I got to my room, I felt like I couldn't even keep my eyes open. I was moving so slow. It really drained me to do that role, that particular one.

I talked to the therapist on set after it. That scene was a silent scene, and then while the act was happening, impulsively or instinctively, I say, "I love you, I love you. I want to share Ni'Jah with you because I love you." That wasn't in the script, I was really present for that and so it really did take an emotional toll on me.

And Kiersey Clemons is such a great actress. You have to have a really powerful and strong actress to deliver a monologue like that. Especially with a scene like that, because Dre... I don't get to say anything. You want to have somebody that gives you so many levels. That monologue is an amazing monologue, and it really caused Dre to snap.

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Can you talk about how you approached this character, what scared you about it, and how you use that fear for the performance?

I approached the character the way I approach every single character, whether it's Deb in Judas and the Black Messiah, or Elena in Transformers. I always approach them heart-first. On the page, I couldn't really understand her psychologically, but I understood what it means to love somebody. I know what it means to love my little sister. And I know that she loves Marissa and she loves Ni'Jah. I don't need anything else really, but to know that she would do anything — and when I mean anything, anything — for these people that she loves. So that was really my approach initially.

I had to journal in the beginning as myself to identify anything that gave me pause and made me have judgment of Dre, because I know as an actor you can't do that. You have to be a clear vessel if you want to honor the story and honor the character. Because Dre doesn't think she's doing anything wrong. So if I come in here [with] just all of my personal opinions and morality on top of her, then maybe the audience would see a struggle between me as Dom and the character, versus just seeing Dre. And that's always important for me as an actor. And for people to feel, even though we don't want to feel, for her. Or we may not want to feel for her.

Warrick Page/Amazon Prime Chlöe Bailey and Dominique Fishback appear in 'Swarm'

I love what Chlöe said in an interview about how the show's not about fandom, but it's about Dre's quest to re-connect with her sister. I think the ending of the show really speaks to that. How do you interpret the ending?

I thought it was wild, but I was like, Dre is wild and she believes that anything is possible. You know what I mean? I don't even think I went so far to ask myself, is Ni'Jah really hugging her and walking her to the car? That's unbelievable. But in the moment when I was shooting it, it didn't even cross my mind that this could be all in her mind.

Now I see all these speculations online and I do feel it was all in her mind. The title [of the episode] says, "Only God Makes Happy Endings," and to me that would be a happy ending for Dre, for Ni'Jah to hold her in her arms. And none of us are God. So is that a happy ending?

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What do you hope audiences take away from the show and from Dre?

I'm happy because audiences seem to be taking away the thing that I hoped, which is that we got an opportunity to do something that was so out of the box, and do something that was so new and different and just try something. Donald [Glover] was like, "The main thing I want to do is try something. If we fail, we fail, but I just want to try." And so as an actor, I wanted to do it because I wanted to stretch my own self and see what I could do.

You watch people — like Heath Ledger as the Joker, Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker — all of these men who get this opportunity to be something so far removed from themselves. And as women of color, we're acting the same understandable characters all the time. I really just wanted to stretch myself, and I believed in us as a people and as a audience to say, "We want to see something new and fresh and see ourselves."

That shot in the first episode, after she does the kill and she comes up with the blood on her face and then the tear rolls down and she's looking in utter shock, is probably my favorite shot... On Twitter people are saying, "I want a picture." They're making shirts with that picture of the tear falling after the first kill. And I'm like, "Oh shoot, this really has the ability to be a cult classic." And it feels like it's going in that direction. People are just so excited to see that.

This was a show that has so many people talking, not just on Twitter, but in actual life. My friends are texting me like, "You don't know how many people are talking about this show." And that's what we love, that people are talking about it. So I'm just happy. I'm just really happy that people are receiving it that way.

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Now that you have this sense of freedom from doing Swarm, what do you most want to do next?

I don't know what role is next. I know that I have a one-woman show called Subverted that I want to film it as a special, and I want to take it to Broadway. I know that I'm writing a poetry book right now, like a memoir, but in poetry. And I'm getting back to my own art and my own artistic voice, because that's how I started. I started acting when I was 15 in a theater company. In order to act, you had to write your own stuff. I come from a place of a writer-actor, not just an actor, so I'm excited to get back to those roots, while also getting the offers of different things I want to do. I want to do an epic rom-com. I really do.

Romeo and Juliet is my dream role, I want to play Juliet. And I love the book Children of Blood and Bone. It's a novel and it's got magic and princesses and princes and things for us like that. And that's my dream. I want to do things like that. I just want to keep doing any genre that my inner child desires. And that's how I pick things.

Even if I get nervous [about] what's next and stuff like that, I just got to pray, meditate, and say, "What would little Dom do?" And that's how I even decided to do Transformers. It's because, What would little Dom do? She wanted to do that. So let me honor her, because the reason I'm here is because she had a dream and she was relentless and she was persistent even though she got turned down at a formable age. She kept getting rejected and she kept saying, "No, I could do that. I know that God wouldn't make me this way if it wasn't supposed to happen, so I could do that." So I just got to honor her, and if I honor her and honor God, then I'll be straight.

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