Donald Glover selected her for his new show, and this summer she leads the latest ‘Transformers’ film. ELLE meets an actor taking control of her destiny
DOMINIQUE FISHBACK BELIEVES IN THE power of manifestation, which she has practised in varying shapes and forms since childhood. ‘I’ve journalled a lot over the years,’ she says, ‘which is cool, because now I get to see it all come true.’ She cites an entry in which she visualised a lunch date with a particular A-lister (only for that precise scenario to transpire 18 years later, to the very day) as proof that it works. But she could just as easily point to her entire career. ‘I’m from East New York. I didn’t have family that was in the performing arts. But when I would watch films, I would write in a journal, “If I was that character, I would do it like this…”’
ON THE UP AND UP
It’s enough to persuade anyone to buy a notebook; Fishback, now 31, is speedily taking over our screens. Having signed up to free drama classes at 15, she graduated from New York’s Pace University with a theatre degree in 2013, before launching her self-penned play Subverted, in which she played over 20 characters (Jamie Foxx is helping her bring the work back to Broadway later this year). Parts in The Hate U Give and HBO series The Deuce followed and, in 2021, Fishback earned a Bafta nomination for her supporting role in Judas and the Black Messiah opposite Daniel Kaluuya. Since then, there’s been the critically acclaimed The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey on Apple TV+, in which she stars alongside Samuel L Jackson. But this year will be her biggest yet. Swarm, the highly anticipated new show from Donald Glover (he handpicked her for the role) is out this month. And later this summer, she’ll take the lead in the $200 million blockbuster Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
Today, however, Fishback has a new task in her lap. A lively six-month-old puppy called Satori joins her on Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. ‘She doesn’t like being in her crate,’ she smiles, looking a little exasperated. ‘Her name is a Zen Buddhist word, which means a “sudden state of spiritual enlightenment”. But then the first week I got her, I was crying to my mom that she’s not [obedient]. My little sister said, “A sudden state of spiritual enlightenment maybe doesn’t mean right away,”’ she laughs.
Still, Fishback likes a challenge – in work as well as in pets. ‘Sometimes, you’ve got to just d
