By Laura Kelly
INTERVIEW
Have you ever despaired at the dating apps on your phone, shuddered at the grim rendezvous they bring? For anyone who’s been victim of the casual nastiness or outright abuse that’s common on Tinder and Bumble, there’s a dark thrill to be found in the BBC’s new supernatural drama. Created by Gangs of London writer Lauren Sequeira and starring Siena Kelly (who you’ll recognise from the excellent Channel 4 drama Adult Material), Domino Day follows the titular witch as she swipes – not to find a soulmate, but to hunt.
The result is a gleefully gory feminist revenge fantasy. Right at the start, we see Domino go home with a sleazy date. He isn’t listening when she says no, comfortable that he can get what he wants. He has seriously underestimated the powerful force he’s up against.
For Kelly – who says she’s “surrounded by witches” in real life – Domino Day was a dream role. “I just really empathised with Domino,” she tells The Big Issue. “I loved all the friction of having this unbelievably powerful and genuinely dangerous, violent witch also being so lonely, so insecure, so conflicted and filled with guilt and shame.”
THE BIG ISSUE: Did you see elements of yourself in Domino?
SIENA KELLY: I’m very, very lucky that my life isn’t like Domino’s. I’ve definitely not gone through even half as much shit. So, I’m a lot more bubbly and outgoing than she is. I have a support group, which means the decisions I make in my life are very, very different to Domino’s. I’m not as independent. And I’m probably not as resilient. It was fun to be so powerful. I’m a small person – I’m like five foot two and my limbs can be quite spindly. So I did gym it a lot on this job. I was up at like, four in the morning and lifting weights, because I wanted to feel like I could handle myself in a fight.
Is there an element of wish fulfilment in punishing those awful men?
Well, it’s just a beautiful fantasy, right? To be so powerful everyone’s afraid of you. But then we also show a nightmare sequence. In it, these men are so terrified of her. Her fear is that she’s a monster. She has to go on a journey of learning that she’s not a monster for being so powerful. That is what would happen to an extremely powerful woman in the society that we live in. They are turned into monsters by men, by media.
Domino must endure awful dates to stay alive. Did that hit a nerve?
That’s mainly Laure
