Dominique Fishback (born March 22, 1991) is an American actress. She played Billie Rowan on Show Me a Hero,[2] Darlene on The Deuce,[3][4] and Deborah Johnson in Judas and the Black Messiah, the latter of which earned nominations for a Critics' Choice Movie Award, and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.[5] In 2023, she began starring in the Amazon Prime Video psychological horror series Swarm; her performance in the series has received universal praise, earning her a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards.[6]
Early life
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Fishback first became interested in acting at about the age of 10.[7] She graduated from Pace University with a B.A. in Theater in 2013.[8]
Career
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In 2014, Fishback premiered her Off-Off-Broadway play Subverted, in which she played twenty two characters.[9][10][11]Subverted was nominated for a 2015 Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Solo Performance.[12][13] The actress's first major recurring role was in the Yonkers housing drama Show Me a Hero as single mother Billie Rowan.[14] In 2016, Abingdon Theatre Company announced Fishback as one of the recipients of its inaugural Residency Program.[15][16]
Her first series regular role was in the 1970s Times Square drama The Deuce.[17] Fishback has been noted as one of the standouts in the show due to her performance as the "sweetly vulnerable" prostitute Darlene.[18][19] Co-creator David Simon has noted her strengths as an actress in playing Darlene.[20] For her role on The Deuce, Fishback was listed by USA Today as one of five new faces that people should be watching on fall 2017 television.[21]
In December 2017, Fishback appeared as a younger version of Jay-Z’s mother, Gloria Carter, in his music video for "Smile."[22] Her first film, Night Comes On, premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.[23] She also played the part of Kenya in the film The Hate U Give (2018), which is based on the popular young adult book.[24]
Fishback plays a street-smart teenager in Project Power, directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, opposite Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which was released on August 14, 2020, by Netflix.[25][26] In 2021, she starred in Judas and the Black Messiah alongside Daniel Kaluuya, as Deborah Johnson, the partner of Fred Hampton and the expectant mother of Fred Hampton Jr. In 2023, she starred in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, the sequel to Bumblebee, directed by Steven Caple Jr.
^Gordon, Tim (February 8, 2021). "The 2020 WAFCA Awards". Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association. Archived from the original on December 8, 2019. Retrieved February 8, 2021.