--- name: "Dominique Fishback" canonical: "https://film.one/person/dominique-fishback" fi1m_id: "dominique-fishback" imdb_id: "nm6195774" tmdb_id: 1676520 wikidata_id: "Q37993268" roles: ["Actor"] born: "22 March 1991" reviewed_on_fi1m: 5 average_fi1m_score: 71 average_as: "actor" average_over: 5 updated: "2026-09-30T20:25:27.823389+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Dominique Fishback ## Identity Dominique Fishback - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/dominique-fishback - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** dominique-fishback - **IMDb ID:** nm6195774 - **TMDB ID:** 1676520 - **Wikidata ID:** Q37993268 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Fishback, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37993268, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6195774/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1676520 Actor. Born 22 March 1991 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S.. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 22 March 1991, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S. - **Active:** 2015–present - **Also known as:** دومینیک فیش‌بک - **Average Fi1m score:** 71, as actor, over 5 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 74 (3), 2020s 66 (2) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 71 to 71 across 5 titles - **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 1 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 1 of 2 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Drama 3, Crime 2, Action 1, Adventure 1, Comedy 1, History 1 - **Screen time:** 4 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $448m across 2 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Fishback, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37993268, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6195774/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1676520 ## Streaming the US now - **Paramount+:** [*Transformers: Rise of the Beasts*](https://film.one/film/transformers-rise-of-the-beasts.md) (52) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Dominique Fishback > Dominique Fishback plays the one who is listening while someone else talks, and she is best when a film leaves her there. *Judas and the Black Messiah* proves it; *Transformers: Rise of the Beasts* gives her a label to read and then drowns her out. Watch Dominique Fishback in *Judas and the Black Messiah* (2021) and notice how little she does when Fred Hampton is talking. Daniel Kaluuya's Hampton fills halls; with Deborah Johnson, a poet who has joined the chapter, he is formal and slightly clumsy, and Fishback plays her as the one person who sees him whole rather than as a chairman. Their scenes are small, a kitchen, a bed, a notebook, and she is listening in all of them. Those were the scenes where we felt most for anyone in the film, because she let us watch a man being weighed by someone who liked him and was not going to be talked round. Kaluuya has the speeches. She has the quiet after them, and that is where the film is at its best. She came up through television, and through one writer in particular. After a one-woman play, *Subverted* (2014), and guest parts in *The Knick* and *The Americans*, David Simon cast her as Billie Rowan in *Show Me a Hero* (2015) and then as Darlene in *The Deuce* (2017 to 2019). Simon's series ask actors to be ordinary for a long time and to hold our attention anyway, and that is still how she works. Film came in supporting sizes, *Night Comes On* (2018), *The Hate U Give* (2018), *Project Power* (2020), before Shaka King gave her Deborah Johnson. She wrote poems for the part; she has a background in spoken word and playwriting, and it shows in how carefully she handles other people's lines. What she does not do is raise her voice, and that is a problem when the film around her does. In *Transformers: Rise of the Beasts* (2023) she gives Elena Wallace a researcher's impatience with people who will not read the label, and for an hour, opposite Anthony Ramos, the two of them are the most likeable thing the series has done. Then the plot, the sky and the shouting arrive, and there is nowhere left to be impatient in. They are not given much to do together, and what they are given they do well. It is a decent performance in a film that stops needing performances halfway through. We have not reviewed *Swarm* (2023), the series she led and produced, so we cannot say whether the watchfulness holds when the whole thing rests on her. Her own account of the method is modest: "I approach all my characters similarly—I try to find the through line of what I have in common with them." Every actor says something like that. The difference is that she does it in the quiet parts, where a lot of actors are waiting for their turn. The question for the next few years is whether a director will build a film around that, as King did for a handful of scenes, or keep standing her next to something louder. Give her a kitchen and someone worth weighing, and she is good. ## Biography Dominique Fishback is an American actress and playwright. She was born on 22 March 1991 in Brooklyn, New York City, and graduated from Pace University with a B.A. in Theatre in 2013. She began her career with guest roles in series including *The Knick* (2014) and *The Americans* (2013), followed by recurring parts as Billie Rowan in the HBO miniseries *Show Me a Hero* (2015) and Darlene in *The Deuce* (2017–2019). Fishback is known for her performances in *The Hate U Give* (2018) as Kenya, *Project Power* (2020) as Robin, *Judas and the Black Messiah* (2021) as Deborah Johnson (for which she received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role), and as Elena Wallace in *Transformers: Rise of the Beasts* (2023). She also starred as Dre in the Amazon series *Swarm* (2023), earning a Primetime Emmy nomination, and wrote and performed in the off-off-Broadway play *Subverted* (2014). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (5) - *Transformers: Rise of the Beasts* (2023), Fi1m 52, as Elena Wallace — [page](https://film.one/film/transformers-rise-of-the-beasts.md) - *Judas and the Black Messiah* (2021), Fi1m 80, as Deborah Johnson — [page](https://film.one/film/judas-and-the-black-messiah.md) - *Modern Love* (2019), Fi1m 61, as Lil — [page](https://film.one/tv/modern-love.md) - *The Deuce* (2017), Fi1m 84, as Donna 'Darlene' Pickett — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-deuce.md) - *Show Me a Hero* (2015), Fi1m 78, as Billie Rowan — [page](https://film.one/tv/show-me-a-hero.md) ## Complete filmography (18) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Transformers: Rise of the Beasts* (2023), as Elena Wallace — Fi1m 52, [page](https://film.one/film/transformers-rise-of-the-beasts.md) - *Swarm* (2023), series, as Dre · Producer - *The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey* (2022), series, as Robyn - *The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder* (2022), series, as 12-Year-Old Suga Mama (voice), Young Suga Mama (voice) - *Judas and the Black Messiah* (2021), as Deborah Johnson — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/judas-and-the-black-messiah.md) - *Project Power* (2020), as Robin - *Modern Love* (2019), series, as Lil — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/tv/modern-love.md) - *The Hate U Give* (2018), as Kenya - *Random Acts of Flyness* (2018), series, as Najja - *Night Comes On* (2018), as Angel - *Smile* (2017), as Young Gloria Carter - *The Deuce* (2017), series, as Donna 'Darlene' Pickett — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-deuce.md) - *Show Me a Hero* (2015), series, as Billie Rowan — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/tv/show-me-a-hero.md) - *The Affair* (2014), series, as Keisha - *The Knick* (2014), series, as Black Girl — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-knick.md) - *Mental America* (2014), as America · Writer - *The Americans* (2013), series, as Nicole — Fi1m 91, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-americans.md) - *Blue Bloods* (2010), series, as Charelle Tyler ## Gallery - ![Dominique Fishback](https://film.one/media/person/17374/gallery-4f262ade72bb.jpg) Dominique Fishback — John Bauld, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/TIFF_2018_Dominique_Fishback_%281_of_1%29-2.jpg/1280px-TIFF_2018_Dominique_Fishback_%281_of_1%29-2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![TIFF 2018 Dominique Fishback](https://film.one/media/person/17374/gallery-2a56a1c4f003.jpg) TIFF 2018 Dominique Fishback — John Bauld from Toronto, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/TIFF_2018_Dominique_Fishback_%2843672174125%29.jpg/1280px-TIFF_2018_Dominique_Fishback_%2843672174125%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Dominique Fishback](https://film.one/media/person/17374/gallery-528e3f9e6a69.jpg) Dominique Fishback — Image via TMDB - ![Dominique Fishback](https://film.one/media/person/17374/gallery-a8c5931a6dd3.jpg) Dominique Fishback — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/dominique-fishback