(somber flute music)
- Coming from, from East New York,
Brooklyn, places like that,
you don't really get to see
a lot of people that have lived their,
their dreams, their big dreams like this.
And I just had to believe that it was possible.
(enchanted flute music)
I'm Dominique Fishback,
and this is On the Rise.
(enchanted flute music)
When I was 10 years old, I would stay up
to one o'clock in the morning just to catch "I love Lucy"
and my mom would be like, "You're gonna suffer
in the morning when it's time to go to school!"
but I just stayed up and watched Lucy.
I would watch "Sister, Sister"
and take notes on
"If I was Tamera, I would do it like this.
If I was Tia I would it like that."
Loved a lot of romance, since I was a kid.
I probably shouldn't have been watching "Titanic",
but I would always catch it on TV
"The Titanic", uh "Romeo and Juliet" of course,
Leo and Claire.
My mom said when I was about five, I used to,
to melt to the floor in excruciating pain and say
"I'm melting!" (I was the Wicked Witch of the West),
So there was that (laughs)
(upbeat music)
Especially when I got to college
a lot of friends would kind of say that their family
made them take theater as a minor
or made them take something else and said,
"You can go, but that shouldn't be a career."
And my mom never, she never tried to like,
make me get a job or like a "regular" job.
She always, she supported me.
She took out loans for me to go to Pace University
so that I could study theater. Very supportive.
I wrote and starred in a one-woman show called "Subverted",
about the destruction of black identity in America.
And I played 22 different characters,
spanning from the slave era and the modern side
and they paralleled to show comparisons.
When I was in Sociology class, a lot of times
I would be the only black person in my class.
And this white boy said
if African American males in low income communities
dressed normally they wouldn't be stopped by the police.
And I was like (gasps),
and I started debating with him,
and I looked around and nobody could advocate with me
because nobody was from where I was from.
And I was really upset, but then I told myself,
Dom, he doesn't know.
What I can do is instead of getting mad,
I could use the gifts and talents that God gave me
to create a show, and then for an hour and 20 minutes
this predominantly white university has to
sit in my truth, and the truth of people who
come from areas like mine.
Was doing ADR for "Show Me a Hero", and David,
before going into the booth, David said
"Um, I want to talk to you about something afterwards."
And I was like, "Okay..."
like, are you gonna say that right before
I go into this ADR? (laughs)
So I go in and I finish it, and then he says,
"So I don't know if you heard, but
I'm working on a new show."
I was like, "No,"
he said, "It's called The Deuce", and I wrote a character
with you in mind, but it's not a role you take
just to take it because, well it's about
the rise of the porn industry in the 1970s in times square.
So, read the scripts, and if you don't want to do it,
it's no harm, no foul."
I talked to my mom about it, about the nudity.
And she said, "Dom, you're an actress,
and if you feel comfortable, that's what you wanna do,
then I don't have no problem with it."
And I wrote, before The Deuce came out,
I wrote like an open letter
to my family and friends on Facebook about it,
'cause I really didn't want to hear --
Sometimes people think they're being encouraging
and they're not, when they say things like,
"You know, you're so talented, you don't have to do that."
It's like, I know I don't have to do that.
Like, I'm the one, I'm the one looking over this script.
I'm the one weighing out all of the options,
you don't think I thought about what I --
You know? Like I just --
Even though they don't mean any harm, but you kind of get,
you could get defensive about that.
Especially when they think that
some other entity is controlling
what you decide to do with your body.
I remember just wanting to go really based on
heart and soul, and I didn't want to play into
the idea of a sex worker talking a certain way,
or walking a certain way.
I said, "She's going to be .. that's her job,
and she's going to be that no matter what,
no matter how she's, quote unquote, "played",
and so I just want to live."
(hopeful flute music)
I really appreciated journaling in
Judas and the Black Messiah because it wasn't a crutch.
And I realized that people were loving
the performances that I was doing,
and then I thought, "Oh, I have to journal!
I have to write all of these things out
to make sure that I'm playing the character
to the best of my ability."
And then when I got to do Project Power
with Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
it was moving fast, we had six to eight weeks.
We would get new scenes written, like right before we shot.
And so I really didn't get the opportunity
to journal as Robin.
I remember talking to Jamie and being like,
"Do you ever feel like, like it's just easy,
or how do you, do you always feel ..."
He said "Do you watch basketball?"
I said, "Sometimes."
He says, "When Steph Curry runs down a court
and he shoots a three and it goes in,
he doesn't question himself as to why it went in.
He's been doing it for so long, and so have you.
And so it's kind of muscle memory,
and you don't have to worry about those things
'cause it's already inside."
(upbeat piano music)
The poem I read to Daniel in the scene
is called "When the People Call"
that's a poem that I got to write
that Shaka allowed me to put my own spin
and my own truth to it.
I also was like, "Well, you know,
I was kind of wondering if Deborah could have
a journal that she carries around?"
Even if it's not the ... it's not like,
heavily featured in the scene,
at least for the audience and our peripheral vision
we'll see that she's constantly writing.
We'll see, she has a world going on
outside of the Chairman, outside of the Black Panther Party
That I wanted her to have something that belonged to her.
Actually I have the book right here.
It's a prop and they always want to keep props on set.
But I was like, "I don't know,
you can't have this one." (laughs)
Like, it's really her personal, "my" personal thoughts, but,
I really allow for every moment there's --
I'm looking at a poem it's called,
"Have You Ever Kissed a Silver Tongue?"
and that's about their first kiss.
This one was really important because it was
a opportunity to tell such a transformative black love.
Love in general, but black specifically,
because a lot of times we don't get to
celebrate that and see that.
Being a romantic, and always wanting to tell those stories
and then getting to portray it,
to help highlight who Chairman Fred Hampton is and was,
was just an honor.
So when I think about making it, I will say that I,
I feel like I got to a place where I, I can feel
like I've shown versatility,
but there's so much more things that I,
that I want to do, that I have in mind to do.
Even like, I'm writing a book,
writing a novel, writing a poetry book.
My friend and I are doing a book club
for young, for women.
I love to share knowledge.
If people want to know it will be here for them.
If they don't, then they can, you know,
just like a cute picture that I'll post or something,
you know?
Just really, really trying to tap into soul's purpose
and why I'm here.
(melancholy music)
In five years, my dream scenario,
whatever God has in store in the universe,
because every time I try to limit something,
He always makes it bigger than what I could imagine.
So I will leave space for
all those magical things to happen.
But I see a house with a basketball court.
I see definitely my husband (sighs)
and my kids, probably. Two.
Five years, hmm, yeah.
Or maybe at least one, how old am I?
Yeah like getting over there with
between one or two, or something like that.
Tony award, Oscar, you know.
The things that, the things that we wanted as kids,
for me anyway, when I was a kid and wanted to be an actor.
We saw those things and we had the microphone,
or the remote, and we were like
"Ah, je suis!"
So I want to be able to get up there
and say like how Biggie said,
"Brooklyn, we did it!" And then, "We did it again!"
And Jay-Z said it too, in the words of Biggie.
And then if I could be up there saying,
"We did it again!" In the words of Biggie,
and then Jay-Z. That'd be dope (laughs).
(upbeat music)