'Judas and the Black Messiah' Star Dominique Fishback on Playing Black Panther Chairman's Fiancee: "I Carry Her With Me Forever"
In director Shaka King's Judas and the Black Messiah, Dominique Fishback plays Deborah Johnson, the fiancee of Illinois Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and mother to his son, who was born just weeks after the activist was assassinated in Chicago in 1969 at age 21. The 29-year-old actress, writer and poet, who first earned attention for supporting roles in two David Simon projects, HBO's Show Me a Hero (about the fight over desegregating housing in Yonkers, New York) and The Deuce, tells THR about meeting the real Johnson (now known as Akua Njeri), having the opportunity to craft her own poetry for the film and how Hampton's story is ultimately a love story.