Recently we had the chance to talk to Dominique Tipper, who chatted with us about her journey as an actor and her role as Naomi Nagata, and the hit Amazon TV series The Expanse.
RELATED: TV Recap and Review: ‘The Expanse’ Season 5, Episode 8 “Hard Vacuum”
Horror Geek Life: So how did you get into this acting business? Was it something you always wanted to do or did you discover it later, like a happy accident?
Dominique Tipper: It was a bit later for me. I was actually a backup dancer from the age of sixteen, so I had done that for twelve plus years and it got to the point where I started thinking about trying something different. Something that required a bit more of me in terms of starting a craft again. I had actually known a producer for about five years, Damien Jones, and he sent me this film in 2010 called Fast Girls and I read it and thought oh my god, I want to be in this film, I was still dancing then as well. So we shot Fast Girls, I had a very small role in it, and a bunch of the girls in it, it was their first film as well, Lily James, Lenora Crichlow, Lashana Lynch, Lorraine Burroughs, and just watching them I knew this was absolutely what I wanted to do. So after that film around 2011, I started taking acting lessons, taking myself off of TV as a dancer, and began the transition but it took a few years before I got to The Expanse. I did a few bit parts during that time but in 2014, I got The Expanse and now this is the seventh year doing it. That’s been my journey, but not something I imagined doing, it was very much later.
HGL: Can you tell me a bit about the audition process for the role of Naomi Nagata on The Expanse?
DT: Oh my god, it was so weird. I was actually on a job in Romania, shooting a film, and I had done a take and then didn’t hear anything for about two months, so I just assumed it was a no, that was a long time. In that time, I’d gone from Romania to home, got a job in Guadalupe, shot this show called Death in Paradise, and decided to go to Dominica, it was the next island over and that’s where my dad’s from, and then I went to L.A. It was only when I got to L.A. that my agent was like, do you remember that sci-fi show The Expanse, well they want you to tape again, apparently they had switched casting directors or something. So I taped for it again when I was in L.A. and it was a couple of days later they wanted to recall me, so I went in. They wanted me to do a chemistry read with Steven Strait, so I did that, then a week later they were like, you’ve got the role. I was like oh my god, I was so excited, so then I got on a plane and went back to London. I had a week to sort my shit out then I was on a plane to Toronto. It was quite the journey, let me tell you, so weird but exciting.
HGL: Speaking of journeys, your character Naomi has come a long way from when we meet her in season one to where we are now. How has that experience been as an actor, to be able to play that character for five seasons?
DT: I mean honestly, this is my first TV show so I’ve been a bit spoiled, but it’s been delicious, it really has. Every year I come back and I’m like, I hope it’s exciting and we’re not doing the same as before, but I think because they have this incredible source material and stuck quite closely to it, every book kind of completely flips up the world a bit and the TV show kind of follows it and goes for it. Naomi is one of the most incredible things in my life, she’s one of the best roles I’ll ever play. She is so fully fleshed out. She’s such an incredibly realistic version of a woman and I’ve really got to kind of sharpen my skills alongside her, discovering parts of her in myself it’s honestly been such a gift.
HGL: The Expanse as a show, there’s a lot of things to like about it, the sci-fi, action, writing, but the characters are fantastic, especially the crew of the Rocinante. Was there some natural chemistry between you or was it something you had to work on?
DT: I kind of forced everyone to hang out with me. (Laughs) Being away from home in that way, switching over from dancing, was a real culture shock for me. Dancers are literally just shoved in a room together, shared rooms, we never had anything like caterers, our own cars, any of those kinds of luxuries. I found it very isolating so I was like oh, let’s go for dinner, let’s go for a drink, let’s go to a party together; I really kind of forced them. We do have natural chemistry though, we get on so well. I mean, it wasn’t without its hills and valleys but we do adore each other, and the show kind of follows the trajectory of how our relationships were anyway. We were kind of getting to know each other in the first couple of seasons, then we go into season four as the most solid we’ve ever been, and by season five we just know each other so well, so the show kind of nicely followed our journey together.
HGL: This has been quite a season for Naomi, especially the last couple of episodes. I wanted to ask you about her relationship with Marco and Filip. How has that been in terms of working that dynamic between the three of you?
DT: It’s been a very hard season, both emotionally and physically, it really took a lot out of me. However, the actual experience of working with Keon (Alexander) and Jasai (Chase Owens), who play Marco and Filip, has been incredible, they are both such wonderful actors. They were both there for me and in it with me and really, that’s all you can ever hope for, that people will get on board as much as you need them to and want them to, and it ends up being more than just the words on the page. It kind of superseded all of my expectations of telling this part of Naomi’s story, what it would look like. I think it was a really important part and it was earned, planting seeds and kind of hinting at this so to put it on screen was so cathartic but also really, really difficult. Again though, I was working with professionals, we did our best and I’m really proud of the way it turned out.
HGL: You mentioned it being tough mentally and physically, I think that really shows in the recent episode “Hard Vacuum.” What was it like filming that episode, with no other actors to work off of and Naomi dealing with so much all at once?
DT: Yeah, it was very lonely, a bit like lockdown, actually, very isolating. The set, everything, lent itself to the state I had to be in but it was also quite technical. I really had to get to the bottom of what she was doing because as you can see, the way it was written, we don’t telegraph what she was doing, you find out towards the end, unless you are an engineer then you would kind of know, so when I read it I thought, what the hell is going on? (Laughs) I had a lot of meetings with our showrunner, and Ty (Franck), and had them explain to me not only what kind of state she would be in, in a ship like that, and after being in space for thirty or forty seconds, but also technically, what she was doing, trying to figure out the fake distress signal going out. I had lots of lists, lots of diagrams, I kept looking through the notebook that I prepped with, which had pages of information, so I could work my way through it as we were working through the scenes. You shoot out of sequence when you are shooting a show so sometimes I’d be dropping into a scene and be like okay, what’s her pain level, where am I at in terms of my attempts to fix this thing, how fucked up would I be? I just had to keep very detailed lists of where everything was scene-by-scene and just went with it.
HGL: The Expanse was renewed for a sixth and final season. Have you begun to prepare for the end of this show and what are your long term goals, in terms of acting, directing, writing, etc?
DT: It’s really hard for me to prepare for it, I keep thinking wow, this will be our last season, this is the end. I feel really good about it in the sense that we’re getting to wrap it up, not just randomly canceled like it almost was. We’ve done these characters’ stories justice. I’m really happy we are getting a season six, but I also feel like I’m kind of graduating school. I’m really excited to get out in the world and see where I’m at, what other things come my way, also writing and directing, so I’m excited about that element as well. I feel really good about it, but this has been my family, I’ve grown so much doing this show and it’s weird to be leaving the safety of it. But we all have to get out into the world at some point, and here we are.
I want to thank Dominique for taking the time to talk with us.
Check out all of our coverage for ‘The Expanse’ here!
