PITTSBURGH — The last few months of 2021 have been a particularly fruitful time for Dagmara Dominczyk.
The 45-year-old Carnegie Mellon University graduate and accomplished thespian is giving audiences one heck of a one-two punch between reprising her role as Karolina Novotney in the HBO series "Succession" — the best show of 2021, in this critic's opinion — and closing out the year by appearing in Maggie Gyllenhaal's critically acclaimed feature directorial debut "The Lost Daughter," which premieres Friday on Netflix.
Dominczyk is one of those actors you've almost certainly seen before in movies and on television but maybe need a little help placing. She recently chatted with the Post-Gazette about her "midlife career boost" and everything she appreciates about Pittsburgh — including the part it played in introducing her to her husband, Patrick Wilson.
"I love Pittsburgh," she said. "I love Carnegie Mellon. And I only have the best memories of my time there. ... It's where I inadvertently met my future husband. Every time we're there and go back and hold hands, we can't help but feel like that's where things started, even though we didn't know."
'Breathing theater'
Moving to Pittsburgh in 1994 was Dominczyk's first time away from her Polish American family, which had settled in New York City about a decade earlier.
"Growing up, we were immigrants in Brooklyn and New York and very dependent on each other," she said. "My parents didn't speak much English, so I was always there to help them out. There were some tough times. Coming to Pittsburgh was the first time I had left mentally, because I felt like if I can't be there physically, some of the worry and stress about making sure my parents were OK went away because I wasn't there."
She had no prior experience with Pittsburgh and hadn't even visited CMU before she rolled up to campus. Dominczyk said she "immediately felt supported and loved" by her teachers and peers, with whom she worked closely before graduating in 1998. Though she sometimes felt guilty about not being home, it was mitigated by her commitment to the conservatory program where she often "went to bed and woke up breathing theater."
Her first few years at CMU were fully funded, but Dominczyk had to do a work-study program to remain in school during her senior year, which took the form of a midnight to 3 a.m. shift at the campus library. Between work and school, she didn't have a tremendous amount of time to explore Pittsburgh, though Dominczyk remembered appreciating the city's large Polish population and getting to know Squirrel Hill through babysitting for a professor who lived there.
"I love the feel and history of Pittsburgh," she said. "I love the stained old buildings. The campus itself at Carnegie Mellon is kind of to me sprawled out. The city has so many nooks and crannies and is so picturesque in some places."
Wilson was a senior when Dominczyk was a freshman and still trying to keep a long-distance relationship alive with her high school boyfriend. The two reconnected a decade later at a New York City mixer for current and former CMU students, and Dominczyk said some of the professors there later told her that basically "we saw you fall in love that night."
They've been married for more than 15 years now, and Dominczyk said one of her two sons is a budding actor who already plans on auditioning for CMU when he's older.
"It was really nice that we didn't meet on some set and had similar memories," she said of their CMU connection. "It felt new and exciting to be with each other, but familiar because we had that experience in common, which I think is really cool."
Let Karolina play!
Dominczyk's "Succession" character is usually one of the few functioning adults in any room she is in that also includes members of the emotionally stunted Roy family. As one of Waystar Royco's main public-relations specialists, Karolina's job is to sugarcoat all the awful misdeeds the family commits while trying not to lose her mind over all the crazy positions she's put in.
Though she didn't have much to do in the show's third season, Dominczyk said the plan is to bring her back for Season 4. She and "Succession" creator Jesse Armstrong have sketched out Karolina's backstory, and she would love for viewers to eventually learn more about what makes her tick.
"I love being part of that group with all those incredibly smart, passionate and brave creators and actors," Dominczyk said. "We're all playing in that sandbox, but because of my role I sit in the corner of the sandbox and tell people to put their shovels back. I want to play too!"
Production on the third season of "Succession" was delayed by COVID-19 before resuming in November 2020 and wrapping in late July. Dominczyk credited the show's crew for helping them navigate pandemic protocols during filming and wants fans of "Succession" to know "it took a lot of work to bring that season to everyone."
Karolina's biggest moment of the season happened early in the premiere when Kendall (Jeremy Strong) kicked her out of his car after declaring war on his father Logan (Brian Cox). Armstrong and Dominczyk agreed that Karolina's lack of visibility this season stemmed from the fact "she's a little removed herself because that stung" and Dominczyk believes that while the Roy children were having their lives upended in Italy, Karolina was "taking a long, much-needed vacation."
"In Season 3, we see glimmers of how incredibly messed up they are inside because of how they grew up," she said. "You realize they marinated in this most bizarre, cold world as children. ... That's super sad. In the last few episodes, you really, really saw that unfold."
Between "Succession" and her role in the upcoming miniseries "We Own This City," "I owe HBO my midlife career boost," Dominczyk said.
Second wind
Before signing on to "The Lost Daughter," Dominczyk had been running into Gyllenhaal and her husband Peter Sarsgaard for years. She had worked with Sarsgaard on the 2004 film "Kinsey" and Gyllenhaal on an episode of the HBO series "The Deuce." When Gyllenhaal was adapting Elena Ferrante's 2008 novel "The Lost Daughter" into a feature film script, she called Dominczyk and said that she saw her as Callie, a loud and naturally distrustful character.
She loved the book and was very into the idea of working on a film that also starred Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson and Jessie Buckley, but Dominczyk hesitated to leave her children to go film in Greece during a pandemic while Wilson was filming a movie of his own in Montreal. Her mom and sister stepped up to watch the kids, and off Dominczyk went to make a movie where she played a character who was a far cry from the demure Karolina.
"Because of these amazing women in my life, I said yes," Dominczyk said. "And it was the best thing I could've done, for my career and me personally. ... I was coming off of two years wearing a blazer and pantyhose. I thought, what an opportunity to be someone who owns space and takes space from others and who's bold and big. It was so much fun!"
As someone who "can be blunt in a loving way," it wasn't too hard for Dominczyk to tap into that side of her to play the "bold and brash" Callie. To her, the women in "The Lost Daughter" aren't archetypes, but rather feel like real people "who will annoy you and confound you and you'll cry for them all in the same breath."
"The Lost Daughter" was also filmed during the pandemic, but a gorgeous, isolated Greek island wasn't exactly the worst place to be shooting a movie.
"Sometimes you make a movie and the experience of making it is wonderful but the end result is not as great as you hoped," Dominczyk said. "Sometimes the experience of making it is awful and stressful but the end result is amazing. Once in a while, the experience of making it and the final product are amazing. And that's what 'The Lost Daughter' was."
Dominczyk is excited that the film is already receiving so much awards season love, though that doesn't matter to her as much as just finding more high-quality opportunities like this to continue doing what she loves.
"At 45, I feel like I'm having a second wind here and that feels really, really nice," she said. "Who knows when it will be over. I'm just going to enjoy it today."
