Dominczyk has 'midlife career boost'
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 Tribune News Service 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.”
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 explorePittsburgh, 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!”
