Producer David Simon has been nearly synonymous with Baltimore for decades: He started as a reporter at The Baltimore Sun, then his own book was adapted into NBC’s Baltimore-set crime procedural Homicide: Life on the Street. You may also know his HBO series The Wire, either as a fan or from seeing it referenced in many mid-’10s dating profiles. So when the time came to adapt the true-crime story of Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force—an initiative that devolved into breathtaking corruption—there was probably no one else HBO would have sought to tell the story.
The six-part series We Own This City, cocreated by Simon and George Pelecanos and based on Justin Fenton’s book of the same name, arrives April 25. Among its cast of dirty cops, frustrated civilians, and exhausted DOJ officials is Dagmara Domińczyk as Erika Jensen, a real-life FBI agent who was part of the investigative team that brought down the Gun Trace Task Force. For the past three seasons, Domińczyk and her sharp bob have been known to Succession fans: She plays the poised and professional P.R. lead Karolina Novotney, who has the nearly impossible job of spinning the Roys’ many screwups to shareholders and the media. She also broke out late last year in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter, stealing scenes as the bossy, pregnant Callie.
I recently spoke with Domińczyk about what network procedurals get wrong about police work, what scared her most about playing Erika, and what we can expect from her recurring role in the forthcoming Apple TV+ series Hello Tomorrow! “I don’t know what happened,” she says. “A pandemic, I turned 45—all of a sudden I’m getting really interesting, wonderful roles that I would’ve killed for in my 20s.”
Vanity Fair: You previously worked with these showrunners on The Deuce. Had you kept in touch before this role in We Own This City came to you?
Dagmara Domińczyk: All I remember is forming a real bond with Maggie [Gyllenhaal, also a star of The Deuce]. That was the first time we worked together, which was great because we enjoyed it so much. Then when she was doing The Lost Daughter, she reached out and offered me the part, and that was really cool. I don't know if I met David. Maybe I did; it was a while ago. George was on set, I remember him. Maybe I was too concerned that I was directing a fake p*rno on that set; my mind was there.
How was the role of Erika pitched to you?
As an FBI special agent, and I thought, "Oh, well, f*ck, aren't they supposed to be really fit?" That was my first concern—like, is she the one of the ones that sit in the office? Because I can do that. I'm not the most athletic person.
But it was the story, and it was the people telling it that was so intriguing to me. My agent said to me, "There's this offer out to you, but it shoots in Baltimore." My husband [Patrick Wilson] was away in London at the time filming Aquaman 2. I have two sons. We don't have an au pair or anything like that. Our kids go to public school. When we're home, we're home with them. So she assumed I would pass just because I’d have to travel back and forth between Baltimore and New Jersey, and how would that work with my husband away. Then I read the script, I saw the role, and I said, "You know what: for this, I'm going to make it work." And Nina Noble and David and George were really great about allowing me to get on that Acela train every day I wrapped, to get back home for a few days if I could. But that's how important I thought this project was, so it wasn't a hard sell. I was a little nervous about playing an FBI agent—not the kind that you see in high heels, talking fast on network TV, but a real person who is alive and who worked on this case for years.
The other thing that made me sigh with a bit of relief was when I read that she was from New York, so I didn't have to work on a Baltimore accent. Because there are some accents I pride myself on doing great, but Baltimore—my brother-in-law is from outside of Baltimore, and so I thought, “Oh, how am I going to do this?” And then I realized, well, you're okay on that front.
You alluded to the portrayals of FBI agents on network TV. There’s been a reckoning in the past couple of years about how cops are portrayed in media. We Own This City is probably as anti-copaganda as a show can be, but also has to portray some people in law enforcement who aren’t using their power for corrupt ends, like your character. What was that like for you, playing a decent law-enforcement officer in that context?
