Who plays domino in deadpool

There’s something cathartic about watching a black woman effortlessly weaponize something as elusive as luck. That’s what a heroine named Domino does in Deadpool 2—though the title character is skeptical when she auditions for his new super-squad. “Luck isn’t a superpower,” Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool protests. Domino chuckles. “Yes, it is,” she says, as she proceeds to prove so repeatedly, skipping past death trap after death trap as she takes giant leaps of faith—landing on soft surfaces both literally and figuratively.

In the original comics, Domino is icy white, with a black spot over her eye—but in this 2018 iteration, she’s biracial and played by Atlanta star Zazie Beetz, who does away with the character’s traditionally short, straight hair in favor of her own natural skyward fro. The black spot is replaced with a cloudy white one. She plays Domino with a breezy assertiveness, smacking down villains and skipping away as luck shrouds her every step. And though Beetz said in a recent interview that she never really thought of the character in a social context, she gets why it’s unexpectedly affecting to watch Domino move through the world this way.

“I think black women are often depicted specifically in terms of the struggle, and never having the privilege of feeling light at heart and feeling that release, right?” she said. “And that is a pretty cool thing to see on a screen.”

But even luck has its downsides. As Beetz discovered, there can be something dangerous about being so blasé: “Her past is rather tragic,” she explained. “Where’s the luck in that? You can even introduce this idea of nihilism because she doesn’t really have to try anything because it all works out. I think that can get super layered, and I think we just scratched the surface on that with her. . . . I hope, depending on what people want to see, that we do have an opportunity to explore that even more in the future.”

The “future,” as of now, is the upcoming X-Force movie, though Beetz could make an appearance in an unconfirmed third Deadpool installment as well. She’d be a welcome addition to both; she’s easily the highlight of the incredibly busy, often snarky Deadpool 2, thanks to her unflappable demeanor and no-nonsense fighting style. Watching Domino carry on unbothered gives audiences a respite from Deadpool’s straight-to-camera moments and never-ending pop-culture references; imagine how magnetic she’d be as the star of her own movie.

Beetz’s offscreen persona makes her a unique entry into the superhero realm. In real life, she’s something of a hippie—brewing her own kombucha, sharing recipes for her homemade, natural body butter. (Sadly, there was no time on the Deadpool set to make either one with co-stars like Reynolds or Josh Brolin.) She let her armpit hair grow free during filming. When asked how she manages to stay calm even while shooting a blockbuster and performing its subsequent publicity demands, she offers this bit of zen: “Go back to your roots, avoid chemicals, and try to activate and think of your whole mind and body as one.”

That energy has carried Beetz through the rigors of filming, though she’s open about occasionally being overwhelmed by the process, and about how she manages her anxiety—something that Reynolds has also openly discussed as well. “We didn’t talk about it so much [on set], but we’ve been talking about it more, and how he uses comedy to address his anxiety,” Beetz said. “Everybody approaches it in different ways. It’s always nice hearing that you’re not the only one.”

Still, there were days on the Deadpool 2 set that proved impossibly difficult. Last August, Beetz’s stunt double, Joi “SJ” Harris, died after a motorcycle scene went wrong, a harrowing moment that halted production and shocked the stunt community. Deadpool 2 was Harris’s first film, and her death sparked a conversation about the lack of experienced black women in the stunt world. (Because so few action movies cast women of color in key roles, their corresponding stunt doubles don’t get enough chances to learn the ropes—and how to keep themselves safe on set.)

Though many of the film’s cast and crew members had already worked with Harris, Beetz was supposed to meet the pioneering moto racer for the first time that day. “It was a very surreal time,” Beetz said carefully, still understandably rattled. “I think, particularly for the stunt team. Their number one thing is always safety, and I think a lot of them felt incredibly shaken by that in ways that I don’t even want to get into . . . everybody felt responsible in a way. It was just like a very strange and sad time. But obviously, I can’t imagine what her family experienced.”

The first Deadpool was a box-office smash, and the second is already on pace to exceed its take. Since filming Deadpool 2, Beetz has lined up a number of promising dramatic titles, including a role in the upcoming Jean Seberg drama Against All Enemies, starring Kristen Stewart, and FX auteur Noah Hawley’s upcoming sci-fi film.

In some ways, this lineup will upend her old life; prior to Deadpool 2, the actress had just one enormously visible role, on Donald Glover’s acclaimed FX series Atlanta—where she plays Van, the on-again, off-again partner of Glover’s character, Earn. She’s the show’s sole female lead, and each season has offered a bottle episode or two that focuses solely on her escapades.

One deeply personal episode in Season 2 explored Van’s German heritage. In real life, Beetz’s father is also German, and she spent months at a time visiting the country when she was growing up. He’s also the one she can thank for her unique name, which was inspired by the 1960 Louis Malle film Zazie dans le Métro. Though in that film, the name is pronounced “Zah-zee,” her father watched the German-dubbed version, which pronounced it “Zah-see.” Her last name, by the way, is pronounced “bates”: “kind of like Beethoven,” Beetz offered. So make sure you get it right before you start seeing it everywhere.

This story has been updated.