[Editor’s note: The following containsspoilersforJudas and the Black Messiah.]
Judas and the Black Messiahis powerful in its entirety, building towards an inevitable and devastating conclusion that insures there’s no forgetting the events of this movie after the credits roll. After about two hours of watching Black Panther Party deputy Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) put his life on the line for the fight for freedom, the FBI sees its gut-wrenching mission through to its conclusion. FBI informant William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) was instructed to join the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther party, spy on Hampton, and ultimately provide the necessary information for the FBI to carry out a raid leading to the assassination of Hampton on August 17, 2025, when he was just 21 years old with a baby on the way.
There is absolutely nothing about that sequence ofShaka King’s movie that’s easy to watch. But one of its most striking components is the final frame that just sits onDominique Fishbackas Deborah Johnson, listening as the father of her unborn child is taken from the movement and from her. It’s utterly crushing and a prime example of Fishback giving absolutely everything she has to this story and this role.
While onCollider Ladies Night, we took a moment to discuss what it was like preparing to film that sequence, which was a process that began at the very beginning of the production:
“I think instinctively, spiritually, we all knew that this was taxing on the soul. It wasn’t something that was just, ‘Oh, we’re actors. We’re just gonna do [it].’ I think even going around the table from the very beginning with the Hampton family, it’s like we got to know everybody’s heart and everybody’s truths from the very beginning, why we each wanted to do it, so we knew it was bigger than just us wanting to act. So now if we knew that we were giving our souls to this, if I know that Daniel’s giving his soul to this and he knows that I’m giving my soul to this, how do we show up for each other in that way? How to we lend ourselves in the best way possible to each other?”
The love and respect the cast had for one other and the production overall was always there, even during days off. And that’s something Fishback directly connects to the spirit of Chairman Fred:
“We went bowling, we went roller skating, we found moments to really share time and space with each other. I remember there was one day when we weren’t even on set. It was Daniel, myself and LaKeith, and I believe Ian and Caleb. We were all not filming that day, but Algee was on set, Shaka, everybody else. And I think LaKeith or Daniel was like, ‘You wanna go to set?’ So we drove to set. And I remember Shaka kind of got emotional about that because actors don’t do that. There’s so much. We could be resting, we could be preparing for the next day, but we just always gravitated and were around each other, and I think that’s the spirit of Chairman Fred and his Black Panther party that he was able to create in the Illinois Chapter.”
When it came time to film that final sequence, Fishback wrestled to process the emotions she was feeling the night before, ultimately coming to the conclusion that she needed to give herself permission to cry. Here’s how she put it:
“We actually filmed on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Chairman Fred, and that was something in itself. We didn’t even have to have words. It was spiritual. It was actually the day that O’Neal does his Judas-like gesture, was the day that we filmed that actual scene. So that was definitely intense. And then the night before, I remember being in my hotel room and I was so emotional and I didn’t understand why my body was reacting the way that it was. It was in knots. My heart was pounding, my throat was tight, I felt like I wanted to cry and I didn’t know why and I kept saying, ‘Daniel’s gonna be OK. Daniel’s gonna be OK.’ And I realized that my body didn’t know how to separate. It’s a small price to pay to give your all to a role, which is what I asked for from the very beginning; how do I get to the point where I can love somebody so much that the sacrificial justice she does in the end is believable. How do I get to that point? Just opening my spirit, how do I love in that way? Watching Daniel taking up space, does Daniel have dimples, watching how he moves and I’m really internalizing every single thing so by the end, we were coming to the end of the film, we were coming to the end of the life of Chairman Fred and the end of the love that him and Deborah Johnson got to share together, and so I had to lose it too. Even though Daniel and I, and my cast and I will love each other for the rest of our lives and beyond, we were only fortunate to get a little bit of time inhabiting that kind of love. Because that love is transformative. That love is unconditional at the core. The true definition of unconditional love was there. And so to get a little taste to be able to experience that, I had to love and then lose. And so I had to let myself cry in that hotel room the day before.”
While the tears were a necessity the day before, Fishback was committed to not shedding a single one while filming because of something the real Deborah Johnson, nowAkua Njeri, said to her:
“Having to be on top of him while everything was happening, that was also intense because we had the bullets and seeing the other room and seeing my friends, my castmates, my family now be shot up. You know what I mean? That is traumatic. And I had actually in my personal life had seen something like that happen, so the sound of gunshots is not foreign to me. It’s somewhere deep in my psyche and my spirit and so to be there and to hear those things was actually traumatic again. It was so many levels. And I remember Mama Akua just saying she did not cry. She did not cry. When they assassinated him in cold blood, she did not cry. And I think underneath that was the power of, ‘I’m not gonna give them the satisfaction.’ She said that they were laughing. They were carrying his body out and chanting, ‘Chairman Fred is dead. Chairman Fred is dead.’ So they were happy and they were singing about that. So for her, ‘No, I am not gonna cry. I will not give them the satisfaction.’ That was very important.”
While the intimacy of Chairman Fred and Deborah’s connection is palpable throughout the film, in that final scene when Deborah is forced to make one of the most devastating choices imaginable, Fishback found motivation for the character in Chairman Fred’s overall ideals and mission:
“I had to wrap my head around getting off of him. He’s been drugged, he’s still alive, but he cannot wake up. Do I move my body off of his? If I don’t move my body off of his, they are going to kill me and essentially they’re going to kill his baby. If Chairman is all about the people - is the party about me or is it about the people? - then I know it’s about the people and that includes his son. So that was the only way that I could wrap my head around getting off of his body, is because he would have said, ‘This is about the people,’ and his people includes his son. I have to surrender. I have to live so that his legacy can live, so that this being inside can live.”
If you’d like to hear more from Fishback on her journey toJudas and the Black Messiah, check out her full episode of Collider Ladies Night below:
