Quintessa Swindell isn’t afraid of a punk-ass bitch. At least, that’s the vibe I get when they launch into a tirade about the time they chased down the thief that snatched their motorcycle in Los Angeles minutes after we met for the first time. In between bites of egg whites and steak (“I’m loading up,” they joke, nodding to their exhaustive physical training routine) comes one of my first impressions of the 28-year-old actor: They are an open book. It’s this kind of casual and forthright dialogue that leaves me feeling like we’ve been friends for years. This week’s conversation that made it out of the group chat is about that time they chased down a burly biker on the streets of Koreatown.
“I hate theft, and I start screaming on the street, ‘Who the fuck decided to take my bike?'” Swindell says while sitting across from me in a plush red-leather booth at Balthazar. The restaurant is the kind of old-timey establishment that attracts eager tourists and old financier types during the morning meeting rush. The fact that we both obviously don’t fit in—me in my Paloma Wool knit covered in female breasts and Swindell, who has hand tattoos, in black trackpants and a hoodie—is what makes our conversation feel like we’re living in our own universe. There’s a devilish smirk on their face when they tell me what happens next: “The guy who stole it was, like, twice my size, and I just squared up. I said it was mine, and I was taking it back.” The man acquiesced, but not before the actor noticed his hands were shaking. (Mental note: Don’t mess with Quintessa Swindell.)
Although Swindell’s demeanor might appear docile upon first glance and their soft smile and petite frame may suggest they’ll stand down at the sight of conflict, they’ve been fighting—both literally and figuratively—for their entire life. As a nonbinary actor who uses both they/them and he/him pronouns, pickings of roles are slim in Hollywood, and amid a new presidential administration hell-bent on denying the rights of Swindell and their trans brothers and sisters, the stakes have never been higher. In the face of chaos, Swindell is choosing to move swiftly and with intention, starting with their projects. Currently, the actor is starring in Prime Target, a new Apple TV+ government conspiracy thriller that’s the actor’s largest foray into “big streaming.” Swindell plays Taylah Sanders, a Gen Z–coded, slick-talking NSA agent who embroils herself in a multicountry conspiracy. The words “badass” and “government worker” usually don’t exist in the same sentence, but Sanders is exactly that, hacking through high-level systems and diving into the sea to avoid assassination attempts. It’s through the subversion of stereotypes that Swindell knew the project was perfect for them.
“I’ve never seen someone who looks like me be in that type of role ever,” they explain. After meeting with director Brady Hood, who assured Swindell that it was a deliberate choice to cast a queer, biracial actor to play the role, they were on board. “Showcasing diversity in thrillers … that’s what I set out to do. I don’t want to make a run-of-the-mill project,” they say.
(Image credit: Who What Wear)
Prime Target follows collegiate mathematician Edward Brooks, played by One Day’s Leo Woodall, who unfurls a decades-long mystery in a quest to understand links between prime numbers. If, like me, you need your phone calculator to do basic computations, don’t worry—the math takes a back seat in the show as Woodall’s and Swindell’s characters’ high-value stunts and action sequences push the narrative forward. It was the show’s physical element that was a second selling point in Swindell signing on to the series. “I love learning a skill and having to put that to work,” they say. “If you find a skill and craft that, you honor that, and [you] film it, it’s the most authentic visual storytelling there is. There’s no lie. It’s very honest, and it’s something I want to do more of.”
Physicality, however, isn’t simply a means to an end for Swindell in preparing for a project. It’s also a gender-affirming life raft. While training for their role as Cyclone in the DC hero movie Black Adam, Swindell felt closer to their body than ever before. Long hours in the gym weren’t just about building strength and muscle to give off the appearance of having a body that could levitate and gut-punch an organized crime syndicate. According to them, every dead lift, chin-up, and plank brought them closer to gender euphoria. “A few trans people have mentioned it, but when they start taking estrogen or testosterone, it’s when they start to see themselves, and they become this beautiful, more aligned version of themselves,” Swindell says. “For me, that just happens very naturally by way of working out. I loved who I was seeing, so I was like, ‘Well shit! I’m not gonna stop.'”
The actor has the same view on fashion, loyally wearing designers like Ann Demeulemeester and Peter Do as an ode to feeling powerful and sexy as a queer person. “It’s such a gateway into people seeing who you really are,” Swindell explains. “You can look at it and wonder, What’s under me? Who am I, really?”
Who they are is an incredibly self-assured person. Swindell has been on the precipice of greatness for quite some time, each step in their professional career made fully on their own terms. After spending time in a publicly funded high school arts conservatory program in Virginia, Swindell dropped out of college and moved to Italy to pursue classical drama training. Then came Trinkets, the Netflix teenage dramedy about high schoolers enrolled in a shoplifters anonymous program. There’s a valuable piece of advice Swindell repeats back to me from their time on set, something a guest director told them once after a particularly hard day. “You’ve got to decide who you’re going to be moving forward, or this industry will decide it for you,” Swindell explains, alluding to the piles of pilots featuring regurgitated stereotypes about race and gender expression that land in their inbox. If there’s one thing you need to know about Swindell, it’s that they’ve got range. Being pigeonholed into playing Black superheroes and one-dimensional queer characters isn’t on their to-do list. “I had to say ‘Fuck no’ to some projects, and saying no means no work,” they add. “You have to be definitive and put your foot down. In my mind, saying no is a yes to something way better in the future.”
