I questioned,
had I earned my place yet? Was I just lucky? That was very torturous for me for a long time.”

“I wasn't looking for physical likenesses,” Samuel says of his casting choice. “What I was looking for was swagger with this particular story— pure swagger and style.”

Those words aptly describe Beetz, 30, who is as known for her loosely structured textured hairstyles and natural makeup as she is for playing the likes of Domino in Deadpool 2 and Van in the FX series Atlanta. The Golden Globe–winning comedy-drama by Donald Glover jump-started both her Hollywood career and that of The Harder They Fall costar LaKeith Stanfield. She admits, “None of us expected what happened with Atlanta to happen.”

In 2018, Beetz received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Earn's on-again, off-again girlfriend just four years after she decided to pursue acting seriously. Though she was a part of the theater community at Skidmore College, where she took drama classes and performed in plays, Beetz majored in French at the liberal arts school. “After I graduated, I was like, I've spent so much time acting. I can't not try it,” she says. “I think after high school, I was like, I can't get trapped in this. What are my other things? And then I had an opportunity to see those other things—and I chose acting again.”

Being accepted by the entertainment industry so quickly came as a bit of a shock to Beetz, who landed a supporting part in Joker in 2019. The psychological thriller became the sixth-highest-grossing film of that year and the first R-rated movie to bring in more than $1 billion at the box office. She says of the rise of her profile, “It was an adjustment in terms of what I felt I deserved and what I earned. I questioned whether I had earned my place yet. Was I just lucky? That was very torturous for me for a long time.”

Sometimes I wonder am I continuing down the path of no return, like would I want more? Would I not want more? But I'm speaking about it in terms of fame rather than artistry.”

Working alongside Regina King in The Harder They Fall checks one thing off Beetz’s bucket list. On-screen the two play archrivals but in real life the veteran entertainer has become a mentor of sorts to Beetz. “She's somebody I've respected for so many years. She's been working for so long and is an example of a woman really taking charge of this industry, making it her own. And now with her directing and going into production and making her own content, I just really respect it,” she says. “I was very excited to work with her.”

Beetz’s admiration for King’s professional path foreshadows her own desire to take the reins behind the scenes to “really guide something from the beginning,” she shares. “I'm interested in that experience, which is really telling stories rather than waiting around for a story—creating content that I'm genuinely interested in.”

With a bevy of strong ensemble roles on her résumé, Beetz is also looking forward to carrying a project on her own one day, despite fears about what that entails. “It's different to be a lead. It's a different responsibility and it’s so much more intense,” she says. “I still worry if I have the ability to do that charismatically, to do that in terms of stamina, to do that in terms of my insecurity with my work and having greater influence over the story and everything. I don't feel like I've done that yet.”