QUINTESSA SWINDELL

The actor is the first out, non-binary actor to play a lead superhero in the DC universe. But rather than waiting for the next round of roles they’ve been dreaming of their whole life, they’re ready to create them themself.

QUINTESSA SWINDELL wants what they call “uninhibited freedom”—the kind that has historically been reserved for cisgender white men. Swindell, the first out, nonbinary actor to play a lead superhero in the DC Extended Universe, starred as Cyclone in 2022’s Black Adam, opposite Dwayne Johnson and Pierce Brosnan. “It was the first experience I had working with a massive production that was so eager to challenge how people view a particular character,” they say. The contagiously cool and confident 25-year-old grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with their father, who first introduced them to the method performances by actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Daniel Day-Lewis that later shaped their craft. “It was the idea of taking up space that really compelled me—not being too shy and not giving everything you have,” they say. “Not holding anything back for a role.” After years of fine-tuning their practice, Swindell began their Hollywood career in 2019 with a regular role in the Net flix series Trinkets, which ran for two seasons. The same year, they appeared in an episode of Euphoria as Anna, who had a steamy encounter with Hunter Schafer’s Jules. Last year proved a defining time for Swindell: along with Black Adam , they appeared opposite Sigourney Weaver and Joel Edgerton in Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener. As a gender nonconforming Black person who presents femme, Swindell struggles to fi nd roles that truly represent themself. “Not every non-binary person should be androgynous, have a shaved head, or be semi-on testosterone,” they say. “I now understand that no one else is going to create the thing that I want to see the most. I’m going to have to do that myself. That has reinvigorated my love of film and a necessity to look at movies from all different types of eras, cultures, and languages. I want to make stories that allow space for someone like me.”

FELIX MALLARD remembers the exact moment he discovered the enduring emotional power of performance. The Australian actor began his career in his early teens, as a model. With no prior experience, he booked his first acting gig on the long-running Aussie soap Neighbours, a launchpad for many other successful actors, including Russell Crowe and Margot Robbie. Mallard played the 14-year-old Ben Kirk, whose father died when Ben was a toddler. Now 24, the actor viscerally remembers struggling with his debut role at the time; he didn’t understand how his character could be so sad about something that had happened so long ago. The show’s director gave him a bit of advice that stuck: grief can be experienced at any time—it was Mallard’s job to communicate that. Ever since, the actor has gravitated toward stories about mental health, and to layered characters who will make people feel seen. On Ginny & Georgia —one of Net ix’s most popular series to date—he plays the “very Jordan Catalano” bad boy Marcus. The actor was drawn to the series’ unique tone and overall message. “Life is absurd, and that’s what I really love about Ginny & Georgia,” he explains. “It can be quirky. It can be strange. It can be funny. It can be sad.” Mallard connects deeply with Marcus because of their shared experiences: As young men, they’re pressured not to be vulnerable, not to be emotional. “There’s a real sense of showing things aren’t nec-essarily as they seem on the surface,” says the actor, who, in addition to starring in the second season of the show, will play Davis Pickett—a wellheeled, brooding youth plagued by family tragedy—in director Hannah Marks’s adaptation of John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down, which co-stars Isabela Merced and Succession’s J. Smith-Cameron.