You might swear you just saw Karolina Novotney from the hit show, Succession, walk out of Paper Plane Coffee Co, sipping a Mint Eastwood, or you might see the woman who does all the great voices when she reads to your kindergartener at the Montclair Public Library. Either way, you’d be right. Dagmara Dominczyk, actor, published author, and library enthusiast has been living among us in Montclair for the last 14 years along with her husband, actor Patrick Wilson, two sons, and three dogs. The Montclair Girl recently caught up with the indomitable actress outside Paper Plane over our own Mint Eastwood where she dug deep and let us peek into her life in this town, even sharing how she found solace in the streets of Montclair after Succession ended. Read on to hear more about Dagmara Dominczyk’s life in Montclair, New Jersey.

About Dagmara Dominczyk

Dagmara Dominczyk immigrated with her family from Poland as political refugees when she was seven years old. She grew up in the Glenwood Housing Project in Brooklyn, and after attending Laguardia High School for the Performing Arts, Dagmara was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University with a scholarship to study theater, where she met her now husband, actor Patrick Wilson. Almost immediately after graduation, she was cast as Mercedes, the lead love interest in The Count of Monte Cristo opposite Jim Caviezel. Once the film proved successful, doors continued to open for the young star.

From humble beginnings to a house in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Northern New Jersey, Dagmara has a successful acting career, a writing career, a great marriage, two wonderful boys, and three lucky dogs. For many, Dagmara is living the American Dream. She volunteers on the Board at the Montclair Public Library Foundation, frequently hosting galas and fundraisers for her favorite sanctuary and participating in local library events. She is also on the Advisory Board of the Montclair Film Festival, is involved in her kids’ schools, and actively seeks to find ways to support the independently-owned businesses that make Montclair so special. But she hasn’t forgotten her roots. She knows where she comes from, and is proud of her heritage, and it has shaped her life and how she chooses to engage within her community here in Montclair.

Read More: Happy Gilmore 2 Filming in Essex County; Adam Sandler Spotted at Multiple Local Businesses

The Montclair Girl: How long have you lived in Montclair?

Dagmara Dominczyk: It will be 14 years in December.

MG: When did you decide to move to Montclair?

DD: When we had our second kid, [Patrick] was like, I want space. I had grown up in little apartments in the city all my life. My husband had grown up in the Midwest and Florida. He lived in a house with a yard and dogs. I said wherever we go, I need to commute…and I need to walk to the grocery stores. Patrick’s friend and real estate agent, John Frenzer, said to come check out Montclair…I remember we were driving up Park Street and I was like, “Oh! This looks like TV shows I grew up with as an immigrant kid!” [I saw] white picket fences and trees and thought this isn’t so bad. I think it was the first or second house he showed us, and I fell in love with the house. I didn’t think I would, and I did. We put in an offer and it got accepted. But on the contingency that we wouldn’t give up our apartment in Brooklyn because I said, if I’m here six months and I hate it…we’re out.

MG: What made you decide to stay in Montclair?

DD: Spring. We moved in December. I was doing a play downtown in the city at the Rattlestick Theater. I had to commute on the bus every night because I didn’t drive. I would run to Port Authority to make the last bus. I’d get off on Valley and trudge through the snow and I was like, this is so f*cked. I hated shoveling snow. It was so dark and quiet at night. I was not used to that. Growing up in apartments in the city, loud noises, and crowds are my comfort blanket. But then I was done with the play, spring came, and the boys started playing outside. My sons were four and a half and one and a half at the time. I had a great neighbor that I met right next door, Anya, and she started taking me around town. It felt like a literal breath of fresh air being here and knowing that the city was so close…Plus I had a house. I’d never lived in a house before in my entire life. We had a yard. We adopted a puppy. I was like, I’m living the American dream now in New Jersey. When I tried out for my driver’s license — that I had failed twice in New York — and New Jersey gave me my license, I was like, alright. I’m staying.

MG: What are some of your favorite haunts around Montclair?

DD: I love to take walks in Montclair. It’s beautiful any time of the year…I love going to get my coffee at Paper Plane, Java Love, or Eagle Rock Cafe. When we first moved here, we lived quite close to the Bellevue Library. And it was one of the few places I could bring the boys where I didn’t have to rely on Patrick driving me. So we’d walk there and spend lots of afternoons downstairs in their kid’s room. I still go to the library now.

MG: Where do you go out to eat in Montclair?

DD: I love to go out to eat here! We like Samba. We like De Novo, and we also go to La Salbuen. [I also love] going to the bookstore. It’s my church.

MG: Which bookstore?

DD: Watchung Book Sellers.

MG: Where else are you a regular?

DD: I get my hair done at Gumdrop because my girl Rachel’s there and I love Gumdrop and I love Rachel. She’s been cutting my hair for 14 years now. Once in a while I get a mani…there’s that place on Bellevue — Nails of Utopia — that’s where I go. I go where I can walk. I think that old New York walker is still in me. I also love to go to Church Street and Walnut Street and just — I guess, just walk around. (she laughs) I’m not much of a “go out at night” partier. I don’t know how many people in Montclair are “go out at night” partiers. I love the General Store on Bellevue! The owner is so sweet and lovely. When the owner gets me, and when I feel like there’s a human connection, I will go support that business.

MG: Montclair has a lot of independently owned businesses.

DD: Yeah, it does. Not many things are shuttered or going out of business. I was just at Over the Moon yesterday buying my nieces and my nephew the cutest toddler clothes [which is] a place that I went to when I first moved here.

MG: Are there any places that you miss that have closed down since you first moved here?

DD: Oh, the stationery store. That sucked. The toy store on the corner of Valley and Bellevue. I used to bring the boys there a lot. That closed down…I also miss the — well, I call it a bodega because I’m from New York. There was a news store on Valley — like a tiny, little shop — and back when I was a smoker, I would go there and get my Camel Ultra Lights and say hi to the owner and buy my scratch-off Lotto tickets there. When that closed, that was really sad for me.

MG: Are there any local business owners for whom you have profound respect?

DD: Yes! So the gym I go to and that my husband goes to is called Rise Fitness and it’s on the other side of town. The owner, Ayo, worked so hard to save up his own money, open his own gym, and it’s amazing. I train with my trainer, Sarah, a few times a week because, side note, perimenopause happened. But my husband goes there religiously. Our younger sons go there too. And Ayo is amazing. When we had our gala for the public library, he came and supported. He bought a ticket. He donated. Same with Jonathan who owns Paper Plane. He came that night to our gala…I think when you put all your savings and all your effort into your own business, you know what it feels like from the inside out, and therefore you’re just a much more generous member of the community in general. So, Ayo’s one. Jonathan is another. There are people who have come from humble beginnings and who want to give back to the community and who want to breathe life into the community.

MG: You do quite a bit of work for the community yourself. You are involved with the Montclair Film Festival, correct?

DD: Patrick and I are part of that. It started a year after we moved here coincidentally enough. Tom Hall and Evie Colbert run that, and it’s wonderful. That’s another thing I love about Montclair. We have the Wellmont Theater. We have the Montclair Art Museum. We have the public library and I’m on the Montclair Public Library Foundation which is a non-profit that helps finance and fundraise for the libraries in town…My kids go to public schools here, so we ran an acting group at Watchung Elementary. Patrick and I directed the play there for a number of years. I was the vice president of the PTA at Buzz Aldrin. You know, if we’re in this town, then we’re in it. There’s a reason why we don’t live in LA or a gated community. Why move someplace and then not really live in it?

MG: You have two kids in the public schools. What’s that been like?

DD: I’m happy with [Montclair Public Schools]. I see there are issues with it, but my kids have had a good, solid education here with some amazing teachers along the way, and I don’t regret them having had a public education in Montclair at all. If you’re living in a community, and you want it to be as vibrant as this one, then put your money where your mouth is and help it stay vibrant. Help it be a good place for everyone, not just the people in Upper Montclair.

MG: How would you say that the pandemic changed Montclair?

DD: A lot of things became glaringly obvious — there are many different parts to Montclair and many different kinds of people who live in Montclair…I think there was work done after to address that [disparity]…We changed to have elected school board members…We can [now] vote in advocates that we support instead of the mayor appointing them. So in some ways it changed for the good, and in some ways, like everywhere else, it shone a light on the things that were f*cked up.

 

MG: From the daughter of immigrants yourself to a successful actor + writer — how did you get here?

DD: I don’t think there’s a magic formula at all. I think, as with many immigrant kids, in the back of your teenage mind is this desire to prove to your parents that it was worth it, worth that trek…It was not easy for my parents to leave their families…but my parents didn’t have time to coddle us or ask us about our dreams. It was sink or swim. You’re lucky you’re going to school. So, you fend for yourself. And you want to work hard, harder than others, to prove to your parents this was worth it — look what I’m gonna do. This pressure didn’t come from them…it came from within me.

MG: When did you know you wanted to be an actor?

DD: I discovered a love of acting very early on with my sisters at home. We would play dress up and film little videos and learn to speak English with each other. My dad got a giant camcorder when I was ten, and that became a life source for us…I fell in love with storytelling. I felt like I was seen. I was a very shy kid, but when I was on stage or reading in class out loud, something came alive in me. So I think it was in me.

MG: I read that your father passed away right before filming that iconic — no spoiler alert here — scene in Succession.

DD: Yes. Well, it was a week or two before my dad died…The last scene that I filmed in the whole series, that scene was filmed a day after my dad died. Or two days after. I think I was cut out from a lot of it because I looked like I had been crying for 24 hours. You couldn’t quite hide it from the camera. But it was such a loving environment and everybody was weeping that day because it was our very last day of Succession. It’s crazy how that whole storyline that year, the way the series ended, and the way my dad died all aligned in a really weird way. In a way, having the show end a day after my dad died and I had nothing on the docket, I had the luxury of sitting in my house or walking the streets of Montclair at night, weeping and calling out to the sky. And grieving deeply in a really ugly, deep, kind of primitive way…I would walk to the library every day with my grief journal and art supplies, sit outside, and journal. I’d get a coffee at Eagle Rock, walk back to the library, and just journal. It was like all my body and my mind could do. Just take that little walk and sit down there in front of the library…it really f*cking devastated me…So in a way, Succession gave me the greatest gift of all, which was, that it ended, right then and there, literally when he died.

MG: What are you working on now?

DD: I did two shows this summer, both filmed in New York City. One was for Netflix with Jude Law and Jason Bateman [Black Rabbit]. At the same time, I was shooting another show with Jessica Chastain for Apple TV [The Savant]. Just watch them when they come out because they’re both very, very good, from what I’ve read and from what I experienced filming. I [also] did a movie in Poland last summer, which just came out a month ago in Poland and won all these awards…I got to act in Polish, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done, I have to say, and I don’t say that lightly…Travel Essentials is what the movie is called. I’m hoping we get a chance to screen next year at the film festival here.

See More: All the Celebrities Spotted in Hoboken + Jersey City This Year (So Far)

MG: What does a normal day for you look like?

DD: When I’m working on an acting job, I can be up at 3AM, out the door at 4AM, work all day on set, and come home at night. But when I’m not working, and I’m living my other life — the mom/writer life — I get up, and I’ll go to the gym if it’s a training day. I feed the dogs. I’ll sit down and write at my computer [at home] or at Paper Plane or outside the library…I don’t play sports. I don’t do pickleball…I don’t cook at all. So we’ll either DoorDash from a local restaurant or go take a walk and go eat somewhere. Or I’ll go to [my sister] Veronika’s because she cooks. This is when Patrick is gone. Patrick is the cook. When Patrick’s gone, it’s T. S. Ma or Mr. Dino’s every night. Then I’ll watch reality TV.

I’m still in a weird way, a year and a half in, grieving my dad. I don’t know how to small talk anymore. I don’t know how to be fake. We used to hold PTA parties and toast the teachers at our house or invite the whole class over. We were very open. But for me now, losing my dad and being 48…it’s kind of a quieter moment. And Montclair’s really nice for that too.

MG: It sounds like Montclair is your safe space. 

DD: I think so. I think so.