While some actors might balk at the thought of pulling their own stunts, it’s exactly what enticed Quintessa Swindell to their latest role in conspiracy thriller Prime Target.
Swindell plays Taylah, an NSA agent who is tasked with monitoring and reporting on mathematicians' behaviour. While it might sound like a desk job, when she comes across a brilliant young math postgraduate, Edward Brooks (played by Leo Woodall), on the verge of a major breakthrough, she’s thrown into some seriously precarious situations.
“The idea of being an NSA agent was so far removed from the scope of anything that I thought I could do,” Swindell tells RUSSH. I was like, ‘How could anybody take me seriously as that?’”
Brooks’ research – attempting to find a pattern in prime numbers – if successful, could see him hold the key to every computer system in the world. Naturally, several forces begin to covet this work, many with sinister intentions, throwing Swindell’s character into an impossibly high-stakes world as she tries to protect Brooks’ work – and potentially his life.
“There’s one part where my character dives into the water: I did the running, someone else did the dive, and then I continued it in the water,” Swindell recalls. The particular sequence saw them learning how to free dive in open waters in the South of France, an experience Swindell can only describe as “insane.”
When she’s not throwing herself into life or death situations, Taylah is putting her tech savvy to work, typically typing code at a furious speed as she hacks into various security systems. This side of the character, however, did not come naturally to Swindell. “I’m terrible with tech,” they laugh. “When I got to London, my phone wasn’t working and I was asking my partner, ‘Can you do something?’ Can you make this work? He’s like, ‘Just check the settings,’ and I’m like, ‘What does that even mean?!’”
It was a similar story for Woodall, whose character is, while brilliant at maths, not particularly sociable. “It’s funny because he’s the complete opposite of his character,” Swindell says. “He’s very social, so I felt like [he had] a hard time actually being dismissive to other people when he was playing Ed.” Off-camera, however, the duo struck up a fast friendship. “It was amazing: he’s an incredible actor to work opposite of and just play with. It was a very easy environment,” says Swindell.
When they’re not at work, Swindell is quickly making a name for themselves as a force in fashion. With an affinity for edgier, slightly more avant garde pieces, their unique sense of style has caught the attention of brands like Acne Studios, Celine, Givenchy, and Miu Miu, to name only a few. “I love this shit. My partner works in fashion, I’ve always adored fashion,” they say.
For Swindell, dressing up is also intimately linked to embracing a character like Taylah on-screen. “I think, for each character, [clothing is] kind of the basis. How they show their body… or how they don’t show their body. I felt like there’s a little bit of Taylah that’s like, ‘I don’t want to be seen. And I don’t want people to see me or have any idea of who I am or what I look like.’ So that was something that I was curious about."
The result was a uniform of leather jackets, hoodies, and combat boots — one that might have looked thrown together but, according to Swindell, couldn't have been further from it. "I was really particular," they say. "I’m really thankful to have such a collaborative production team."
'Prime Target' premieres Wednesday, 22 January on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Wednesday through 5 March, 2025.
