Donald Glover had an idea: What if his next show—after the surreal, boundary-pushing series Atlanta—told the story of a young woman who was obsessed with a pop star? He knew a thing or two about that, having risen to music stardom with his rap alter ego Childish Gambino and witnessing the ways in which some fans can push their parasocial relationships with musicians to extremes. He pitched the idea to Janine Nabers, an Atlanta writer and producer who happened to be from Houston—home to music icons like Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, and of course, Beyoncé. Nabers took to the idea, and they set off to create Swarm, the forthcoming new series on Amazon’s Prime Video. (Take an exclusive first look at images from the series below.)

“We just thought it’d be fun to make a post-truth Piano Teacher mixed with The King of Comedy,” Glover tells VF, referencing the 2001 Michael Haneke drama and the 1982 Martin Scorsese classic. Take those two films, blend them with Glover’s and Nabers’s own artistic sensibilities, filter them through the contemporary pop landscape, and out comes Swarm. 

The series tells the story of Dre (played by Dominique Fishback), a young woman who is obsessed with a fictional pop star (whose oeuvre and aesthetic are very similar to Beyoncé’s). The show is a dive into Dre’s life, her fandom, and how it takes her to dark, unexpected places.

“We were really interested in creating an antihero story,” Nabers, who is the showrunner, tells Vanity Fair. Nabers and Glover took inspiration from classic TV antiheroes who were messy, but compelling—Mad Men’s Don Draper, The Sopranos’ Tony Soprano—and created a new version of that archetype, “through the lens of a Black, modern-day woman.”

The show stars Fishback (Judas and the Black Messiah) in the lead role. “I heard from my team that Donald was creating a show and wanted me to be part of it,” the actor tells VF. “I was like, ‘Oh, shoot! Donald Glover knows me. That’s pretty cool,’” she adds with a laugh. Fishback was originally approached to play Marissa, Dre’s sweet sister, but urged the Swarm creators to let her play the lead, who is a little more offbeat and felt like more of a challenge. “I don’t want to be able to catch up to myself as an actor,” Fishback says. “[Dre] didn’t give a lot of direction about who she was, why she felt the way she did. I really had to go on instinct.”

“Me and my brother Stephen were talking about finding someone like Isabelle Huppert, as far as risk-takers in performances,” Glover says of Fishback’s casting. Swarm was shot on film, features intimidatingly long takes, and, like Atlanta, has a number of narratively risky moments, requiring an actor who was completely committed and could deliver a resonant performance. 

The pilot, directed by Glover, has a scene that combines all three of those elements. “When we shot the last scene of the pilot, every single person stopped what they were doing and gave Dom a standing ovation for three minutes,” Nabers says. “I’ve been doing TV for a long time and I’ve never seen that. That was the moment that Donald and I looked at each other and we were like, ‘All right—we got something right.’”

The show also stars Chloe Bailey as Marissa, Dre’s sister, and Damson Idris as her charismatic boyfriend. Casting Bailey, who delivers a warm performance, is a canny, layered choice: Bailey is one half of the Grammy-nominated sister duo Chloe x Halle, signed to Parkwood, Beyoncé’s label. Not only does she understand the music landscape, but she also was able to draw from her relationship with her own sister, Halle Bailey, to ground the character. “She’s an incredible person and she can really tap into the humanity of sisterhood,” Nabers says.

Behind the scenes, the show also made headlines when it was announced that Malia Obama would be joining the writers room. “Dre and Marissa are in their 20s and Malia is in her 20s, so it was really great having someone like her in the room,” Nabers says. “She’s a very professional person. She’s an incredible writer and artist. We really wanted to give her the opportunity to get her feet wet in TV and see if this is something she wants to continue doing.”

Exciting new additions aside, Nabers notes that the show’s crew is comprised mostly of people who worked on Atlanta—to the point where Swarm feels like “a sister to Atlanta.” Swarm lives in “the same tonal space” as Glover’s Emmy-winning, genre-bending FX series. 

“A lot of people did it out of the kindness of their hearts and they did a really great job,” Glover writes. “Dom, Damson, Chloe. I was really blown away at how hard they worked on the tone, ’cause it’s a strange one.”