Tessa Thompson

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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Today, my guest is actor and producer Tessa Thompson. Many of the characters she's played share something in common.

They're public-facing but privately conflicted, grappling with visibility, identity, and control over their own lives. She starred as the warrior Valkyrie in the Marvel Universe, the musician Bianca in the Creed franchise, civil rights strategist Diane Nash in Selma, a woman navigating the fraught boundaries of racial identity in the film Passing, and a biracial college student wrestling with racial politics in Dear White People.

And this Sunday, she's up for a Golden Globe, nominated for Best Actress in a Motion Picture for her portrayal of Hedda, Nia DaCosta's reimagining of Henrik Ibsen's classic play. Tessa is also starring in a new murder mystery, the Netflix limited series His and Hers. She plays a once prominent news anchor who returns to the small Georgia town where she grew up after a murder pulls her back into the spotlight.

And the detective leading the case is her estranged husband. It doesn't take long for them to realize that they're both hiding something. There are at least two sides to every story. Yours and mine, ours and theirs, his and hers. which means someone is always lying. The series is adapted from Alice Feeney's best-selling novel and is structured around competing versions of the truth. Tessa Thompson, welcome to Fresh Air.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Am I right that this is your first lead in a murder mystery? This is my first lead in a murder mystery. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that until just now. You're very intentional in the roles that you choose. I think that most actors are, but there is something that is very specific. I talked about it a little bit in the intro. There's a through line in many of your characters.

Many of them are, of course, they're highly intelligent, but they're also deeply self-reflective and aware. They use control as a way to survive. Anna, this particular character in His and Hers is no exception. And I actually want to play a scene where she's having lunch at a diner with a cameraman. His name is Richard Jones, and he's played by Pablo Schreiber. And he's married to your nemesis, another news anchor, which I should just say is...

really real. There are so many photographers who are married to news anchors. It's so true. And there are also so many anchors that have some testy relationships, which I learned when I did my time shadowing some of them. Oh, you did. So you shadowed. Yeah, I shadowed, which was just such a delay. I did a ton of it in Atlanta, and I'm so grateful to all the folks there that were so generous with me. But, you know, it's gotten better now, but it has been.

You know, for a very long time, a very competitive industry, and for women in particular, there is a scarcity of opportunity which creates its own sort of drama.

Did you go out on stories with them or what was your shadowing way? Yeah, I got to go out on stories. They got to help me with my copies. So I would send my copy in the show. They would help me rewrite. I got to go in studio and watch them work. It's one of the great... extraordinary pleasures of what I get to do is to really, in the process of preparation and research,

To meet so many extraordinary people that do incredible work and to really get a window into worlds that I think I might know something about. But truly, like anything, you know nothing about it the closer that you look. Oh, I'm so curious.

What's something you learned that was a surprise to you about the job? Something that was really surprising to me is I had always sort of assumed that anchors in particular were people that were just reading the news as opposed to writing it, that they actively are really, you know. writing those stories and have so much to do with that. And then also just being in the room where they're deciding what stories are important or when something's...

breaking. But, you know, I had a similar thing just sitting across from you because when I played Sam in Dear White People and got to play someone that worked in a radio station, I still, every time I do a podcast or I'm in a radio station, I have like a rush of that feeling again because I just loved.

doing it I just so enjoyed doing it sometimes when I play parts this isn't always the case but sometimes it feels like I get a sense of a window of like another trajectory I might have taken were I not an actor you know sometimes I find things that I go, God, I probably would have really loved to do this thing. And doing what you do is one of those things I thought when I was working on it. Goodness, I really like this. You also went to...

the small town that this was based on, or it was based on a small town, right? Yeah, so it's set in this tiny little town called Dahlonega. And thankfully, when I've had my first conversation with Will Olroyd about making the series, he said, I want to set it in this town. I happened to be in Atlanta, Georgia shooting the last Creed movie. And I literally got off the phone with him and drove an hour and a half to Dahlonica right away because I just was so fascinated. I'd spent...

many, you know, many, many months over the course of years shooting projects in Atlanta, but I'd never heard of Dahlonega. It was one of the early sites of the Gold Rush, this really fascinating tiny town. So I drove up there and I was just so... taken by it that I thought yeah I definitely want to make the show and then when we were working on the show we got to shoot there and I got to spend increasingly more time there but it is a rarefied thing to get to shoot in the

in the play sometimes. And I think it's really a gift. Right. When that happens, what are you looking for? When you drove there, what are the things that you're trying to suss out as you're trying to figure out the character that you're going to embody? Trying to get a sense of the place. I mean, Dahlonega, I knew on paper was almost 98% white. But then to be in Dahlonega... and feel what that feels like to come from Atlanta, which is this mecca. Chocolate mecca. Chocolate mecca.

To go into Dahlonega, into that space and be inside of a black body in those spaces to feel what that is. I'm a great lover. probably because all the items that you find in these places are storied. But I love an antique mall. It is my pleasure, my heaven. And the best ones always exist in tiny towns. And Dahlonega is chock full of them. And so I went into one of these antique malls and I'm...

You know, finding so many things I love at a steel, little ceramics and pieces of lace and all these things. And I turn one corner and the whole stall is Confederate. It's flags. It's all kinds of, I mean, some things I won't even say, but really sort of shocking bumper stickers and pieces of literature and just kind of, you know.

challenging to to see that in and amongst sort of this all this sort of beauty and and the quaintness of the store otherwise but that's very real you know when we were shooting his and hers there were So many neighborhoods we'd go into where there were tons of Confederate flags on lawns. And I think just having sort of the visceral experience of being in these. spaces always feels important to me and always in the process of preparation just to touch down is a gift.

I have this clip that I want to play where, as I mentioned, she's sitting with this cameraman and he's married to her nemesis. And she's talking to him about the perils. of being married to a news anchor. So she's talking about her nemesis, but she's also talking about herself in that same way. Let's listen. Richard Jones. Married to rising star Lexi Jones. What's that like? Exciting. Lonely. Right.

Friends tell you it must be exciting to have a celebrity wife or what passes for a celebrity in Atlanta, but it's not, is it? People recognize her in the grocery store asking to take their photo. Next to her, you're invisible. She leaves at 2 for the 4 and the 6, and she stays for the 11. And there's meetings after, so she doesn't get home until after 1. You're already asleep, so goodbye sex.

She makes five times more money than you do. Oh, and you're happy that she does. But it creates an imbalance, so happy or not, it hurts you both. Okay. I love this scene because it also is so accurate. Sorry, I just was in this world for so long. Yeah, right. And, you know, there are often these...

these shows that try to portray this world and they never quite get it right. But this, this particular piece seemed to do that. But what strikes me the most is that she's talking about her nemesis, but she's also talking about herself. She's talking about herself. Take me to that. That scene, take me to that particular piece of dialogue. So, as I said, I would lean on some of my, you know, new friends who worked in the space to go through my copy, but also...

With that scene, as we were developing it, I also asked them, like, what feels right? You know, Anna is someone who is... newly back or trying to regain her footing in her professional world and meanwhile is having to contend with a lot of choices that she made in her personal life. And so I think you get to see her in this moment. someone that deflects a lot and is probably projecting onto Richard. But really, she is really talking about herself. Okay, let's talk about Hedda.

It was written in 1891. But what fascinates me is its persistence. It just seems that across generations, there is always this... this desire, this need to unpack it, to understand it in order to understand the moment that we're in. Completely. And I'm just curious, what was it about Nia DaCosta's Hede that really...

Aside from the fact that you two had worked together previously, you knew each other well, but her version of Hedda that fascinated you. Oh, my goodness. So many things. I mean, I think to your point. These pieces are ripe for adaptation because they're dexterous enough to handle them. But for my money, I always think if you're going to do a classic...

You kind of have to implicate yourself. You have to have a good reason to want it because they're so perfect. It's like, why take it apart and put it back together unless you have something to say or you want to take a big swing or you want to do something daring? that both satisfies the original material but maybe takes it a step further or uses it in a way that pushes.

even the boundaries of what the original writer was intending. And I think Nia did that in spades. A couple of different ways. A couple of different ways, yeah. Number one, I mean... Casting you as Hedda is the biggest way. And I want to say there's a particular kind of rage within Hedda. But it translates a little bit differently with you being a black woman. Can you talk about... that for you and how you kind of thought about that.

how it kind of translated for you as you embody that role, that restraint, that ability to be able to articulate that rage, but it come out in this very specific way that is... So many different ways. I mean, you also add sort of the dynamics of upper society, post-war UK.

that has its own sort of affect, you know. Nia in general thinks of the 50s as the time of great pretending, sort of this post-war effort to button up everything, women get back in the house, men get back to work, everything's okay. Never mind the trauma that is happening globally. And the great pretending, it shows up in so many different ways in Hedda. Yeah, I mean, she herself is a great pretender. But when I was... Beginning work on her, I thought about my paternal grandmother, who was a...

a black woman in the 50s, a schoolteacher, so a working woman. But I thought about all the ways in which she and my maternal grandmother had to pretend. You know, they took very different paths. One became a working woman, another... married and was a housewife, never had a job in her life, was always attached to the men that she married, first one and then the other.

And I understood with more clarity now looking back on them, one is still alive. I mean, to this day, by the way, she's almost in her 80s. She wears her red lipstick every single day. But I just think about... how much I understood that they were pretending and how much rage they must have had because of the things that they were expected to do or the things that they could not do.

because of the time. And I think something that we were really interested in in this adaptation is to, yes, create a world in which Hedda, as a mixed-race woman, You know, in society at that time, also as a woman who is queer, is hemmed in by the time, the expectations, but is also hemmed in by... by herself. And that, I think, is the thing that all of us understand. There are limitations that are put on us because of where we're from.

Who we are. And there are also the limitations that we put on ourself because we are too afraid to step into who we are. I actually want to play a scene where we get to see sort of the manipulation. that Hedda navigates throughout the night. So in this scene, Hedda knows her ex-lover Eileen Loveborg, played by Nina Haas, has stopped drinking. She knows she could lose control if she drinks.

And she pushes her to do it anyway. Let's listen. Drink something. You look thirsty. I don't drink. Eileen? One can't hurt. She doesn't drink either. Never. I thought you were just cutting back. That's not what I said. And if I say you have to, then you'd be speaking. You wouldn't do as I say. Not where that is concerned, no. I think you should. It's ridiculous. It's silly.

It's alright for Thea, but not for you. You can write your books with them and teach with them at the university and you might even be able to get jobs alongside them. But they'll never really respect you. If they think you can't do it like the boys do. Heather, please. You saw Greenwood's face earlier when you asked for a soft drink. Like a soft woman. What did you see? Condemned. I'm used to contempt.

Content for your extracurricular interests, yes, but for your mind, your character. He can think what he likes. A woman of principle. That was my guest, Tessa Thompson, in the film Hedda with Nina Haas as Eileen. Man, we get to see just how she manipulates that. And Eileen goes on to take a drink because she wants to be seen by her peers, all of these men, as she's up for this professorship. What do you think Hedda actually might want from...

Eileen? And maybe, is it to destroy her? Is it to actually feel something in that moment with her? What is your interpretation? Oh, goodness. I mean... I have a tremendous amount of empathy for Hedda having embodied her. I think if I'm honest, I think in that moment, she's pretty dead set on destroying her. I think she's come from this attempted vulnerability, which is to say, if we could have done things differently in the past, if we could have been together.

which is basically her way of saying, could you have me now? Would you have me now? And she feels terribly rejected in that moment. And I think from that moment on decides... Then I have to destroy you. And the truth is I think thankfully we are conditioned. to not give credence to those sort of dark impulses inside of us. Yes, I've heard you say that...

You think Envy gets a bad rap, and I want to know more about that. I do, and actually the process of working on HEDA helped me understand that, because particularly in my industry, I did a lot of work early in my career. Because there's so much competition. And I really wanted to feel like I'm happy for people if something doesn't come my way, particularly for other black women. I feel like I win every time someone like me wins, like really and truly. I feel that.

feel so deeply a part of that community. And yet, of course, in all of us, you know, particularly when you want something, when you cannot have it, I think there's something inside of us that gets quelled from when we're children and we... We're told it's bad to feel that. We're told it's bad. We're told it's ugly. And particularly as women, we're told to feel that about each other is unsavory. And yet...

I think understanding and being able to connect to moments of jealousy or envy actually helps us understand the lives that we want to live. It's that thing of like when we're scrolling on Instagram and we feel... petty about someone's, I don't know, job that they post or recent weight loss or engagement. I think what they help us understand is maybe I'm not in the job.

that I want to be in. Maybe I want to be someone who's taking better care of myself. Maybe I want to be in a relationship that feels like it's moving towards some... new level of commitment. These are little, I think, whispers to ourself. If we can channel it in positive ways, I think it can help us understand where we want to go and potentially how to get there. That's the healthy version. But I think these instincts that exist inside of HEDA exist inside of all of us.

And I think we do a tremendous amount of pretending that they don't. And I think it actually gets us further away from our emotional truth. Our guest today is actor Tessa Thompson. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. Short, focused episodes, one topic at a time, about five minutes or so. We carry out reporting from across all of NPR's coverage, so you are always getting the biggest, most urgent stories. Listen to Trump's terms on the NPR app.

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. We're talking today with actor Tessa Thompson. She's starring in the new limited series His and Hers, a true crime thriller on Netflix. Over the last decade, Tessa has built a career spanning blockbuster films, television, and independent cinema.

She's known for her roles in Dear White People, Creed, Thor Ragnarok, and other Marvel movies, Sorry to Bother You and Passing. For the Creed films, she co-wrote and performed all of her character Bianca's songs. She began her career in theater before moving into television and film, and she's also starred in Nia DaCosta's feature debut, Little Woods, and has continued to collaborate with her on subsequent projects, including DaCosta's Hedda.

an interpretation of Henrik Ibsen's classic play, Hedda Gabler, for which Thompson has earned a Golden Globe nomination. Your first TV role before Veronica Mars, because people... talk about Veronica Mars as your breakthrough role. But before any of that, You were a lesbian bootlegger from the 1930s on the show Cold Case. This is beginning to feel like a theme, just like a period lesbian, just a lesbian of the past, a lesbian of a bygone era.

Well, gosh, you were so young. I was so young. And I thought, what a hell of a way to start. Yeah. You know, but you talked about being drawn to characters that don't fit neatly, who, you know, they cross lines, they resist category. Where does that actually come from, though? You know, you go out and you audition or whoever represents you says, oh, here's a role for you to go to to audition for.

But like, this is a pretty specific role to say, like, I want to go for this, you know? Yes. I mean, the truth is, early in your career as an actor, if you're someone like me that doesn't have any... You know, folks in Hollywood and my family, I was like cold calling agents. You know, I was like sending my little resume. I put together like a little collage and a handwritten note and I would send it out to agents around town. I mean, it was like very scratchy.

But I remember that cold case audition came after I'd had like a lot of commercial auditions, which I never had any luck at. You never got one. Oh, I'd be holding a pizza box. And I just found the whole process really challenging. I was not very good at it.

But it convinced me that I was probably not a very good actor because I couldn't do any of the things that they wanted me to do at these commercial castings. And also typically you'd be like one of like 85 people that look vaguely like you just in like. slightly different outfits. And I was like, I don't know if I'm going to make it this way. But I remember when Cold Case came through, I thought...

oh my goodness, this is so fascinating because it aligned with so many of the things I already loved and one of which was research. I was like, oh, I get to do so much research into the time. And then I remember when I got the part. I went to, I think it was on the Universal lot, got to go to their costume archives. And, you know, the suit that I'm wearing in it is an actual boy's suit from that time, from the period.

And I remember just thinking like, wow, if this is what it's like to work in TV and film, because that was my very first time doing it. I was like, I never want to stop. This is extraordinary. This collage that you made with these little handwritten notes.

That's something that is a through line that I see in a lot of the roles that you ultimately got. I mean, there's this story about you writing Tyler Perry. First off, you sent a tape. to Tyler Perry for Colored Girls after you heard that the film was already cast. Yes, I heard it was cast, but I knew...

And sadly, because I think she would have been extraordinary, Jurnee Smollett had to fall out of it. And so I got a call. I was in the supermarket at the time. I'll never forget. And I got a call from my then agent who said... Journey has to leave this. I know you love this play because for colored girls who considered suicide when rainbows enough is one of the first plays I fell in love with. I still have my hard copy that I stole. Sorry. From the Brooklyn library. I still own it. I'm so.

sorry to them. I will pay you whatever I owe you. But I just devoured that play and read it so many times and loved it. And so my agent at the time knew that and said, they're making a movie version of it. There's a part in it for you. How soon could you send a tape? And I went home immediately from the market and recorded a tape and send it to Tyler and sent him a note just about, I don't even remember what I said, maybe just how much I love the...

The play. Yes. I mean, for colored girls, it's a raw poetic exploration of what it means to be black and a woman in America. And you are alongside all of these titans. When you go back and watch it. Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington, Thandie Newton, Felicia Rashad. What did you absorb being among them? Janet Jackson. Janet Jackson. How could I forget Janet Jackson? Literally all of the women, all... I cannot tell you all of the women I watched my whole childhood.

I mean, so many of these women had had such an incredible impact on me. I remember the first time I saw Tandy Newton in that film Gridlock. My dad showed it to me and was like, you got to see this woman. I mean. all of their work collectively. Janet Jackson, I was her for three times at Halloween. I used to know all of, I mean, very poorly, but the Rhythm Nation dance, I could do that as a child. Wait, three times. So Rhythm Nation. What other eras of Janet? Rhythm Nation twice.

It's a good one. It's a good one. Rhythm Nation twice. Yeah. You've got the hair today. That's true. I do have the hair today. I mean, I'm always trying to be Janet. But these women meant so, so, so much to me. And so being on that. Set with them was just, you know, I mean, like pinching myself every single day. But also I feel like I'm so deeply aware all the time of just how we're in relation to each other, you know?

The women that both came before me, many of them still working today. Absolutely. The women that are working currently that feel like they're coming after me, the women that will come after them, I just spend a lot of time energetically feeling connected. to black women inside of this business. Because I just know from watching film and television growing up that it meant so much, it shaped so much of my...

ideas of self, you know, seeing Black women on screen. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is actor and producer Tessa Thompson. She stars in the new Netflix murder mystery limited series His and Hers. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Today I'm talking to Tessa Thompson.

She's been nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the film adaptation of Hedda, and stars in the new Netflix limited series, His and Hers.

I want to ask you about your parents, and in particular, your father, Mark Anthony Thompson. He's a musician. And... I have so many questions I want to ask you about growing up with parents who were artists. But in particular, your father, he was always photographing you, always filming you. What...

Do you remember, take me there, what do you remember about being on the other side of his camera? Yeah, he loved, he always had cameras, whether it was a Super 8 or a digital camera or a still camera. He loved images, still does, but then it was relentless. He was always recording. And he would use me to test light.

So we just sort of needed a subject, but then we graduated eventually, and I could use him as my cameraman and my cinematographer. So I would come up with these stories, and then I would tell him and sort of direct. him and he would shoot them. And some of them actually were quite elaborate. I cast my older sister very begrudgingly, who was deathly shy, just in general, but camera shy, especially. And so she's in one of those early films that we made.

I don't know. I think I remember a sense of feeling a tremendous amount of excitement and abandon. You know? I was lit up by a camera's presence. It was actually later in life when I began working professionally that I had to build a new relationship with a camera. But then it's like, no. self-consciousness at all just a just a

Just in excitement and being able to capture. And then my dad would also, because we drive around Hollywood a lot, he would hand me the camera so I would get to record a lot too. And I really loved that. I loved being able to see life through a lens. It made even the most mundane thing exciting suddenly to get to see it behind a lens. That's so powerful because I just... It makes me think about your ability to clearly see the people you want to work with and how you want to work with them.

If those foundational experiences with your father were pretty foundational in you understanding how it feels and what you need from the people that you work with. Yeah. I hadn't even connected that, but you're so right because I think obviously it's my dad and there's such a kind of intimacy. And trust. And trust. And so there's absolute freedom. You're right. Maybe I'm always chasing that now.

He's a musician, chocolate genius. Really, he had several different... arcs in his career as a musician, but I'm always fascinated by the neo-soul era because that was just a special era of a time when... it was a bringing back of music in such an intentional way and musicality in such an intentional way. And I know that you are, that's another form of storytelling for you. You did it in Creed where you were a musician who was...

writing music, but also you wrote music as part of it. Can you talk a little bit about how music kind of plays into your storytelling as well? Do you see yourself as a musician? I don't see myself as a musician, no, just because I know with anything like... It's requisite. It's sort of like an eat, sleep, breathe. It is your world and music is not necessarily, but it has such a huge place in my world. And I think in terms of formative early experiences.

A lot of those films that I would make with my dad or that time of creation was also at a time when he lived in his studio. So when I would be spending, because my parents weren't together, I would spend time with my father. And when I was spending time with my father, I was in Hollywood in this. studio so there were so many people coming in and out in creation and I would be playing or watching a movie while my dad would be recording and so there was this sense of

constant music around and constant kind of creation. And I still work in a very similar way when I'm working on something. Music is a huge part of how I'm beginning. process and character and understanding characters. There's so much that happens with sort of connecting kind of a sonic landscape with an emotional landscape. And so I think that had a huge influence on me, for sure.

Your mom, you all are extremely close. And I want to read something that you said about her. It was at an Essence Black Women in Hollywood luncheon back in 2020. So you said something pretty poignant about your mother and your grandfather. And here's the quote. I want to acknowledge someone who is not black and is not in the room because she couldn't be. But it's my mother. Her father, my grandfather, was of Mexican descent.

He was a performer in a time where there was very few of them, and he was the only very often. And I think because of this, he had a real pressure to assimilate because he didn't want my mother to speak Spanish. I was just really struck by the fact that you wanted to acknowledge her in this room. You wanted to say the sacrifices that she made allowed you to be in that room.

and also her understanding of identity in that way. How did your mother's experience actually help you hold on to the parts of yourself in this world as you navigate trying to pinpoint the storyteller you are? Yeah. Firstly, I think she really recognized, because I was doing plays in school and one of my early productions, I remember she came.

And I had never seen her look at me that way. I think it was the moment that she realized that I had found something that was going to occupy really so much of my... heart and life. And then separately, I think as someone that grew up, you know, I remember, and I think her father was just trying.

to give her the best odds. But, for example, suggesting that maybe she change her name on a resume to sound less ethnic because it might help her get jobs. And in fact, it did. It worked. He was not wrong, you know, in the 1980s. But I think my mom really wanting to make sure that I didn't feel like I had to make any concessions of self that I could show up exactly as I was. And she did it in really small ways. For example, I remember very early on wanting to...

straighten my hair to get my hair chemically straightened. And my mom was very sweet and very generous. And she's like, we can investigate the whole process and do it. And we investigated everything. I had had like a series of very terrible blowouts that the weather didn't agree with. And she was like, whatever makes you happy. But she outlined everything for me. And finally, it was my choice. I said, no, I want to keep my...

hair just like this and I remember when I made that choice she cried because she was so happy but she had given the choice to me you know and And I think that was just an early indication that was so helpful for me then when I navigated Hollywood and eventually was on sets where people deeply... decided that I had to straighten my hair, that I had to look one way or another. My mom gave me an early sense of self enough that I could say,

No, actually, I want to look like myself. And I'm not sure that I would have known how to do that were it not for my mother. You know what I also note? based on what you shared about your mother and in particular that speech you gave at that women's luncheon where you said, I want to acknowledge this woman who's not in the room. I mean...

Oftentimes, when we're talking about your identity, it is really focused on your blackness. Yeah. But you are biracial and your mother is white and Mexican. And so she's really not in the rooms when we talk about black discourse. This sounds like she was such a fundamental part in you understanding who you are. Yeah. And also I think she did a really phenomenal job at raising a mixed-race daughter.

Connecting me to my black identity and making sure that I was like in those spaces and taking me out of private schools that were. completely white, where I was the only kid of color in there on scholarship and understanding what that felt like. You were even homeschooled for a while. Yeah, because I was in a school system that...

frankly, was racist and not great. And I was bullied in that school. And she understood how detrimental that was to me at a very young age. And we didn't have the money. to get to a better school district. And so she took me out of school and homeschooled me until we could. Yay for moms. Yay for moms. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is actor Tessa Thompson.

She's starring as Hedda in a film adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. We'll be right back after a break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and today we're talking to actor Tessa Thompson, who recently earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the film Hedda. I talked about you sending that tape.

to Tyler Perry. You also did something similar with Dear White People. You, in this case, wrote a letter to the director and showrunner, Justin Simeon, a letter where you described how much of a fan you were of the actual work and that you needed to be in the movie.

I think of myself as someone that doesn't write letters, but you're reminding me, I suppose I am. I read Dear White People at a time when I almost wanted to quit. Quit the industry. Yes. And I hadn't really been working in it, arguably. that long, but I just thought,

There's not enough for me here. There's not enough that's substantive. And frankly, some of the things that I'm going up for or would be offered, were I lucky enough to get them, I think are like problematic in terms of what they say. about us and I just I don't know if I want to do it anymore and then I got this script and it felt like for the first time I

could play a character that was not just the object of the narrative, but the subject of the narrative, which was massive. And by the way, there are amazing roles that you can play where you are somewhat an object, which means your character functions, but is not... protagonist is not the subject that the audience or the filmmaker, frankly, cares the most about.

But at that point in my career, I had never, you know, with the exception of maybe my first job on cold case, got to be real the subject. And even then, she really is an object because she's just a cold case. you know, that you're trying to figure out in the past, right? So it was remarkable to have the opportunity to play that kind of character. And then also Justin Simeon wanted to sort of...

It was an indictment of Hollywood itself in some ways about the kind of things that we're allowed to be on screen as black folks. And that was something I so deeply felt. And had so many feelings about that I didn't even get to process because anytime I was working, it was sort of like, you're just happy to be there. You're happy to have a job. But secretly, I was feeling a lot of turmoil about... what was possible for me, and particularly coming from...

The theater where you play these incredible parts, expansive parts. I mean, my first professional play, I was playing Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. You play these things that you get to sink your whole humanity into. And then to feel like it's mitigated to this sort of tiny, and in very many cases, especially early in my career and at that time in Hollywood, sort of superficial or stereotypical versions of...

Yes. A woman of a black woman in particular. I just felt I was tired, frankly. Yeah. It's such a refreshing dynamic.

It was also one of the first times you've done satire, right? Yeah, and satire is increasingly rare. So I just loved the script and sort of died for it. And it felt like that thing that I just... I just knew I had to play that part. Do you revisit your old work? No. Have you revisited that particular film? No, I haven't seen it. I will say, Tessa.

I loved it when it came out. I saw it many times. It felt different watching it in 2025. Really? In what sense? It still held up, but we're in a different place. Back then, I mean, it was the tail end of the Obama era, and we were kind of... we were naming things in a very intentional way. And there was also a bit of optimism in being able to name for many people. And to watch that, just thinking about something like that.

being created today. Do you think it could be? No. I don't think so. Not in the same way, no. I think there was a run, and Dear White People was sort of early in it, but I think there was a run of really extraordinary American films that wanted to talk about race in really inventive ways. I don't know. I hope, I think that these things are sort of like a pendulum and things come back around.

And this time will probably give birth to a whole welcomed rash of projects. You're optimistic. I am. I am optimistic. I am. I love, in the same way that I love stories that are audacious, I love storytellers that are audacious, I love people full stop that are audacious, I think one of the most audacious things currently is to be optimistic.

And so I try to be. Something interesting about you is you have, you may have more, but I don't know this, but you have two tattoos. One that is a yes. Yes. And then one that's a no. Yes. The yes is bigger and more visible to audiences than the no is. But, you know, I got the yes first. And then many years later, I thought I needed to get the no for good measure. But I think.

And they're on separate arms. I do think I'm constantly wrestling with that. I think I wrestle with my cynicism and my optimism. I think they're always in a bit of a tussle. Because that's what they represent. There's the optimism and there's the cynicism. But why did the cynicism need to happen a few years later with the no after this big declarative yes? It was a reminder to myself.

That we are as much defined by the things that we don't do than by the things that we do. And I think I needed to be reminded to say no. I think I'm partially because of my optimism. Boundless energy, I'm someone that's inclined to say yes. And also, I think in this industry, there is a perceived feeling of scarcity. And so I think you're constantly kind of like, what's next? What's, you know, and sometimes it breeds a yes that maybe should have been, that should have been a very polite no.

Tessa Thompson, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you. The pleasure's been all mine. Thanks so much for having me. Tessa Thompson stars in the new Netflix series, His and Hers. She's nominated for Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for her role in the film Hedda. If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our conversation with journalist Jacob Soberoff about his new book, Firestorm, which is about last year's devastating Los Angeles wildfires.

or New Yorker staff writer Charles Bethea on the political transformation of Marjorie Taylor Greene, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of fresh air interviews. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations on what to watch, read, and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at WHYY.org slash Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producers are Danny Miller and Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Susan Yakundi, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.