Why Tessa Thompson’s queer Hedda is her most complex screen role
Tessa Thompson talks about playing the abrasive, tragic title role in Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video in October
In Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, Tessa Thompson’s titular socialite sows chaos. She manipulates. She cuts people to the bone with a quip. She pours more drinks.
Hedda Gabler, the heroine of Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 play named after the character, has long been one of theatre’s most tragic figures: a woman hemmed in by societal convention and her own dread of scandal. She is that, and more, in DaCosta’s new film.
“Many think of her as a woman that’s suicidal,” Thompson says. “I think of her as someone who’s dying to live, and dying to live on her own terms. She might do some pretty questionable things in pursuit of that, but I think the actual pursuit is really aspirational and beautiful.”
Hedda, which will stream on Prime Video from October 29, is a blistering tour de force for Thompson. In her two-decade career, no role has given her a more complicated, contradiction-rife character.
She has generally favoured ensembles, from Marvel films to Creed. Hedda is something spikier and sexier for Thompson, whose roles – empathetic, kindhearted – have often hewed closer to her own thoughtful personality. But in Hedda, her character is brash and brutal.