Tessa Thompson In Hedda: Age, Career Highs, And The Character Everyone’s Talking About

Tessa Thompson is lining up a meaty one next: Nia DaCosta's 'Hedda,' a sharp, modern spin on Ibsen that lets her go full volcanic. If you've watched her bounce from Shakespeare to Sundance to Marvel and back again, this feels like exactly the kind of left turn she likes to make.

Quick refresher on Tessa's road here

Los Angeles-born and based, Thompson (42) built her reputation the old-fashioned way: stage first, then the rest. She cut her teeth in local Shakespeare productions like 'The Tempest' and 'Romeo and Juliet: Antebellum New Orleans, 1836,' and even picked up a NAACP Theatre Award nomination early on. From there, the screen work kept scaling up. Indie breakthroughs in 'Mississippi Damned' (2009) and 'For Colored Girls' (2010). A double-hit in 2014 with 'Dear White People' and 'Selma' that cemented her as someone you pay attention to.

• Creed era: 'Creed' (2015) and the sequels turned her into a franchise fixture without dulling the edges.
• Marvel run: Valkyrie across 'Thor: Ragnarok,' 'Avengers: Endgame,' and 'Thor: Love and Thunder' made her a fan favorite in the MCU.
• Risky indies: 'Annihilation' and 'Sorry to Bother You' kept the weirder, bolder choices alive between tentpoles.
• TV stretch: 'Copper' (2012-13) and 'Westworld' (2016-2022) gave her longer-form playgrounds.
• Voice work: She voiced Lady in Disney's live-action 'Lady and the Tramp' in 2019.
• Behind the camera: She launched a production banner and, in 2024, directed Arooj Aftab's 'Raat Ki Rani' music video — her first directing credit.

So, what is 'Hedda'?

It's Nia DaCosta (writing and directing) reimagining Henrik Ibsen's 'Hedda Gabler' as a 1950s England story with a broader social canvas. Thompson plays a highly intelligent, impeccably composed woman boxed in by post-war expectations — married for convenience, restless to the point of danger, and constantly testing the limits of her own agency. The film moves the story out of the drawing room and into a country estate where status games and broken promises escalate fast. That shift matters: instead of a sealed chamber piece, it's a pressure cooker with a lot more people watching — and judging.

There is also a layer the earlier versions usually sidestep: this Hedda is mixed-race and bisexual, which reframes nearly every power dynamic she walks into in 1950s Britain. The character is meant to be brilliant, magnetic, and, yes, destructive — not a moral lesson so much as a live wire.

'Sexy, sultry, machiavellian, vulnerable mess of a protagonist who does terrible, unforgivable things.'

That description from Thompson and DaCosta gets at the appeal: it's not a tidy retelling of a classic; it's a deliberate, contemporary reframing that lets Thompson push past familiar beats.

Why this pairing works

Thompson thrives on characters who look like they're in control until they aren't, and DaCosta has a knack for tonal balancing acts. Setting Hedda loose in a high-society ecosystem — rather than just one parlor — gives the fallout room to breathe. If the original was intimate catastrophe, this one plays like social warfare with a personal detonation at the center.

Release plan

'Hedda' hits theaters on October 22, 2025, with a Prime Video debut following shortly after. If you're here for Thompson doing something sharp, specific, and a little dangerous, this is that.