What you don’t know about me

Never let it be said that Tessa Thompson lacks range. The actress broke her teeth performing Shakespeare with the Women’s Shakespeare Company of Los Angeles, reprized her role as civil rights activist Diane Nash in Ava DuVernay’s Selmawon plaudits for her astonishing portrayal of a conflicted 1920s Harlem housewife in the 2021 film. Crossing over and now, in her third outing in the role, Thompson can be found riding a flying horse and wielding a lightning bolt as Marvel superhero/demigod Valkyrie in Thor: Love and Thunder.

“I think what’s fascinating about the Marvel Cinematic Universe … is that superheroes really connect us to our humanity because they’re well-drawn characters that are complex,” she says of her involvement in the hugely successful comic book franchise . “So you get action and excitement, but you also get storylines that connect you to being human and hopefully make you feel less alone.”

In person, she’s just as confident as her superhero alter ego, and just as friendly. Quick to laugh and thoughtful, she says she doesn’t believe in pleasures, that her friends would describe her as a “bad texter” and confirms that “any prince” would take her on the dance floor. “I don’t have a signature dance move,” she admits. “But I like to spin. I do a lot of spinning. I’m ashamed of myself.”

Thompson exudes the energy you’d most like to have at a party where—obviously—she might start talking about dairy. “I’ve never had an egg,” she says simply. “People seem shocked by it, so when I have nothing to say at a party, I just pull this out and it’s always a conversation starter.” A really great party, she notes, is where she feels most comfortable. “You know when you have those nights out and you’re too busy dancing and talking and being with friends and you’re not self-conscious? I think when I feel free, that’s when I feel most beautiful.”

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Her calm demeanor and down-to-earth approach stemmed, she notes, from the best career advice she received, which was to not take it too seriously. “But it’s just great advice for life,” she laughs with a shrug. She credits the moment in her career that made her break out in Justin Simien’s 2014 Sundance Award-winning film. Dear white people (which would later go on – with a new cast – to become a critically acclaimed Netflix show). “No matter what he did for my career,” she recalls, “he confirmed my belief in filmmaking and the kinds of characters I could play in Hollywood.”

If she weren’t an actress, Thompson says she’d be a producer, something she, through her new company Viva Maude, is actually already doing. “But I’ve always wanted to be a dancer,” she adds wistfully, “or a cultural anthropologist… and more recently an interior designer. I really need to stop acting soon so I can do all these other jobs.”

Until then, she has to promote her latest performance as the imperious, witty, scene-stealing Valkyrie, which she sums up in true Thompson fashion: “I would describe Thor: Love and Thunder like a crazy movie about the redemptive power of love…and two really cool GOATS.”

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