Working on the Thor films was like being surrounded by overgrown children said Tessa Thompson — and it helped her get into the comedic role of Valkyrie. The actor, 42, is in town for the BFI London Film Festival and gave a Screen Talk at Curzon Soho on Monday 13 October.
“You just have to play like a kid, especially with Taika [Waititi] as the captain of the ship,” said Thompson. “He’s a huge infant, an infant with a bank account. It’s terrifying,” she joked. “He should be stopped because he’s not an adult.”
Waititi, 50, directed Thompson in Marvel films Thor: Raganrok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). The New Zealand director is now married to singer Rita Ora. The couple wed secretly in LA and now reside together in London, in their Grade II-listed house in Primrose Hill.
Thompson’s fellow actor Chris Hemsworth, who played the titular Thor, was also a giant baby, she joked. “Chris Hemsworth — that’s a baby with muscles,” she quipped. “A very big infant that eats every hour, that’s a hungry child.” Hemsworth famously had to eat at least six meals a day while training to play the muscular Old Norse god.
Having such young spirits on set helped her shake off her inhibitions while acting against so much green screen, said Thompson. “It just looks so goofy, especially when like you’re supposed to be looking at something that isn't happening.”
Not everyone on set was getting in touch with their inner child, however. “Tom Hiddleston's not a big baby, that's a grown up serious person,” joked Thompson. “That’s an adult with multiple bank accounts, they’re all tidy, never been in the red, never in his overdraft. He was born with investments and everything.”
Hiddleston had an involved method for getting into his role as trickster antagonist Loki. He plastered his trailer with pictures of how each set was supposed to look, said Thompson, so he could imagine what he was looking at while acting against the green screen.
“He's tremendous and, and I learned so much from him,” said Thompson. “He comes on set blasting whatever his classical music is that he needs for Loki in that moment he's blasting it and it's so immersive.”
There was no green-screen acting required for Hedda, Thompson’s new film that had its UK premiere at the LFF. Thompson not only plays the title role in the adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 play Hedda Gabler, she is also the producer through her company Viva Maude. Amazon MGM Studios snapped up Hedda prior to inking a multi-year deal with Viva Maude.
She met Hedda’s writer and director, Nia DaCosta, 35, via the Sundance Labs, the non-profit supporting independent filmmakers founded by the late Robert Redford. Thompson volunteered for the programme, which offers first-time directors the opportunity to direct professional actors in scenes from scripts they’re workshopping.
“You're staying all in cabins together, it's sort of like summer camp and it's really fun,” said Thompson. “When Robert Redford was still alive he would like turn up on his motorcycle and leather jacket. He was in his 80s and so cool. They had this little bar called the L bar and that's where everyone would go and drink at the end of the day. You could get these jugs of wine and sit in at the bar talking to all of the creatives and occasionally Robert Redford would come in and tell stories.”
Thompson was impressed by DaCosta’s quiet confidence, despite the burgeoning director being just 25 years old at the time. “We’d only known each other three days and she turned to me and she just said: ‘when I make this movie will you make it with me?’”
That movie became Little Woods, DaCosta’s directorial debut, which starred Thompson alongside Lily James.
DaCosta went on to direct two episodes of Top Boy before becoming the the first black woman director to debut at number one with her 2021 horror Candyman. Her 2023 film The Marvels, which Thompson had a cameo role in, was the highest-grossing film with a black woman director — as well as the first Marvel movie directed by a black woman.
DaCosta’s next film is the highly anticipated 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the sequel to Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later starring Ralph Fiennes and Alfie Williams, which drops in January 2026.
Thompson jumped at the chance to work with DaCosta again for Hedda, which transports Ibsen’s infamous “female Hamlet” to 1950s England where she continues her power-hungry quest to manipulate the people around her for entertainment.
“I love to work with Nia, I really trust her,” said Thompson, although the prospect of playing Hedda “terrified” her.
“I want to be polite, I want to make people feel good. That’s not Hedda. So I dialed that down” said Thompson. “I take zero pleasure in making people uncomfortable, but [to play the role] I expand that thing in me and realise I was lying to myself and actually, it can be fun.”
The actor also acknowledged that it was interesting for her to play an iconic theatre character who is almost always portrayed by a white actor.
“I hate sometimes when conversations get too politicised, but interestingly, when I went back to watch productions, there's so few women that have played Hedda that are of colour,” said Thompson, who previously told the Standard she considered quitting Hollywood entirely over the lack of roles for women of colour.
“She just happened to wanna make it with me and I happen to be a woman of colour,” said Thompson. “But I do think there's an interesting conversation inside of that to talk about what gets to the canon and who gets to make pieces of work that are canon.”
Hedda is in cinemas from October 22 and streaming on Prime from October 29
