Copyright buzzfeed
Were there any specific moments in the script that really drew you into Hedda’s inner psyche and emotional turbulence? Tessa: I think the whole script is a beautiful, beautiful script to read. It's the combination of some of Ibsen's original sort of ideas or things that he's wrestling with, but also just Nia's writing. Like, there are fab one-liners in it, too. You know, there's just like delicious things to say. And then I thought the character was so beguiling. You know, she's really hard to understand and unpack, and those are the kind of characters that you don't often get to play. Tessa: But when you do, they kind of turn the world upside down in the best way as an actor. So kind of everything, kind of from page one. And also all the other characters. There are just brilliant scenes. So, as an actor, you want to be a part of a world that you find enticing. And I found the whole world just really enticing. How did Hedda being a mixed-race woman impact the way that you showed female rage, which is at the heart of the story? Nia: For me, I wanted to show how it would continue to isolate her as a character. You know, she mentions race to Lövborg, who's like this great love, allegedly, and Lövborg's reaction is whatever. She can't engage with it. You know, she's really close to Judge Brack, who's Black, but he's a man and she's a woman, and he still feels like he should have power over her. You know, if someone says, “Oh, she's duskier than I thought she would be.” There are these small ways that kind of resonate hugely for her, that her race can isolate her in that world. And it's a world that she's dying to sort of feel like she has a status in. So it definitely adds to her struggle, and I found that really fascinating. Tessa: I thought it was so interesting. Someone recently said that the character was race-swapped, and I was like, well, the whole thing is, I mean, no one's Norwegian! Also, what's the swap? There's no binary. But I found it so confusing, because I was like, everyone's not Norwegian in our piece, so like everything is white. Shining a light on people's biases. I found it very confusing.
