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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. “Even the dress, taking up that amount of space is really an exercise in taking up space,” she says. “I’m sensitive to people, I would say. I used to say I’m a people-pleaser and then I read a really fantastic thing that said: ‘So you’re a people-pleaser. How many people are currently pleased with you?’” She lets out a great laugh. Far from accruing enemies, she has steadily built a wide following for the nuance and intelligence she brings to a wide swathe of roles. Hedda has her in the mix for a best actress Oscar nomination this year. “It’s daunting but it’s incredible to be part of a tradition,” she says. “In some ways, it puts pressure on, but in some ways it alleviates it. This is not the be-all and end-all. There are so many versions, and we’re doing our own. And I’m also of the mind that if you’re going to take any classical piece, you should have real skin in the game.” For both Thompson and DaCosta, Hedda is a personal film. DaCosta, who also wrote the adaptation, makes significant alterations to Ibsen’s drama while remaining faithful to its tragic underpinnings. Her Hedda transfers the play from 19th-century Norway to 1950s England. Here, Gabler is queer, but not openly, and instead has taken social shelter by impetuously marrying a wealthy man (Tom Bateman). On the chaotic night of the film, they are hosting a lavish party at their massive country estate. One of the most notable guests is Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss), a former lover of Hedda’s who is not hiding her sexuality, nor her ambition. (In the play, Lovborg is a man.) With Eileen is her girlfriend (Imogen Poots) and a new manuscript that seems destined to buoy her career as a writer and professor. The gender switch allows DaCosta’s film to offer a portrait of a trio of women, each swimming their own way through a white male patriarchy. Thompson and DaCosta have been friends since meeting at the Sundance Institute’s Directors and Screenwriters Labs. DaCosta’s directing debut, the 2018 indie crime drama Little Woods, starred Thompson. DaCosta says she wrote Hedda for her. “I knew she could do it and I knew she would surprise me,” DaCosta says. “She’s kind of a big-sister energy, so loving and kind of the opposite of this character. But she’s incredible at playing these characters who have so much going on that they can’t show. Like in Passing.” Hedda shares some DNA with that 2021 drama from Rebecca Hall. It starred Thompson as a black woman and Ruth Negga as her white-passing friend in 1920s New York. Hedda revolves around a character who is hiding – in some instances ruthlessly so – her true nature from both society and herself. “In that way, I feel like it’s really modern. I think we kind of all do that,” says Thompson. “It’s death by increments. We sort of have to cut off parts of ourselves to fit inside whatever. I experience that even in Hollywood. There are certain things that fundamentally don’t really work for me and I kind of make them work because I want to exist inside this industry.” Thompson came out publicly as bisexual in 2018. With her production company, she has turned producer for films like Hedda. “I’ve found, in a way that Hedda hasn’t, a kind of agency,” Thompson says. “Starting a production company some years ago was really helpful in that regard, the ability to develop something to feel less like a cog in something moving. Also to be able to, frankly, sometimes take myself out of the frame.” But it is clear that Hedda has left a mark on Thompson. The character, she acknowledges, is one she is still pondering like a puzzle that cannot be completely solved. “There’s such a paradox in her,” she says. “She’s fixated on existing inside society. On the other hand, she’s brave enough to do many of the things that you would not do if you have that interest. But she’s not brave enough to do the ultimate thing, which is to decide to live outside the parameters of what’s expected of her. In that way, she’s a total, total coward. Like many of us.”
