Tessa Thompson is a vision in Nia DaCosta’s Hedda
Tessa Thompson and Nia DaCosta rejoined at the Toronto International Film Festival to celebrate the world premiere of Hedda, a daring reinterpretation of Henrik Ibsen's famous drama Hedda Gabler. Following their previous collaboration on 2018's Little Woods, the duo has created a vibrant, genre-bending version that moves the story to the 1950s while retaining its emotive heart. DaCosta wrote and directed the picture, which stars Imogen Poots, Nicholas Pinnock, Tom Bateman, and Nina Hoss.
DaCosta explained in the Q&A following the film how she sees Hedda.
“She acts on the intrusive thought, which the rest of us are like, ‘No, don’t do that.’ Obviously, that’s terrible. And she’s someone who’s tortured… afraid to free herself and afraid to stay locked in,” she said. “She’s a malignant energy, but she’s also hilarious. And she’s also fighting so hard to be able to love.”
She adds, “There’s no excuse for them, just to let you know where my morality lies, but you understand the impetus. She’s reactive. Every time she does something terrible—or even when she tries to do something loving—she’s immediately triggered into action.”
DaCosta also shared that Thompson was her only choice to play Hedda, “When we were making Little Woods, I’d pitch her a new movie every day after lunch,” she joked. “And when I wrote Hedda, I just knew it would be her.”
Thompson explained how she prepared for portraying Hedda, “I watched every production I could get my hands on, read reviews, really tried to engage with it,” she said. “But I had to throw it away, because if I thought about it too much, I couldn’t find myself in it.”
She also spoke on the changed ending, “In the original, spoiler alert, Hedda dies. I think this Hedda is a woman who’s dying to live. And I think these are two women that are dying to live in different ways, too. What I made, they made with me—I couldn’t have done any of it without them. And that set me free, too.”
Hedda comes to select theaters on October 23rd and Prime Video October 29t.