Tessa Thompson makes a character’s unspoken worries worth attending to. We rate her restraint and the weight she gives screen relationships, though the films and programmes around her too often hurry past what she makes interesting.
Fi1m perspective
In Creed III (2023), Tessa Thompson’s Bianca has a career of her own and a marriage beginning to crack. The film keeps finding reasons to look elsewhere. We grew impatient when the training montage arrived, because we wanted the conversation with Bianca that the film was not giving us. Thompson makes her character’s life seem worth following even when the screenplay treats it as something to check on between fights.
The move from Dear White People (2014) to Creed (2015) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017) brought her into franchise films without keeping her there. As Irene Redfield in Passing (2021), she conveys the character’s inner conflict with little dialogue. Producing as well as starring in Nia DaCosta’s Hedda (2025) adds another way for her to shape the material.
That helps explain the frustration of Michael B. Jordan’s Creed III: the acting gives the marriage weight, but the film allows it too little time. Jordan directs himself confidently and finds inventive ways to stage the fights. Zach Baylin and Keenan Coogler’s screenplay is less patient with the people around them, rushing through friendship and guilt while intermittently remembering Bianca’s working life. Thompson’s connection with Jordan is valuable here; we wanted the film to make better use of the relationship.
HIS & HERS (2026) leaves us with a related reservation, although the six-part mystery is harder to recommend. As Anna Andrews, Thompson gives her emotional history with Jon Bernthal’s Detective Jack Harper enough force to keep their scenes watchable. There is something to explore between these two, but the programme keeps introducing another reason to suspect someone. Their performances cannot make the characters’ decisions convincing, and the repeated misdirections become tiring. Her scenes with Bernthal are worth attending to, but we cannot recommend six episodes on their strength alone.
Biography
Tessa Thompson is an American actress. She is credited as Bianca Creed in Creed III (2023) and as Anna Andrews in the series HIS & HERS (2026).
She began her professional career with the Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company while studying at Santa Monica College. Her early film roles include When a Stranger Calls (2006), Mississippi Damned (2009) and For Colored Girls (2010). She received notices for Dear White People (2014) and as Diane Nash in Selma (2014).
Thompson gained wider recognition for playing Bianca in the Creed films (2015–2023) and Valkyrie in several Marvel Cinematic Universe productions, including Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). She also appeared in Annihilation (2018), Sorry to Bother You (2018) and Men in Black: International (2019).
