Tessa Thompson Shows She’s One of Those “Smart People”by Brad Balfour
February 9, 2016
“Smart People” cast member Tessa Thompson cuts quite a figure when she struts on stage performing as young actress Valerie, sexy and sharp but also vulnerable and sensitive. She stars in the four hander Off-Broadway play— with Joshua Jackson, Anne Son and Mahershala Ali — written by theater vet Lydia Diamond and directed by award winning Kenny Leon. The provocative and funny new play set on the eve of Obama’s first election, offers twists and turns as the four characters get know and entangle with each other both lovingly and abrasively.
The 32 year-old had made her professional theater debut in the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company’s production of The Tempest and later appeared as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet: Antebellum New Orleans, 1836 — which earned her an NAACP Theatre Award nom.
But Thompson has most recently been seen as Michael B. Jordan’s love interest, Bianca, in the award-winning boxing movie Creed — heir to the Rocky franchise created by Sylvester Stallone. Previously she had appeared as the civil rights activist Diane Nash in Selma and in Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls. But her star turn as Samantha White in Justin Simien’s satirical indie drama Dear White People really put her on the map.
On television, the Los Angeles native had racked up some solid credits including the role of Jackie Cook on UPN/CW’s neo-noir series Veronica Mars, as a part of the cast on the CW’s short-lived drama Hidden Palms and in guest star roles on Life, Private Practice, and on the fourth season of Heroes. In 2013, she starred in BBC America’s first original series Copper. She now has a role on the 2016 HBO drama Westworld alongside Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton and Jeffrey Wright.
Shortly before previews for Smart People kicked off, a small set of journalists got a chance to question the cast — including Ms. Thompson.
Is your character an acerbic one? Are you being beaten up on or are you beating up on them?
Tessa Thompson: Both [laughs]. That’s the thing about this play, I think everybody takes a hit and everybody gives one at a certain point or another. They’re incredibly quick-witted, smart people that’ll whip you sometimes with their intellect. I play Valerie who is a newly graduated out of the MFA program and is campaigning for Obama and is hopeful about her future and the future of America.
I think she has to navigate some tricky terrain in the sense that she gets out of school and she is like, “Great! The world can be mine!” And then she realizes, “I think because of her racial identity, there’s certain opportunities that are just not presented to her.
Having Lydia Damond and Kenny Leon embracing you in the ensemble must be quite feather in the cap…
TT: To get to engage with them in this kind of way is all I’ve ever wanted to do. It truly is a dream come true and I’m so grateful. Thank you Kenny and Lydia for having me and thanks to Second stage because it really, truly is a dream come true.
What was the biggest insight you’ve gotten from doing this play?
TT: Well, I don’t know. I haven’t done it yet.
At this moment you are doing rehearsals…
TT: Yeah we’re doing rehearsals but to me there aren’t just four characters in this play… To me, the fifth is the audience, especially in a play like this where you know it’s a funny play that wants to ask the audience to laugh and ask them to sort of grapple with [big] issues. So to me I don’t know. We’ll see. I think the most insightful experience will come when the audience is with us.
In doing Dear White People, did you expect it to get as much attention as it did? It sort of put the spotlight on you as a new young voice people were looking for. Did that put a burden on your shoulders or are you rolling forward with it?
TT: I’m rolling forward. No I don’t feel any burden. I feel incredibly lucky actually to get to be involved in projects that I think are important that I think have something to say and mean well and are also incredibly entertaining. That’s the kind of work that I want to do forever and ever. And I feel like I get to be aligned with people… To me, it’s like bird of a feather.
In the last couple years I seem to have found the kind of collaborators like Ryan Coogler, Justin Simien, Ava DuVernay, and yeah, that want to connect with the media and with content that sort of asks us questions which move us forward. And that’s what I’m interested in.
Can you be asked or allowed to be asked — are you doing this thing with director/writer Alex Garland, who got so much attention with Ex Machina?
TT: I can’t say yet. But I am a huge fan of Alex Garland. Ex Machina was one of my favorite movies of any year, any time. Um so he’s and incredible film maker. So the day that we get to work together will be a luck one for me.
Have you had a chance to talk to Ryan Coogler and did the situation with the Oscars come into any of your conversations lately with this cast — or in fact, anyone? Did it play out in conversations with friends in a way that helped highlight or illuminate some of the issues at hand in this play?
TT: I feel like in a certain sense because we are in this now [even though the play is set in the past]. You know the play is pre Obama so the conversation in this play is “is it possible? Will American elect a black man?” and those are the conversations that we have in the context of this play which are interesting to look back at. And now we still have some of those issues [still part of the conversation].
And yes for the second year consecutively, the Oscars have been predominantly white, but I… You know none of us make work for accolades so that’s not the most important conversation. I think diversity is an on-going thing. I’m hoping that the Oscars. that the Academy will have to confront it in their membership because, I think, it’s more a systemic issue.
Smart People opens officially on February 11 at Second Stage Theatre, located on 305 West 43rd Street, New York, New York.
