Tessa Thompson

“I grew up as a kid looking at artists like David Bowie and Prince; I really admired them.”

“It's so rare to have an ensemble cast of women.”

“There's an unfair position that women are sometimes put in, in the context of superhero movies and action movies, where at once they have to be very strong and fierce but also sexy.”

“Media truly has the power to create and shift culture.”

“I spent two weeks in Paris by myself. That was my first time in Europe.”

“There are some people who don't want to deal with the fact that we are not forever. Some people decide to live life to the fullest.”

“I'm really excited about this generation of young women that can look at a screen and see some brown people in space.”

“I grew up listening to a lot of Massive Attack and Portishead.”

“Time's Up is really about safety and equity in workplaces, and that's a very multi-layered demand.”

“I try to pick interesting projects, the kind of projects that I would want to watch.”

“I'm someone that likes to not think too binary about human qualities.”

“I was gregarious as a kid, but I think the idea of actually getting to know people, I'm just shy. It sort of takes me a minute to want to sit down and talk about myself.”

“The term 'breakout' always makes me think of an inmate or some butterfly emerging out of a cocoon.”

“I like to think I'm one of the least athletic people in real life. I don't do a whole lot when I'm left to my own devices except wield forks and knives.”

“'Dear White People' started a conversation about race. It's such a difficult thing to talk about, especially in America because of our history. I love that you can confront it with humour and with satire.”

“I think I've realized that when you are aiming to create a real body of work, you are as much defined by the things you don't do as by the things you do.”

“I'm sort of obsessed with Harlem. Just its history. My father did the music for a play called 'The Huey P. Newton Story,' and they did a lot of work in Harlem. So as a little girl, I spent a lot of time in Harlem Library.”

“The Time's Up campaign is for everyone, in all capacities, contributions big and small.”

“What was so exciting for me about Wakanda and seeing 'Black Panther' was how incredible the women were in it.”

“The beauty of working on a show like 'Westworld' is we're painting a not-too-distant future and talking about an aspirational sense of what power looks like in the future.”