Tessa Thompson on Finding What You Want (What You Really, Really Want)

Modern Love

The New York Times

Love, New York Times, Nytimes, Essay, Loss, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Redemption, Nyt

4.3 • 9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tessa Thompson’s latest role is an infamously chaotic one: Hedda Gabler. Adapted from the classic play by Henrik Ibsen, “Hedda,” in select theaters Oct. 22, casts Thompson as a 1950s housewife who feels snubbed by an old lover and stifled in a new marriage. For Hedda, the only exit strategy is to punish those who have hurt her and then destroy herself. In this episode of Modern Love, Thompson explains why she relates to female characters like Hedda and to the desire to define life and love on one’s own terms. She also reads a Modern Love essay about an unhappy marriage that helped the author find herself. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Love now and more.
0:03.4	Love, but stronger than anything.
0:07.4	And I love you more than anything.
0:10.6	You're still love.
0:12.2	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
0:16.6	This is Modern Love.
0:18.2	Today I'm talking to Tessa Thompson.
0:22.4	Tessa is an actor and a producer, and in her latest film, she plays maybe one of the messiest characters of all time,
0:28.7	Heda Gabbler. Hedda is an iconic role. It comes from a play by Henrik Ibsen. It's been
0:35.9	performed for over 100 years now, and I like to think
0:39.4	of Hedda as kind of the original chaos agent. She's manipulative, she's destructive, and Tessa's
0:45.4	version of Hedda takes all of that to the next level. We watch her get so fed up with the choices
0:51.5	she's made in her life and in her marriage that she decides to burn it all to the ground.
0:57.7	Today on the show, Tessa Thompson on why she was so drawn to Hedda, and maybe even finds her a little inspiring.
1:05.3	And Tessa reads a modern love essay about getting out of a marriage without causing so much chaos.
1:13.9	Tessa Thompson, welcome to Modern Love.
1:16.0	Hey, thanks for having me.
1:17.6	Of course. We've been looking forward to this. So your new film, Hedda, is coming to theater soon.
1:22.9	Some would say it's the role of a lifetime. Some do say that.
1:27.1	Does that mean you can retire? Yeah,
1:29.1	I plan to right after this. Right after this, right after this interview? Okay, wonderful.
1:34.6	Heda is sometimes referred to as the female Hamlet. Do you agree with that? What does that
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