LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Hedda Gabler is still one of theater's most complex female characters, even though she was created more than a hundred and thirty years ago. Playwright Henrik Ibsen brought her to the stage in 1891. It's the story of how Hedda turns her own dinner party into an evening of chaos. There have been countless theater and movie adaptations of Hedda Gabler over the century plus. The latest movie version is out today. It's called "Hedda," and Tessa Thompson plays a very different rendition of this character set in 1950s England. Here's Thompson with Tom Bateman, who plays her husband.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HEDDA")
TOM BATEMAN: (As George Tesman) Hedda.
TESSA THOMPSON: (As Hedda Gabler) Yes?
BATEMAN: (As George Tesman) This is all happening because you wanted it - the house, the party. A lot of money and effort was expended for you. I hope you're happy.
THOMPSON: (As Hedda Gabler) Don't I look happy?
BATEMAN: (As George Tesman) There's nothing can go wrong tonight, Hedda. Hedda, nothing.
THOMPSON: (As Hedda Gabler) I've heard you.
FADEL: I spoke with Tessa Thompson about playing a character who gets everything she thinks she's supposed to want, but nothing she really wants.
How do you understand Hedda? I mean, Hedda is often described as a bored housewife who's sowing chaos because she's stuck in the prison of the life that she has created or has been forced upon her. I mean, how do you understand Hedda as somebody who became her for this film?
THOMPSON: The way that I understood her and really got into her skin is, is sort of thinking about her almost like a child. You know when you watch children play before they're sort of socialized, and you get to see sort of the breadth of what we're capable of as humans. Children can be so kind and lovely and also before they're told that they have to share.
FADEL: So mean.
THOMPSON: Sometimes they're inclined - or they can be so mean.
FADEL: Yes.
THOMPSON: They'll discard a toy on the floor, and then a friend of theirs will pick it up and suddenly they'll grab it from their friend, and they might pull hair. And I just think these things are inside of us. And we are taught that they're inappropriate, even feelings like jealousy, I think, which you see Hedda experience. Certainly, unchecked, it can be a very ugly emotion.
FADEL: Yeah.
THOMPSON: But I think fundamentally what jealousy does is it helps us understand the lives that we want to live - the things that we want.
FADEL: Some people might say, well, she's not likable. You know, she's out there trying to destroy this manuscript of her former lover.
THOMPSON: Yeah.
FADEL: I wonder how you approach the character without judgment because she's been portrayed differently by many different people. She's been discussed and dissected as a character. How did you prepare to become her without bringing in all the baggage of her having been around for over a hundred years?
THOMPSON: Yeah. I couldn't ignore the baggage, so I sort of faced it head-on (laughter).
FADEL: OK. So you watched other portrayals and...
THOMPSON: Everything I could get my hands on.
FADEL: Oh, wow.
THOMPSON: I sort of ferociously engaged with everything. And with criticism, I read so many adaptations of the piece. I watched dance performances. I watched it in many languages. I think that's one of the extraordinary things about doing something that is canon is the piece doesn't belong to you. You're - become a part of a rich history, and we wanted to make a version of Hedda Gabler that - yes, the piece is dark, but we wanted to make something that felt also delicious and sexy and fun and had its own buoyancy.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HEDDA")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) What are you up to?
THOMPSON: (As Hedda Gabler) Nothing. Nothing at all.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I should leave before something terrible happens, shouldn't I?
THOMPSON: (As Hedda Gabler) Don't be silly. The best time to leave a party's after something terrible has happened but before the police come.
FADEL: What drew you to this character? What made you want to play her? 'Cause, as you said, this is a character that so many women have played over the years.
THOMPSON: Yeah. I mean, the roster of actors that have taken Hedda Gabler on is extraordinary.
FADEL: Yeah.
THOMPSON: Even my co-star Nina Hoss has played Hedda and so has Cate Blanchett and Fiona Shaw. It's an illustrious list, for sure. And I've always been enamored with Ibsen. I read a play of his called "A Doll's House" when I was about 16, and I - it's - it just sort of changed my life at the time. I just hadn't read something - a character that felt so beguiling. And at the end of that play, this woman, Nora, decides to leave her husband and her two young children. And I couldn't believe that someone was writing a female protagonist like that so long ago. I just thought it was so daring.
FADEL: And you play a very different Hedda - a Hedda that we haven't seen before. The person that she'd had an affair with before getting married and settling into her big house in the original play is a man. In this adaptation is a woman, which creates a whole another layer. I mean, tell me about this Hedda.
THOMPSON: Yeah. I think as humans, we all can sometimes be hemmed in by the times in which we live, by the communities in which we live, that we make choices that aren't necessarily our own, but we feel like we have to make. Eilert Lovborg into Eileen Lovborg, and then suddenly it became a queer story. It really deepened the stakes for these characters.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HEDDA")
THOMPSON: (As Hedda Gabler) Do you think that you and I, if I'd said yes...
NINA HOSS: (As Eileen Lovborg) You never would have.
THOMPSON: (As Hedda Gabler) I would've, could've been your partner in all of this.
HOSS: (As Eileen Lovborg) No.
THOMPSON: (As Hedda Gabler) Could've done what you said, built something with you. Could've been...
HOSS: (As Eileen Lovborg) Happy.
THOMPSON: I think in our piece, we get to talk about race and gender in ways that Ibsen certainly hadn't intended, but I think really make the piece, you know, even richer.
FADEL: I think sometimes people think, oh, the theater, it's for highbrow people. It's not...
THOMPSON: (Laughter) Yeah.
FADEL: ...For regular people.
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
FADEL: You know, it's not for me to go and see this classic of the 1890s. I mean, I guess I wonder if you're - if this film is also about bringing it to a wider audience that maybe doesn't realize it's for everybody.
THOMPSON: Certainly. Certainly. I mean, I didn't grow up - I got really lucky sort of later because I would come to New York City and I would, you know, queue up. I remember going to early productions of Shakespeare in the Park. I would, like, sit on the sidewalk at 6 a.m. to get those tickets, you know? And those early experiences really rocked my world 'cause I remember being in high school and reading the classics and being like, this is not for me, you know? So I think there is a real pleasure in getting to bring this to an audience to make it accessible. And also to say that these classic works don't belong to anybody, you know? They belong to everybody. You can take them apart, and you can repurpose them, and you can rebuild them in your own image. And if you don't see yourself in them, you can put yourself right in the center of them.
FADEL: Tessa Thompson plays Hedda Gabler in the 1891 play adapted for film. The film is simply called "Hedda." Thank you so much, Tessa.
THOMPSON: Thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROXY MUSIC SONG, "LOVE IS THE DRUG") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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