Tessa Thompson finds her own ‘Hedda’

In Nia DaCosta’s “Hedda,” Tessa Thompson’s titular socialite sows chaos. She manipulates. She cuts people to the bone with a quip. She pours more drinks.

Hedda Gabler, the heroine of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play, has long been one of theater’s most tragic figures, a woman hemmed in by societal convention and her own dread of scandal. She is that, and more, in DaCosta’s new “Hedda.”

“Many think of her as a woman that’s suicidal,” Thompson says. “I think of her as someone who’s dying to live, and dying to live on her own terms. She might do some pretty questionable things in the pursuit of that, but I think the actual pursuit is really aspirational and beautiful.”

“Hedda,” which opens in theaters Friday and streams Oct. 29 on Prime Video, is a blistering tour de force for Thompson. In the two-decade career of the 42-year-old Los Angeles native, no role