Tessa Lynne Thompson (born October 3, 1983) is an American actress. She began her professional acting career with the Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company while studying at Santa Monica College. She appeared in productions of The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet, the latter of which earned her a NAACP Theatre Award nomination. Her breakthrough came with leading roles in Tina Mabry's independent drama film Mississippi Damned (2009) and Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls (2010), an adaptation of the 1976 play of the same name. Thompson gained favorable notices for her early film roles in the comedy-drama Dear White People (2014), and as civil rights activist Diane Nash in Ava DuVernay's historical drama Selma (2014). She gained mainstream attention for her roles in franchise films, playing Bianca Taylor in the sport drama Creed (2015), Creed II (2018) and Creed III (2023), and as Valkyrie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), as well as her leading role in Men in Black: International (2019). She has received acclaim for her roles in the independent films Sorry to Bother You (2018), Little Woods (2018), Annihilation (2018), Sylvie's Love (2020), and Passing (2021), the latter of which earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress nomination. On television, she starred in the noir drama series Veronica Mars (2005–2006), the drama series Copper (2012–2013), and the science fiction series Westworld (2016–2022) as Charlotte Hale and Dolores Abernathy. She received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her work as a producer on Sylvie's Love. In 2017, she received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination. Early life and education Thompson was born on October 3, 1983, in Los Angeles, California and raised between Los Angeles and Brooklyn, New York. Her father, singer-songwriter Marc Anthony Thompson, is Afro-Panamanian and the founder of the musical collective Chocolate Genius, Inc. Her mother is half Mexican and half white. Her younger paternal half-sister, Zsela, is a singer and songwriter. Thompson attended Santa Monica High School where she played Hermia in a student production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and attended Santa Monica College (SMC) where she studied cultural anthropology. While at SMC, she attended lectures by Lisa Wolpe of the Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company (LAWSC). Career Acting In 2002, Thompson made her professional stage debut as one of three actors portraying the role of Ariel in LAWSC's production