Tessa Thompson has a career milestone this week: she will make her Broadway debut in The Fear of 13. The actress got her start in theater, and last year, starred in Nia DaCosta’s cinematic reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. That experience helped her realize that it was time to return to her roots.
“I was like, ‘I gotta get back in a play.’ I haven’t done a play in ten years. It’s where I started, so it kind of feels like home,” she told Seth Meyers during a recent visit to Late Night. “Also, the process of making Hedda, we sort of rehearsed it like a play. We rehearsed for weeks and got really close as a company, and I just really missed that.”
With performances for The Fear of 13 beginning this Thursday at the James Earl Jones Theater, Thompson has been deep in rehearsals and spoke about the daily ritual she does in honor of the late theater giant.
“Every day I go to rehearsal because we’re at the James Earl Jones [Theater] and there’s this big picture of James Earl Jones himself. And I’ll be running late and I’ll stop and I just touch it and I’m like, ‘Thank you, sir.'” she said.
Watch the full interview, where Thompson speaks about visiting her former co-star Jon Bernthal in Dog Day Afternoon, and shares her thoughts on her Creed co-star Michael B. Jordan winning an Academy Award.
Thompson is an award-winning actor and producer who most recently starred in the titular role in Hedda, the reimagination of the famed Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 stage play, Hedda Gabler. On stage, Thompson has appeared in stage productions of Off-Broadway Smart People (2nd Stage Theatre) and regionally in Blue Skies for Alabama (Pasadena Playhouse), Tree (Ensemble Studio Theater), Indoor/Outdoor (Colony Theater), and Romeo and Juliet: Antebellum New Orleans 1836 (Theater @ Boston Court).
The Fear of 13 stars two-time Academy Award winner Adrien Brody and Golden Globe Award nominee Tessa Thompson in their Broadway debuts. Based on the documentary directed by David Sington, The Fear of 13 is directed by Tony Award winner David Cromer. Performances will begin on Thursday, March 19, with an opening night set for Wednesday, April 15, at the James Earl Jones Theatre (138 West 48th Street).
The Fear of 13 tells the extraordinary true story of Nick Yarris, who spends more than two decades on death row for a murder he insists he did not commit. Through a series of prison visits with a volunteer named Jacki, Nick traces a life shaped by impulse and consequence. As Nick and Jacki’s conversations deepen, the line between witness and participant blurs, forcing both to confront what justice demands, what belief requires, and the perilous distance between true freedom and the illusion of self determination. By turns devastating, darkly funny, and life-affirming, The Fear of 13 is a powerful exploration of truth and trust, conscience and connection.
