Franchises—and the fandom that feeds them—crave certainty: the hard yes, the full-stop no, the cameo “confirmed” by a passport stamp or the U.K. rumor mill. And Tessa Thompson just isn’t interested in that game. What she keeps arguing for instead is the longer view—ongoing character conversations, sequels as a chance to explore craft, and that “Where are they now?” kind of possibility.
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Thompson’s recent appearance on The Playlist’s Bingeworthy podcast, while promoting Netflix’s mystery thriller series “His & Hers,” embodied the idea. Host Mike DeAngelo just had to ask: with Thompson recently in the U.K., while Marvel’s “Avengers: Doomsday” was filming there, could she appear in the film? Thompson deflected like a veteran.
“Oh, [I’m] not able to confirm anything,” she said, matter-of-factly (fanboys will also note; it wasn’t a flat-out denial, either).
But when the podcast convo shifted from spoilers to the character—asking if there was a side of Valkyrie she’d still want to explore if she did return—Thompson was far less guarded, praising the MCU as a collaborative playground with room for tonal shifts and performance range.
“Yeah, definitely,” she said. “And I think this is the coolest thing about hanging out inside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: all the incredible people that you get to play with, both the incredible craftspeople that create these worlds, all the amazing directors that they invite into these spaces, and all of the incredible talent. And also, I think there are so many tonal spaces you can go to inside of a Marvel movie.”
“You can explore drama and comedy, and there’s so much to do,” she continued. “And I just love the character so much that I would always be interested. For sure.”
Bingeworthy later brought up Thompson’s “His & Hers” co-star Jon Bernthal, and the fan-logic collision of their superhero personas. Did the two ever joke about it on set—Punisher and Valkyrie, side by side?
“You know what’s so funny is we never ever did that,” Thompson said, explaining it only became a talking point once the series was nearing release and people started posting about it online. “But it wasn’t something we ever really spoke about, except towards the end of shooting,” she continued, noting Bernthal was “working on writing ‘The Punisher’ special that will come out” and preparing to return.
“You know, we keep in touch, and we’re friends,” she said. “I know he is preparing to come back and do ‘Punisher.’ So then we talked about it in that context, but more as just actors that work in that world… But we never talked about our characters in relation to each other. I’m curious how they get along. We probably should have.”
From there, DeAngelo pivoted to another franchise Thompson has helped shape—one that runs less on secrecy than on time passing and emotional accumulation. Asking about “Creed” and whether a fourth film might be in the works, he also pressed for what Thompson wanted Bianca’s next chapter to look like. Thompson didn’t offer a definitive update, but she made clear she and Michael B. Jordan still feel tethered to the series—and that, for them, continuation starts the same way every time: with a check-in.
“I mean, Michael, of course, has been busy as can be,” she said, before noting how the two have supported each other amid “separate ventures.” “But I think our heart is always in those films. We love those films so much,” Thompson continued. “And I think there’s still more to say if audiences want to show up. I think we want to be there for them and with them.”
The key, she explained, is that “Creed” sequels aren’t conceived as simple extensions—they’re built from whatever life has happened in the gap.
“I don’t know what the next chapter of Bianca looks like,” she said, “but I do know what’s so fun about making these movies is we always start from ‘Where are they now?’ and ‘Where do we want to see them go’?”
Thompson described the process as returning “to the drawing board together,” and treating the time between films as part of the work. “The time that passes in between making these movies is also more like the life that Mike and I live separately,” she said. “And I think we always want to embed it into the characters in a real, honest, and vulnerable way.”
From there, it’s a simple but revealing calibration: what Bianca’s wrestling with, what Adonis is carrying, and whether those currents align—or collide. “And then we figure out how those are the synchronicity between those things or if they’re in conflict, and what is interesting to me,” Thompson said.
She also noted their process can get “wacky,” including going to therapy together in character to map Bianca and Adonis’ marriage. “It’s almost as fun as shooting them is trying to figure out what they should be,” she said, adding, “I’m looking forward to that when we get to do it, if we get to do it.”
Across both worlds, the point was consistent: no confirmations for the rumor mill—but plenty of appetite to return when the collaborators click and the characters still have somewhere new to go. More from this podcast and our conversation about “His & Hers” soon. — Reporting by Mike DeAngelo
