Creed star Tessa Thompson joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe this November as she takes on the role of the Asgardian warrior Valkyrie in the Marvel Studios threequel Thor: Ragnarok, but whatever you do, don’t describe her character as a “badass”! During an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Thompson has criticised male screenwriters for the way they handle female action heroes, stressing that to be the reason why she and director Taika Waititi deviated from the original comic book source material for their interpretation of Valkyrie:
“There’s an unfair position that women are sometimes put in, in the context of superhero movies and action movies where at once they have to be very strong and fierce, but also sexy,” said Thompson. “Obviously, it’s still a superhero movie and so you’ve got to figure out when you need to stand with your hands on your hips and what makes sense. But we wanted to create a character that occupied her own iconography. There’s one word I hate in all scripts in Hollywood at the moment in describing women, and that is the word “badass.” That word has just crept into every script that is pushed around this town now. It’s terrible, because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a dumb male writer’s way of saying, ‘Ah, uh, she’s like, she, uh, she’s tough.’ Then straight after that it’s like, ‘She’s badass, but she’s got a beauty about her. And she’s sexy. Unconsciously sexy.’”
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In Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Ragnarok,” Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his mighty hammer and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok—the destruction of his homeworld and the end of Asgardian civilization—at the hands of an all-powerful threat, the ruthless Hela. But first he must survive a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against his former ally and fellow Avenger—the Incredible Hulk.
Thor: Ragnarok is being directed by Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows) and features Marvel veterans Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Idris Elba as Heimdall and Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk alongside Cate Blanchett as Hela, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster, Karl Urban as Skurge, Taika Waititi as Korg, Clancy Brown as Surtur, Rachel House as Topaz, and Sam Neill in an as-yet-unrevealed role. It is set for release on October 24th in the UK and November 3rd in the States.
