Thor: Ragnarok actress Tessa Thompson slams 'dumb' Hollywood writers over female action characters

'That word has just crept into every script that is pushed around this town now'

Tessa Thompson has spoken out against the way male Hollywood writers portray female action stars.

The actress, who appears in the forthcoming film Thor: Ragnarok with Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston, said she took issue with the way women are written for action films.

"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," she told the Los Angeles Times.

"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 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.'"

She added that she and director Taika Waititi have worked on making her character - the Asgardian warrior Valkyrie - more relevant for 2017. Thompson describes her as an elite warrior who has "sort of lost her way".

Thor: Ragnarok is released to UK cinemas on 27 October.