Tessa Thompson says viewers are ‘obsessed with watching black pain and criminality’

Actor said black people are not a ‘monolith’

Tessa Thompson has spoken about the importance of representing all kinds of black experiences on screen.

The Westworld star made the comments in a new Variety interview with Muslim comedian Ramy Youssef about diversity in film and television.

She said that, as a black actor, she feels the “burden of being exceptional”, especially when she is the only person of colour starring in a show.

Thompson added that “the work that we do should be inside a diversity of ideas around our identity, because Muslims are not a monolith, and neither are black people”.

Speaking about authentically representing the lives of people of colour, Thompson said: “When we’re able to speak from a place of honesty, we set people free, because there’s bound to be somebody that feels seen and understood in a way that they hadn’t before…

“You look at the way that black and brown people are portrayed in the media, and there’s a sameness – we’re obsessed with watching black pain and black and brown criminality. I want for us to be able to exist in ways that we’ve never existed before.”

Thompson will next appear in the thriller movie Passing, which follows the unexpected reunion of two high school friends, whose mutual obsession threatens both of their carefully constructed realities.

It is written and directed by Rebecca Hall, and also stars Alexander Skarsgård and Ruth Negga.