Thompson: "Cultural change always precedes political change."

Thompson: "It would serve us all, I think, if we could get behind people for two hours that do not look like us and go on their journey. I think that would be useful for society. I think it would expand our humanity."

Thompson: "You make these things and you're like, 'Does anyone want to watch it?' It just felt like something people might not see en masse."

[On Emma Watson's UN speech]

Thompson: "I really related to what she said about being called bossy as a little girl. I was a 'bossy' kid too, and I called myself bossy and didn’t think about the implications."

Thompson: "Death is just a part of life, you know? It's what makes all of life more vibrant. It's coming whether we want to accept it or not."

Thompson: "Oftentimes in films, the female character, if she's not the protagonist - and often, even if she is - feels like an imitation of what a woman is."

Thompson: "I am multiracial, and I went through different phases - at one point, I listened to Wu-Tang and hip-hop, and then the next year I listened to Joni Mitchell."

Thompson: "Media truly has the power to create and shift culture."

Thompson: "I studied cultural anthropology in college, so I’ve always been interested in music from different cultures. That was my scene, and for some reason it never came up that I was actually acting."

Thompson: "Work that asks more questions than it answers — I typically think that means something interesting."

Thompson: "I don't like being the center of the discourse when it's around my personal life or when things are in the press that I know are untrue, but it feels like relatively speaking it's a small price to pay. I sometimes wish that people would remember that a performer they see in the media might be playing a character at any moment. This idea that they know you is faulty."

Thompson: "I've felt this real need to ground my work in my ideals."

Thompson: "I think what is captivating about the Marvel Cinematic Universe... is that the superheroes really connect us to our humanity because they are well drawn characters that are complex, so you get action and excitement but you also get storylines that connect you to being a human and hopefully make you feel less alone."

Thompson: "Hopefully, the work offers the most insight into who a person is. At least that's how I want my work to be, more than anything else I might do."

Thompson: “We’re so used to female characters feeling like ciphers, like they don’t resemble any women that we know.”

Thompson: "The truth is, no, we don't live in a post-racial state anywhere in America, and this is particularly true in Hollywood."

Thompson: “[Too many female characters] don’t have their own rights, they don’t have agency – we don’t even know what they care about, what they’re after.”

[On her idiosyncratic style choices]

Thompson: "Why not? For me, it's a character. If you play a lot of villains, people wonder if there's something sinister about you. In the same way, if you have a latex whip for your hair, people assume that your personal life is a lot more festive than it actually is, which I think is the case with me. They might be sorely disappointed. The only person I'm currently sleeping with is my dog, Coltrane, every night."

Thompson: "I would argue that if you looked at photographs of women who passed all throughout history, you would look at those women as Black women still. I could never pass. But it's about the ways in which we pass all sorts of things."

Thompson: "There was a period when I had a hard time reconciling all the different parts of me in a way that I thought would make sense to others."

Thompson: "I like a good tried-and-true kangaroo. They're great. And just the idea of having your own pouch to put things in sounds really economical."

Thompson: "I really wanted to start actively developing projects that I'm not in. Because, frankly, I don't belong in every narrative."

Thompson: "I really have a problem with strict binaries when it comes to anything."

[On her role in Dear White People]

Thompson: "The film itself is sort of an indictment of Hollywood. With black people, why is everything that we do wrapped in Christian dogma? Why do we only have to be the sassy black friend? It was incredible to be able to talk about the frustration that I’d had in this industry, in a film. And then it did so well. So that became my North Star."

Thompson: "I didn’t want to work until something really exciting came along."

Thompson: "I feel really grateful as a Black woman that I get to play a lot of different parts and change the aperture a little bit around what we can be. But I also acknowledge and respect that there are so many Black women who look at me and don't feel represented and don't feel seen."

[On a scene where a woman leaves Valkyrie’s bedroom being cut from Thor: Ragnarok]

Thompson: “It wasn’t Marvel or Disney or anyone extracting that because it was an issue, it just was like, that particular moment didn’t make sense in the context of the scene. And there were other beautiful things where you get a sense of her back story. The woman that dies is her lover. In performance we were, like, ‘That’s your lover.’ So in my mind it isn’t cut; I played her as a woman that’s queer. I hope that we get to a space, in terms of the stories that we tell, where that’s something that gets to exist, and it doesn’t have to be noteworthy.”

Thompson: "I hope we get to that space, where someone’s sexuality is as immaterial as me drinking this green juice."

Thompson: "We're followed in public whether we want to be or not. But if you're a known figure, you exist inside this space where people might try to have ideas and perceptions about you. Which to me is the price of admission."

[On the Rocky franchise and pushing back against the hyper-macho world]

Thompson: “Because it’s set in the world of boxing, and about men, there’s a real danger of it just existing in a real toxic masculinity space. And while I don’t think it should be the role of the women in the film to soften that entirely – like, men should have the responsibility to deal with their toxicity, I do think that there’s a nice opportunity for the women in the film to come in and be like, ‘Hey…’ you know?”

Thompson: "The idea of singing on my own, with just my voice into a microphone, was daunting. I started performing alone reluctantly. I was worried too, as I think there’s a funny way of thinking about actors who want to make music. People tend to be more critical of that than if it’s the other way around."

Thompson: "Both Taikia and Chris are really good friends of mine. I just love them as humans. I think the thing that happens when you work with people over time is you can cut through any layer of artifice and really hold each other to task and challenge each other to be better. And also just have fun together, be like a safe space where you can really show up as your authentic self. If you’re having a bad day, which we have all of us as humans, you can let your friends know that, and your friends can take care of you and hold you in that if you’re going through stuff."

Thompson: "We have this real problem as human beings to put people on pedestals - with celebrities, with historical figures - and we forget they're humans just like us."

Thompson: "I'm really excited about this generation of young women that can look at a screen and see some brown people in space."

Thompson: "I was gregarious as a kid, but I think the idea of actually getting to know people, I'm just shy. It sort of takes me a minute to want to sit down and talk about myself."

Thompson: "Although I do think direct action and organizing and having conversations like I had at UF is more valuable, I do think there’s something valuable about the internet being used to orchestrate that and organize those conversations. With the supposed Oscar snub, people organized their feelings around that hashtag and I think that was useful. People might have these feelings alone and they’re in this bubble. The internet can divide us, but it can also bring people together around something."

Thompson: "I don’t want to do anything until I feel I gotta do it. I want to go for parts I will fight for and would be devastated not to get."

Thompson: "But I always wanted to be a dancer, or a cultural anthropologist... and recently an interior designer. I should really quit acting soon so I can get on to all these other jobs."

Thompson: "I guess I'm sort of just a glutton for having moments when I can just do whatever I want to, which sounds terrible."

Thompson: "I don't spend a lot of time contending with the fact that time is not endless."

Thompson: "[A UF student] mentioned that he thought none of the cast and crew of Selma had taken to the streets to protest, which is actually totally untrue, most all of us have. The times we couldn’t it was because we were promoting the movie. I think we all have a responsibility, however our expectation and flagellation of celebrity today is so crazy."

Thompson: "I spent two weeks in Paris by myself. That was my first time in Europe."

Thompson: "I think when any one kind of film does well, it creates a precedent and paves the way for more like it."

Thompson: "Norse mythology is mystifying and fantastic and totally confusing, but you can draw a lot of inspiration from it."

Thompson: "Even the fact that, in my career, I’ve been able to hang out in so many different genre spaces and to make movies both big and small. And to play the kind of protagonist that I don't think you would've seen a Black woman get to play is a testament to how much things have changed just in the course of my career, certainly. Which is not to say that there isn't more change to be made."

Thompson: "I like to think I'm one of the least athletic people in real life. I don't do a whole lot when I'm left to my own devices except wield forks and knives."

Thompson: "Fashion is a funny thing to talk about. I think what you wear is definitely an extension of you, but I also think it's totally arbitrary."

Thompson: "You know when you have those nights out and you're too busy dancing and talking and being with friends and you're not self-conscious? I think whenever I feel free, that's when I feel the most beautiful."

Thompson: "Like Chris Rock, I’m really accustomed to watching films and looking at a character who looks nothing like me and feeling that I am that person. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work the other way around so much."

Thompson: "The term 'breakout' always makes me think of an inmate or some butterfly emerging out of a cocoon."

Thompson: "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."

Thompson: "Time's Up is really about safety and equity in workplaces, and that's a very multi-layered demand."

Thompson: "As a kid, I loved going to lots of thrift stores with my parents. There was a period where I thought it was embarrassing, and then I started to get older - I realized they were really cool."

Thompson: "I don’t want to be boxed in to any extent just because my last two projects explored race and politics. In a way, though, with some projects, because of who I am and what I look like, if I do get cast that just becomes political, in the same way the internet exploded with the idea of a black Stormtrooper. It happens around you."

Thompson: "I’ve always been interested in subculture and in LA it’s harder to find, but I have managed to have love affairs with different subcultures like the late night DJ world that some of my friends are in and the bike scene, which is really vibrant in Los Angeles. In a city where everyone drives, there’s a great community of people who bike. I feel closer to those communities, in a way, than I do to Hollywood."

Thompson: "I'm sort of obsessed with Harlem. Just its history. My father did the music for a play called 'The Huey P. Newton Story,' and they did a lot of work in Harlem. So as a little girl, I spent a lot of time in Harlem Library."

Thompson: “The thing that’s been really great about Time’s Up, in terms of looking at the industry, and not just addressing gross abuse of power, is acknowledging that there’s just an imbalance of power. We look at workplaces and we go, ‘How do we make them more safe? For all people, but specifically for women?’ We just have more women in the workplace, and women in positions of power. So I do feel like there’s been a seismic shift, which I’m proud of.”

Thompson: "There are some people who don't want to deal with the fact that we are not forever. Some people decide to live life to the fullest."

[On her part in Creed and future work]

Thompson: "I don’t feel any dogma about what kind of project I do next—I can see there being an action movie or superhero movie or a silly comedy I feel that way about."

Thompson: "I think there's this idea of being a presence in the room that maybe isn't as threatening as I would be if I were darker skin. My Blackness to me has always felt beautiful, yes, but inevitable. But you realize if you are mixed race or to some people racially ambiguous, there is this sort of a privilege you have. Depending on how much you don't want to be otherized, you might be compelled to soften your edges a little bit so that you can move through space with more ease."

Harpers Bazaar: In person, she is every bit as confident as her superhero alter ego, and as friendly. Quick to laugh and thoughtful, she says she doesn't believe in guilty pleasures, that her friends would describe her as "a bad texter" and confirms "any Prince" would get her on the dance floor. "I do not have signature dance move," she admits. "But I do like to spin. I do a lot of spinning. I'm embarrassed for myself."

Harpers Bazaar: Thompson exudes the kind of energy you would most like to have at a party, where – apparently – she may start talking about dairy products. "I've never eaten an egg," she says, simply. "People seem shocked by that so when I don't have something to say at a party I just pull that one out and it's always a conversation starter."

Independent: She talks fast, rarely averts her gaze and is unfailingly smart and vociferous.

InStyle: Thompson deep-dives into research before taking on a role. For the 2020 romantic drama Sylvie's Love, which is set in Harlem in the 1950s and '60s, she turned to vintage women's fashion magazines to get a grasp on the mindset of that era. "So much of what we think about ourselves is what we've been told about ourselves," she says. "So to delve into history, you feel like you're excavating. And to be making something in the style of how those noirs would have been shot at the time, but to be doing it as Black women, it's really just a dream."

InStyle: She aims for eight hours of sleep when she can — although, she admits, it's not typical — and has found time to reinvest in simpler pleasures, like supporting her favorite bookstore, the Reparations Club, located in the L.A. neighborhood where she grew up.