00:00Please introduce yourself and your character to the movie.
00:02OK.
00:03No.
00:03In your character in the movie.
00:05Sorry, OK.
00:06In the movie.
00:06Oh, my god.
00:07Listen.
00:07Amateur.
00:08Hi, I'm Tessa Thompson.
00:10And this is Tito Rodriguez.
00:14Tito Rodriguez.
00:14Rodriguez.
00:14And we're, we're, we're.
00:17I play Raddick.
00:19I play Anya.
00:19Jesse Raddick.
00:20Anya Thornton.
00:21In Annihilation.
00:23Do you think people should be scared of the shimmer?
00:26Yeah.
00:27Yeah, I do.
00:27I do because if we aren't afraid of the shimmer, then we're not taking it serious.
00:31It is an entity that is going to, over time, take over, destroy, eat everything in its
00:37path or whatever.
00:39We don't know.
00:40Wherever it spreads.
00:40Part of what the film is exploring is that you have to be able to face yourself and face
00:47the things that you don't understand.
00:49How often do you think about your mortality?
00:51I don't think about it often, but I, I'll tell you what.
00:54I was thinking about it when we were in London together for about two months.
00:57Every day I'd be like, cool, I'm gonna die.
00:58I've been thinking about it a lot in the past few weeks.
01:01You have?
01:01Yeah.
01:02Will it give you nightmares?
01:04I don't always remember my dreams.
01:06You were having nightmares before shooting some of the scenes.
01:08Yeah.
01:09I remember.
01:09I was having nightmares leading up to my character's final journey.
01:14Yeah.
01:14In this film.
01:15In the film, there is a mutated bear.
01:17Who has the best onset reaction and what can you tell us about that?
01:20You have a pretty great freaking reaction.
01:22Yeah, see that?
01:23Were you gonna say you?
01:24Were you gonna say you?
01:24No, no, no.
01:25She was grateful that I said her.
01:26I am grateful.
01:27I was gonna say that Jennifer Jason Leigh told me that that, that one of my screams,
01:31which I actually don't think is in the movie, she said it was a very gut-wrenching scream
01:34that she had never heard one of them.
01:36I would describe it differently.
01:37I didn't feel like it was gut-wrenching.
01:38I felt like it was like, like, like, like somebody was taking like a rat and slowly like crushing
01:45them.
01:46That's what it sounds like?
01:46Because it went up so, like it pierced.
01:50You're like.
01:50So people are used to seeing your Jane the Virgin character.
01:53I just want to mention that she directed an episode that aired last night.
01:56The highest rated episode of this season.
01:58Yay!
01:59But what was it like taking on this tough girl role in Annihilation?
02:03I felt like I was finally getting an opportunity to utilize the things that I've been like training
02:07for my entire life.
02:08Mm-hmm.
02:08Jane is definitely a character that is so different than myself.
02:13For Anya, I got to utilize things that I had been like dying to utilize.
02:17Yeah, because you've been boxing, right, since you were a kid.
02:20For the boxing since I was a kid, I just wanted to physically be able to do like stunts.
02:23I wanted to like get, get in there and like learn a new trade.
02:27Like, it was freeing.
02:28Girl, finally they gave me an opportunity to utilize things that I've been working on.
02:32You have to be vulnerable in this movie in a way we aren't really used to seeing you play.
02:36After seeing you in Valkyrie where you are just like brass and tough and just like definitely
02:42more stereotypically I would say like masculine.
02:45Yeah, yeah.
02:45In this movie you are vulnerable.
02:47Was that like, was that hard to tap into?
02:49You know, doing something like Valkyrie that's so powerful and so physical,
02:52that was maybe a harder thing for me to access.
02:54I'm a sensitive person.
02:56That's why I do what I do.
02:57I love that you say that because I don't think I see you that way.
03:01I am though and I love to observe people.
03:03That was me as a kid and I had to overcome stage fright to even start acting in plays.
03:08And so I kind of understood a lot about Josie actually.
03:11Has there ever been a role or character that you wanted to take on but you didn't think it was
03:14possible
03:14that now you feel like it might be possible?
03:16Literally this one.
03:17Not that I didn't feel like I can take it on but I never thought that I was going to
03:20get the opportunity to do something like this.
03:22Yeah, same, I felt the same way.
03:24100%, like on some real shit like when this came about.
03:27Man, what an interesting dynamic to feel so American but so connected to your Latino roots.
03:33You know, when people see Rodriguez I feel like they can...
03:36They think a certain thing.
03:37They think a certain thing and you look in the mirror and you're like,
03:39I am so no different than anybody else.
03:41So when this came around, girl, it was like I could even come to only tears of like joy that
03:46it was like,
03:47it felt like such a breakthrough.
03:48And I said this to Alex, I was like, thank you for seeing something that I don't feel like a
03:52lot of people
03:52have ever seen or been willing to risk and give me that opportunity.
