Tessa Thompson breaks down that 'radical' 'His & Hers' twist

Spoiler alert! The following story contains major plot details about Netflix series "His & Hers." Stop reading now if you don't want to know the ending.

NEW YORK − Tessa Thompson has no clue why everyone’s posting 2016 throwback photos.

“I’m so bad at social media,” the “Creed” star says with a warm smile and self-deprecating shrug. “I’m assuming it has something to do with American politics at the moment? ‘The better times.’”

Lately, she has been perusing Instagram more than usual to gauge reactions to “His & Hers” (now streaming), a six-episode murder mystery that has been Netflix’s No. 1 show for the past two weeks. Thompson produces and stars in the limited series, which is based on Alice Feeney’s 2020 novel and ends with a truly unguessable twist.

“I’ve been really proud of the internet,” says Thompson, 42. “People are posting a lot about the end, but they’re not spoiling it, which is very generous.”

Tessa Thompson was as surprised as you are by that 'His & Hers' ending

“His & Hers” follows a TV reporter named Anna Andrews (Thompson), who returns to her small Georgia hometown to report on a string of grisly homicides being investigated by her estranged husband, Detective Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal). But even after the case is seemingly closed, a time jump late in the series finale reveals that Anna’s mother, Alice (Crystal Fox), was actually the murderer all along.

Alice uncovers a series of tapes her daughter made as an aspiring teenage journalist, one of which contains footage of Anna getting gang-raped as a group of taunting girls looks on. Horrified and devastated, she takes revenge by killing Anna’s now-grown schoolmates.

By design, Alice is the last person you’d suspect: a former housecleaner for wealthy families who fakes dementia as a smokescreen for her crimes. Thompson found it “really surprising” yet “satisfying” that the whodunit's driving force was a mother's love.

“The deaths of these women are heinous, but this thing they’ve done (to Anna) is also really heinous,” Thompson says. “It complicates Anna’s feelings about what happened, but also the audience’s.” Additionally, the series upends our notions of “who we think about as a serial killer. This idea of an older Black woman who has worked in these spaces and has a kind of invisibility because of it – there’s something radical and juicy about that.”

The series ends with Anna reading her mom’s confession letter, just as she herself is preparing to give birth. Although there is no sequel to Feeney’s novel, the show’s overwhelming success raises obvious questions about the possibility of a Season 2.

Thompson teases an anthology series, with each season exploring similar themes of duality and truth through a new set of characters.

“We’ve had some light conversations about it,” she says coyly. “It’s a very open-ended world.”

Next up, Thompson is fulfilling a lifelong dream with Adrien Brody

“His & Hers” arrives at a prolific time for Thompson, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her starring role in last fall’s “Hedda,” a subversive reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play “Hedda Gabler.” In March, she makes her Broadway debut opposite Adrien Brody in “The Fear of 13” at the James Earl Jones Theatre – the same space that, in a bit of kismet, housed a production of “Hedda Gabler” nearly 80 years ago.

“It’s been a dream of mine forever: going to Sardi’s after shows and having this community of folks that are on stage at the same time,” says Thompson, whose friends Bernthal, Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle are also making Broadway bows in other plays this season.

A lifelong theater animal, Thompson made her big-screen debut in the 2006 horror movie “When a Stranger Calls.” Growing up, her parents instilled in her “a sense of real agency” when it came to how she dressed and expressed herself.

“It hurt me in some ways when I first entered the industry, because frankly, there was less room for that,” Thompson says. “When I look at the young stars now, there’s less of this idea of this ‘Hollywood standard of beauty.’ I came to Hollywood when that still permeated casting. They would tell me directly: ‘You’re great, but we want someone that looks more like this.’ There are probably jobs I would’ve booked if I had learned to straighten my hair.”

Thompson, who has Afro-Panamanian and Mexican roots, felt empowered by her 2014 breakthrough “Dear White People,” which allowed her to channel “all of these questions and frustrations I had about how to exist inside of this industry." The actress and producer has since carved out an eclectic career: She loves that people are still discovering the underseen 2020 romance “Sylvie’s Love,” and she delights in all the memes that the heady “Annihilation” (2018) has spawned.

The Emmy nominee, who came out as bisexual in 2018, has also relished exploring different facets of queerness through "Thor" superhero Valkyrie, Rebecca Hall’s “Passing” and Nia DaCosta’s “Hedda.” Perhaps most notably, DaCosta’s adaptation changes the central love interest from a man to a woman.

“It gives Hedda a real foil as opposed to existing in a fully male world – and then as Nia famously said, ‘Oops, everyone’s gay!’” Thompson jokes. “That approach to queerness is fantastic: It exists as part of a protagonist's world, but it isn't the entirety of their identity.”

Going forward, Thompson is interested in doing more play adaptations, having produced “Is God Is” starring Kara Young and due this summer. The “Westworld” star has the words “yes” and “no” tattooed on her arms, which have become an ethos of sorts as she embarks on this next chapter.

“I sat down recently to adapt something myself and was a complete beginner, staring at the empty screen,” Thompson says. “So I’m in that period of not entirely knowing. I’m saying yes to things that might be out of my comfort zone and no to too much comfortability.”