Tessa Thompson explains why filming Creed III felt so different than the first two Creed films. The third film in the Rocky companion series, Creed III is in post-production and expected for release later this year. Like the first two films, Creed III stars Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed, son of the former Rocky challenger Apollo Creed. Sylvester Stallone came back for the first two Creed films as Rocky, who somewhat reluctantly trained Adonis, though he won't appear in Creed III. Unlike the first two films, Jordan will also serve as the director for Creed III.
Ever since the first Creed film was released back in 2015, Thompson has played Bianca, Adonis’ neighbor-turned-girlfriend. Though Adonis’ boxing career unsurprisingly causes tension at times between the couple, Bianca supports Adonis and his career throughout the first two Creed films. Bianca herself is a fantastic character in the series. Bianca makes a career as a singer, but it is revealed that she is fighting against progressive hearing loss. As Bianca and Adonis are growing closer in their relationship in Creed II, Bianca must face the fact that her degenerative hearing condition is one that she could possibly pass on to her biological children.
With the filming of Creed III under her belt now, Thompson reflects on how different shooting Creed III was from the first two films. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the actress revealed that she was initially skeptical as to whether the dynamic between her and Jordan would remain intact in Creed III when Jordan signed on to direct. To her pleasant surprise, the pair worked incredibly well together. In fact, Thompson actually ended up feeling that when working to create “agency and an arc” for Bianca in Creed III, Jordan facilitated that process even better than previous directors had. She also felt that she had “a lot more freedom to improvise on the day” with her character. Check out the full quote from Thompson below:
“I could do that work more actively with Mike. I also had a lot more freedom to improvise on the day than the past ones. He gave me a lot of license to do that, so that felt different. But it didn’t change the dynamic between these characters. We’ve been making these films for almost eight years, and Mike and I have grown up a lot. So there’s ways in which the trajectory of the characters also has an interesting sort of poetry to our own personal journeys in a lot of ways.”
The parallels—or “poetry"—that Thompson draws between her and Jordan’s character arcs and their personal journeys is perhaps the most compelling piece of her statement. From an objective standpoint, Jordan and Thompson’s careers certainly have evolved a lot since Creed was originally released. When Creed was released back in 2015, neither Thompson nor Jordan was anywhere near the star that they are now. Neither had made their MCU debuts, as Thompson first played Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok in 2017, and Jordan played Erik Killmonger in 2018. Now, both Jordan and Thompson have much more star power in Hollywood, much like their characters are rising to personal success and fame in the Creed films.
Though Thompson claims that Jordan directing did not change the dynamic between the characters on screen, it seems like it may have changed Creed III for the better. Thompson describes the experience of shooting Creed III as one that consisted of “a lot more freedom.” With this freedom and character exploration could come a stellar performance from Thompson and even more attention on Bianca than the previous films have received. The plot of Creed III has not yet been revealed, but from Thompson’s words, it seems like a greater emphasis on Bianca is almost certain. All will be unveiled when Creed III hits theaters later this year.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
