Tessa Thompson

Tessa Thompson
Thompson at the 46th NAACP Image Awards Nominee Press Conference
Born	Tessa Lynne Thompson (1983-10-03) October 3, 1983 (age 33) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, musician
Years active	2002–present

Tessa Lynne Thompson (born October 3, 1983) is an American actress and musician. She played Jackie Cook on the television series Veronica Mars, Sara Freeman in the period crime drama Copper, Nyla Adrose in the film For Colored Girls, civil rights activist Diane Nash in Selma, Samantha White in Dear White People, and Bianca in Creed. She currently stars as Charlotte Hale on the HBO series Westworld.

Thompson was born in Los Angeles, California. Her father, singer/songwriter Marc Anthony Thompson of the band Chocolate Genius, Inc., is of Panamanian (Afro-Panamanian) descent and her mother is of Mexican and European descent. She grew up in Los Angeles while spending summers and winters in New York, where her father is based. She attended Santa Monica High School and then Santa Monica College, where she studied cultural anthropology.

In 2002, Thompson made her professional stage debut in Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company's production of The Tempest. In 2003, Thompson appeared as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet: Antebellum New Orleans, 1836 with The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena, California, which earned her an NAACP Theatre Award nomination.

In 2016 she appeared in the off-Broadway run of the Lydia R. Diamond play Smart People at Second Stage Theatre, alongside Mahershala Ali, Joshua Jackson and Anne Son.