Thor: Love and Thunder Star Tessa Thompson Says Film’s Love Story Will Be Different Than Other Marvel Movies

Tessa Thompson’s portrayal of Valkyrie has already courted a legion of fans, with a scene-stealing performance in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame. The character is expected to return into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in this year’s Thor: Love and Thunder, and one of the first details revealed about the film was that Valkyrie would be looking for a “queen” to rule alongside her in New Asgard. Given the ways Ragnarok made headlines for not showing Valkyrie’s comic-accurate bisexuality, that news definitely resonated with LGBTQ+ fans — and according to Thompson, her storyline in Love and Thunder will be paving new ground. 

“It’s totally exciting,” Thompson recently explained to The Wrap. “We talk so much about representation and obviously, in terms of the LGBTQIA community, there’s still so much work to be done. But if you look at the comics in the canon, there are so many queer characters! It’s hard because Taika [Waititi] and I would’ve even liked to go further, but in the context of the movies, there’s only so much we can do. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of time invested in love stories in Marvel movies in general. I think that will be a little different on the new Thor, which is exciting. And getting to play a character that historically is not written for somebody that looks like me, all of that felt exciting.”

Thompson previously spoke about the ability to bring more positive LGBTQ+ representation to the MCU, something that the franchise has begun to add in recent years.

“The truth is these movies travel globally in such huge ways, and if you can represent people that are of color, if you can represent people with disabilities, if you can represent the LGBTQIA community inside of these films, it’s a pretty big deal,” Thompson told Variety in 2020. “I think it’s really important for everybody, but for young people especially, to be able to show up to those movies and see projections of themselves. So I’m really excited that we’re able to continue to push the bounds of that and that I’m able to do that with Valkyrie. Because there’s so many cool queer characters in the comic books, and they should have a place on screen.”

Thor: Love and Thunder is set to be released on July 8th exclusively in theaters.