Filmmaker Nia DaCosta Thinks Hedda Gabler Would Be a Tradwife

Some characters slip quietly into cultural memory, while others burn their way in, leaving behind embers that refuse to cool. Hedda Gabler is one of those. Part muse, part monster, she has, for more than a century, been a cipher for desire and destruction, harboring a restlessness that transcends the parlor rooms that confine her. Now, filmmaker Nia DaCosta—known for examining power inequities and agency through a subversive genre lens, from 2020’s Candyman to 2023’s The Marvels (the highest-grossing film directed by a Black woman)—summons Hedda into a new light in her daring reimagining of Ibsen’s classic play, set in 1950s England.

In collaboration with Tessa Thompson—who starred in DaCosta’s 2018 feature debut, Little Woods , about two sisters fighting for survival and freedom in