Tessa Thompson

So he just sort of needed a subject.

But then we graduated eventually, and I could use him as my cameraman and my cinematographer.

So I would come up with these stories, and then I would tell him and sort of direct him, and he would shoot them.

And some of them actually were quite elaborate.

I cast my older sister very begrudgingly, who was deathly shy, just in general, but camera shy especially.

And so she's in one of those early films that we made.

I don't know.

I think I remember a sense of feeling a tremendous amount of excitement and abandon.

You know, I was lit up by a camera's presence.

It was actually later in life when I began working professionally that I had to build a new relationship with work.

with a camera, but then it's like no self-consciousness at all, just in excitement and being able to capture.

And then my dad would also, because we drive around Hollywood a lot, he would hand me the camera so I would get to record a lot too.

And I really loved that.

I loved being able to see life through a lens.

It made even the most mundane

thing exciting suddenly to get to see it behind the lens.

Yeah.

I hadn't even connected that, but you're so right because I think obviously it's my dad and there's such a kind of intimacy.

And trust.

And so there's absolute freedom.