Tonya Mosley

And today I'm talking with director Nia DaCosta, who's had a meteoric rise over the past few years.

Little Woods, her first feature in 2018, was an intimate story about two sisters in North Dakota who turned to a life of crime to make ends meet.

It got a lot of attention, including from Jordan Peele, who later brought DaCosta on to reimagine the horror classic Candyman.

That film made DaCosta the first Black woman to direct a movie that opened at number one at the U.S.

box office.

DaCosta made history again with the Marvels, becoming the youngest director and first Black woman to helm a film in the Marvel Universe.

And now she's turned to something even more personal.

a project she wrote years ago and never let go of.

It's called Hedda, and it's DaCosta's take on Henrik Ibsen's 1891 play Hedda Gabler.

In DaCosta's hands, the story becomes a dark exploration of a woman suffocating in a life she never wanted, trapped in a 1950s English manor house over the course of one wild, unsettling night.

Tessa Thompson stars as Hedda, and here's a scene at the start of the film where police interrogate her about what happened that night.

What ensues is a dark and twisted tale of jealousy and control.

Nia DaCosta grew up in Harlem and studied film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

She started out as a production assistant, working on sets for Martin Scorsese, Steve McQueen, and Steven Soderbergh.

She recently wrapped directing 28 years later, The Bone Temple, the next film in the zombie horror trilogy.

Nia DaCosta, welcome to Fresh Air.

Thank you so much for having me.

You know, you have been quoted as saying that this particular story, Hedda, it was like a revelation when you first read the play.

And I just have to know, what was it about Hedda's character that you couldn't let go of?

That's so interesting you use the words vulnerable and vicious because Hedda is a product of her time.