Hedda Gabler is the lead character in the 2025 drama Hedda. The film is based on the classic 1890 play “Hedda Gabler” by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Hedda is played by Tessa Thompson (#Bi2).
Hedda is the daughter of a general and a socialite with a wild streak. She is married to George Tesman (Tom Bateman), a rich and ambitious professor. Things go awry when her former lover, lesbian researcher/writer and social climber Eileen Lovburg (Nina Hoss), joins a lavish party the couple is throwing.
Hedda is beautiful, charming, smart, clever, and spontaneous, with a lot of verve. She is also manipulative and a liar. It is her mind games with the guests at a lavish party one fateful night that drive most of the plot of both the film and the play. It is important to note, however, that these flaws were present in the original play and were not added to the queerness of the 2025 adaptation. So we are not looking at a bi villain here — at most we are looking at a tragic bi antihero.
Though in the original play she is straight, in the 2025 adaptation she is bi but in the closet, married to a wealthy male professor in part to hide her queerness and to avoid scandal. She shows her attraction to Nina as well as to Otto, her male guests, using flirtation to get her way or to get people into positions she wants; she wants exact revenge or to move social chess pieces.