Tessa Lynne Thompson (born October 3, 1983) is an American actress and musician. She played Jackie Cook on the film noir television series Veronica Mars, Nyla Adrose in the film For Colored Girls, civil rights activist Diane Nash in Selma, and starred as Samantha White in Dear White People. She also played Bianca in the Rocky franchise film Creed.
Thompson was born in Los Angeles, California. Her father is of Panamanian (Afro-Panamanian) descent and her mother is of half Mexican and half European ancestry. She grew up in Los Angeles while spending summers and winters in New York, where her father, singer/songwriter Marc Anthony Thompson of the band Chocolate Genius, Inc., is based. She attended Santa Monica High School and then Santa Monica College, where she studied cultural anthropology.
In 2002, Thompson made her professional stage debut in Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company's production of The Tempest. In 2003, Thompson appeared as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet: Antebellum New Orleans, 1836 with The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena, California, which earned her an NAACP Theatre Award nomination.