‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Is the Second Tessa Thompson Trailer to Feature ‘Sweet Child ‘O Mine’
The long-awaited teaser trailer for Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder has finally arrived. MCU fans got a first look at where some of their favorite characters landed after the explosive ending to Avengers: Endgame. Out of the many references and details that the trailer reveals, a particularly meta one revolves around actor Tessa Thompson and her recent filmography.
The ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ trailer features Tessa Thompson and ‘Sweet Child’ O Mine’
Thor: Love and Thunder is the fourth movie in the Thor film series and the second helmed by director Waititi. It also may be Chris Hemsworth’s final outing as the titular God of Thunder. Since leaving Earth with the Guardians of the Galaxy, he seems to have spent time healing from his Thanos-induced trauma. After regaining his confidence, he sets off back to New Asgard to try and find inner peace, all of it set to Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
While Thor is the focus, he isn’t the only point of interest in the Thor Love and Thunder trailer. In particular, it’s the first time Valkyrie has reappeared since being crowned the king of New Asgard. Though they only hang on her for a couple of seconds, she’s rocking a fine suit while seemingly bored with the more mundane aspects of ruling her kingdom. Most of her scenes are likely under wraps for the time being, like much of Natalie Portman’s reappearance as Jane Foster, the new Mighty Thor.
A ‘Westworld’ Season 3 trailer included a version of the song
This isn’t the first time a trailer featuring this Guns N’ Roses song features Tessa Thompson playing a major character. The Thor: Love and Thunder trailer is now the second time this has happened.
Thompson plays the character of Charlotte Hale in the series Westworld. To get any deeper into her role would introduce a cavalcade of spoilers, but the short version is that she’s a member of the board of directors for Delos, the company in charge of creating the series’ robotic Hosts. The show’s third season trailer, which dropped in early 2020 ahead of the season premiere, played an instrumental version of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” at the midpoint.
It’s an odd but kind of exciting coincidence, to say the least. So far, no one on the production side has commented on this. Chances are, it’s just a case of a beloved song making its way into multiple popular trailers.
Thompson’s quickly becoming an action icon
Much of Thompson’s early career is composed of more alternative roles. So seeing her make the jump to a full-fledged action hero is pretty surprising. Thompson herself feels the same, at least according to what she’s said in the past. In a sit down with Time, she gave her thoughts on her career highs of the last decade.
Thompson felt a bit of a disconnect between herself and the heroes she saw on screen. Despite her acting aspirations, she couldn’t really imagine herself as a leading lady. Outside of Halle Berry in Catwoman (which she cites as an important movie to her), she’d never really seen someone who looked like her as the hero in a mainstream superhero film.
Things have changed quite a lot since those days, however. And Thompson has been at the forefront. When asked about her inspirations for her role as Valkyrie, she says she took a lot from a certain classic action girl. Sarah Connor, as she appears in Terminator 2. “Taika Waititi, the director, inspired that,” she said, telling of when she asked for any references for how in-shape she should get for Valkyrie, only to receive a picture of the iconic badass.
At first, Thompson felt there was no way she could ever match up with Linda Hamilton’s muscles. But after a lot of training, she got the body she wanted for the Asgardian. “As long as I can do as many pull-ups as Sarah Connor did onscreen, I’m good.”
