The one word Tessa Thompson refused to say onscreen: “I want to break new territory”
Since she established herself as a top star in Marvel‘s Thor: Ragnarok, Tessa Thompson has had a great last ten years or so, appearing in a range of films and TV shows.
Some have been similar blockbusters, such as Men in Black: International, while others have shown her range as a dramatic star, such as in 2025, when she played the title role in Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
However, the film that first put her on a lot of people’s radars was Creed. Starting with the first instalment in 2015, Thompson has played Bianca Taylor, wife of Michael B Jordan’s title character, in all three of this Rocky spin-off. She has been recognised for bringing weight to a character that could have easily been dismissed as a simple love interest and for helping to drive the non-boxing subplots of the trilogy.
Creed is an example of a blockbuster with mostly African-American leads, which is sadly still a rarity. As a result, Thompson is highly aware of the responsibility she has to give a positive portrayal of Black women on screen. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the release of Creed III, the star revealed that she asked for a word to be taken out of the script in order to keep this promise to herself.
“I said to them, ‘I’m not saying jawn in this movie because we’ve heard it, we’ve done it. I want to break new territory’,” she explained, “Not saying ‘jawn’ was also a way of saying inside of the filmmaking that you are going to witness someone that is constantly evolving.”
“Jawn” is a slang word specific to the Black communities of Philadelphia, a city synonymous with the Rocky franchise.
It can be used in place of any noun, with Merriam-Webster saying it can refer to any element, person, place, thing, event, “whose name one does not know or, more often, does not need to specify because it can be inferred by context”. Equally, the fine folk over at Urban Dictionary call it “a word used by people in Philly, it can mean anything, like a fine girl, a blunt, really, it can be used for everything”. Cheers, guys.
The word features in a pivotal scene in the first Creed movie. Philadelphia native Bianca explains it to newcomer Adonis Creed on one of their earliest dates, as he attempts to understand his new environment and his new love interest. By repeating the word in the third film, Thompson felt like she would have been repeating herself, rather than shining a light on some other elements of African-American culture.
Thompson has always been a champion of Black cinema, so it’s no surprise that she wants to use her platform to highlight elements of Black culture that are so often ignored, and while not including one word in a script might not seem like a big deal, the fact that she pushed for this change (and won it) says a lot about her as an individual.
