Tessa Thompson had more freedom on Creed III

Tessa Thompson had “more freedom to improvise” in ‘Creed III’.

The 38-year-old actress reprises her role as Bianca Taylor – the love interest of Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) – in the latest ‘Rocky’ spin-off and was glad to have more creative freedom with Jordan making his directorial debut on the project.

Tessa told The Hollywood Reporter: “In the past, it’s been a lot of work to make sure that she has agency and an arc in the context of these sports films, essentially.

“I wanted to make sure that she’s not just moving the plot forward, and that she actually has something interesting to do. And I typically do that work with the writers… but this time around, I could do that work more actively with Mike. I also had a lot more freedom to improvise on the day than the past ones.”

The ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ star has featured in both previous ‘Creed’ movies and feels she has grown up alongside Bianca Taylor.

Tessa explained: “We’ve been making these films for almost eight years, and Mike and I have grown up a lot. So there are a lot of ways in which the trajectory of these characters also has an interesting sort of poetry to our own personal journeys.

“That’s the fascinating thing about playing a character over many years. You get to track your growth relative to theirs or sometimes in concert with theirs.”

Sylvester Stallone will not be playing Rocky Balboa in the movie – although he is credited as a producer – but Jordan says an element of the star will always be present in the flick.

He said: “I think that Sly let it be known that he wasn’t coming back for this one but I think, you know, his essence and his spirit… there’s always going to be a little bit of Rocky within Adonis.

“But this is a ‘Creed’ franchise, and we really want to build this story and this world around him moving forward. So, it’s always respect and always as s***-ton of love for what he’s built, but we really want to push and navigate Adonis forward and the family that he created.”