Tessa Thompson

The actress Tessa Lynn Thompson was born on October 3, 1983, in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter the singer and songwriter Marc Anthony Thompson and the niece of actor-musician Bobby Ramos. She grew up at home in Los Angeles before moving to Brooklyn, New York. Her mother is of Mexican as well as British Isles heritage, while her father is African-Panamanian. Thompson studied at Santa Monica High School where she took part in a variety of theatre productions. She attended Santa Monica College after graduation with a cultural and anthropology degree. A Pasadena-based theater company performed her in a production. Boston Court Theatre, she was Juliet in William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". The performance earned her the NAACP Theatre nomination the same year. Tessa was first on television in 2005. She was on the show as the lead in a CBS Series.