She later founded her own theater group, Carranca, alongside Gilda Guilhon and Daniel Dantas, and one of the first plays they ever performed was Bertolt Brecht's Mr Puntila and his Man Matti.

She would, however, abandon her acting career to become a theater director, and in 1983 she directed her first play, an adaptation of Graciliano Ramos' novel A Terra dos Meninos Pelados.

In 1997 Lessa and Roland directed their first independent full-length film, the critically acclaimed Crede-Mi, which was loosely based on Thomas Mann's 1951 novel The Holy Sinner.

In 2010 she directed an adaptation of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il trovatore, which premiered at the reopening of the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro after its extensive restoration process.

[7] In the same year she also co-directed, alongside Dany Roland, their first movie since Crede-Mi, Então Morri, which premiered at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival.