Angela Bassett credits her uncle for helping her become a successful Hollywood actor.
On Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist, she recalled how she got into the profession and said it all started when she saw a “phenomenal performance ‘Of Mice and Men.'”
“I was so moved by it at the end that I was literally the only person sitting in the theater, weeping, crying, as the ushers are cleaning up programs,” she said. “And I was like, ‘I feel terrible.'”
Bassett jokingly explained that she wanted to make others “feel as bad” as she felt in the theater, so she spent her life trying to re-create what she saw on stage.
After graduating from Yale’s School of Drama, Bassett eventually set her sights on working in Hollywood. She said she told herself she had six months to find work.
“I was fortunate enough to get my share of some of these jobs,” she said. “And my six-month period came up, and I remember calling my great uncle in New York. I said, ‘Unc, I’m working. Each week, I get a new guest star.’ There were only three stations, so there’s a finite number.”
But with her deadline up, she said she would head back to her life in New York.
“He said, ‘Baby, don’t get off a winning horse.’ I said, ‘Got it, Unc.’ Hung up, and I’ve been there 30-something years,” Bassett recalled with a laugh.
When asked if her uncle “gets an assist” for all that’s happened in her career, Bassett confirmed, “he does.”
The straight-A student from Florida went on to star in some amazing movies, such as 1993’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” The film, based on the life of Tina Turner, earned Bassett her first Oscar nomination. She got a second Oscar nom in 2023 for playing Queen Ramonda in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
While speaking with Willie, Bassett said she received a lot of attention for starring in the Marvel film.
“You can’t make sense of magic. I would go to church and little old ladies would come up to me and say, ‘I love that Black Panther. I love that movie,'” she said.
One of her favorite parts about making the film was working with the late Chadwick Boseman, who died in 2020 from colon cancer at the age of 43.
“I’m so blessed that I got an opportunity to meet him and to work with him. He was such a soulful human being, so caring and so wise. He was just as warm as you can imagine,” she said.
She then recalled a sweet connection the two had, dating back to before they ever worked together. Bassett said Boseman told her at the “Black Panther” premiere that he met her at Howard University when she received her honorary doctorate from the school.
