The Stunning Transformation Of Angela Bassett
Throughout a Hollywood career spanning five decades and counting, Angela Bassett has proven to be an actor of uncommon versatility. With more than 100 screen credits under her belt, Bassett has been nominated for two Oscars — more than 30 years apart. She's also received eight Emmy nominations and won two Golden Globes. In 2024, she finally received an Academy Award — albeit an honorary one.
Bassett has appeared in big-budget blockbusters, small indie films, buzzworthy TV series, and the Broadway stage, and remains in high demand as an actor. In fact, it's been reported that her salary for the drama series "9-1-1" — estimated at being in excess of $450,000 per episode — likely makes her the highest-paid woman of color in television history. While she's also stepped behind the camera, as both director and producer, acting is still her primary focus. "I still find a great deal of personal satisfaction on the acting side; I don't think I will ever give that up," Bassett said in an interview with The Guardian. "As long as I can remember my lines and hit my mark."
She's enjoyed an extraordinary run, and it's far from over. Relive her amazing journey by reading on to experience the stunning transformation of Angela Bassett.
The moment she realized she wanted to become an actor
Born in Harlem in 1958 and raised in Florida, young Angela Bassett was an innate performer, singing along with her mother's records while pretending her hairbrush was a microphone. As a teenager, she embraced opportunities to perform at talent shows. Because she couldn't sing well or dance, she recited poetry. Speaking with The New Yorker, Bassett recalled the surprising reception she received after reciting "Final Call" by Langston Hughes at a church talent night. "And the audience just stood up and clapped, and my knees got very weak. It was just the first recognition for me, at 15, that drama, that theatre, that words, that passion from one human being could move another, and maybe I had a gift for it."
Pushed by her mother to be a top student, Bassett was accepted to Yale, attending with the help of a scholarship. While she wanted to major in theater, her aunt encouraged her to study something more concrete, that would offer more stability than acting.
She chose administrative science but hated it. Realizing she was on the verge of failing a course, she was hit by a realization. "I wasn't as passionate about business as I was about theater," she recalled (via Oprah.com), deciding to change her major to theatre. "If you do what you love to do, then you won't do it in an average way," she said. "From that point on, work became a joy."
She met future husband Courtney B. Vance in college
While studying drama at Yale, Angela Bassett met another student who would go on to play a major role in her life, future husband Courtney B. Vance. Their romance, however, had to wait. "He had a beautiful, beautiful girlfriend at the time, who was also in drama school with us," Bassett told People. Vance made an impression on Bassett, but it wasn't mutual. "I don't remember her at all, really," Vance admitted with a laugh on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
More than a decade later, they ran into each other in Los Angeles, where both pursued acting careers. "And I was single, he was single," she recalled for People. "Somehow, we ended up going on a date," Vance said on "Oprah." Bassett added, "So we went out, and dare I say, it wasn't memorable ... he just seemed like a really, really nice guy, which translated [into] kinda boring."
Luckily, they tried again. Their attraction sparked on their second date when Vance took Bassett to a driving range to hit golf balls. As things heated up as they spent more time together, Vance decided to share his feelings with Bassett on a Post-It note, spending hours trying to come up with the right words. "I just basically said, after throwing away about a hundred of them, 'I like you, you like me, check yes or no,'" he recalled on "Oprah." They tied the knot in 1997, and have remained married ever since.
She was a struggling actor in New York
After graduating from Yale, Angela Bassett headed to New York City with dreams of Broadway. Success did not come overnight. As she told The New Yorker, early roles included being cast as an understudy for Negro Ensemble Company production. "So, yeah, I was a nurse in a soap opera," she said, recalling her role in "Search for Tomorrow." She thought her ship had come in when she was cast in a commercial for KFC. "I was happy — 'I like Kentucky Fried Chicken! — until about the fourth hour," she said. "Then I hated it."
To pay the rent, she worked as a receptionist for a hair salon. "It was a challenge, because I'm trying to do this thing that I've studied for, that I have these loans for, and I'm trying to feed myself and keep the lights on with this survival gig," she said. She ended up quitting when it became apparent her restrictive schedule didn't allow her enough time to audition. "I would run in, blurt out the audition, and then try to run back uptown," she remembered.
She made her Broadway debut in 1984, with her role in playwright August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" winning her a Drama Desk Award nomination. She subsequently appeared in a Broadway production of another Wilson play, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," while also racking up some television credits in series such as "The Cosby Show."
Early recognition in Boyz n the Hood and Malcolm X
After several years of trying to make it in New York, Angela Bassett relocated to Los Angeles in hopes that her acting career would catch fire. In addition to more television guest spots ("227," "Alien Nation," and "Snoops," to name a few), and small film roles, the big break she'd been waiting for arrived when she was cast as a single mother who sends her son (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to live with his father (Laurence Fishburne) in "Boyz n the Hood."
The film was a critical and commercial hit, and the role earned Bassett positive attention and larger roles. Her next breakthrough came courtesy of director Spike Lee, who cast her as Betty Shabazz in his 1992 biopic "Malcolm X." (Interestingly, Bassett played Shabazz again in a different film, 1995's "Panther.") She then starred as Katherine Jackson, mother of the musical Jackson siblings, in the TV movie "The Jacksons: An American Dream" — which, in a rare bit of synergy, premiered right around the same time that "Malcolm X" hit theatres. As Bassett told the Los Angeles Times, she was initially worried that playing Shabazz in "Malcolm X" was as good as it would get. "Then boom, to get Katherine Jackson," she marveled. "I think I have been incredibly blessed and it is probably just all downhill from here."
Of course, that wasn't the case. Her next role would catapult her to a level of stardom she'd yet to experience.
A big-screen breakthrough as Tina Turner
When singer Tina Turner's story was being adapted for the screen, the competition was high for the leading role in "What's Love Got to Do With It." After a grueling audition process lasting a month, Angela Bassett won the role — reportedly beating out Halle Berry and Robin Givens. Interviewed by the Chicago Tribune, Bassett recalled the audition she believed put her over the top, a scene in which the singer is physically attacked by then-husband Ike Turner. "I knew there were no scenes in the movie where Ike and Tina just sit and talk," she recalled of acting out the scene with casting director Rubin Cannon. "So when Rubin made just one step toward me, I invested so much emotion in it. I knew if I could pull it off, it was going to mean a lot."
Playing a public figure as iconic as Turner was a double-edged sword. Bassett knew the movie would garner a lot of attention — which could go horribly wrong if her performance wasn't up to snuff. "From day one I didn't think, 'Oh, this is going to be a slam dunk and I'm going to be on top of the mountain.' No, not at all," she told Refinery29. "I thought, 'Well, I could fail miserably and have that narrative.' Fortunately, it turned out the way it turned out."
Bassett received an Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe. Suddenly, she'd gone from up-and-coming actor to movie star.
Movie stardom in the 1990s and beyond
Bassett hoped that "What's Love Got to Do With It" would serve as a calling card to casting directors. "It'll make me more visible to people who are not aware of me, who'll say, 'Where did she come from?'" she told the Chicago Tribune.
And that's just what happened. Striking while the iron was hot, Bassett quickly made three movies back to back: "A Vampire in Brooklyn" (starring alongside Eddie Murphy), the conspiracy thriller "Strange Days," and "Waiting to Exhale" (in which she co-starred with late singer Whitney Houston). ”I think I need about six months off,” Bassett told the Orlando Sentinel in 1995. ”It's difficult because I tend to stay in character the whole time I do a movie. And that's draining.”
She subsequently starred in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" (which, like "Waiting to Exhale," was based on a bestselling novel by Terry McMillan), and a TV biopic about civil rights legend Rosa Parks. During the 2000s, Bassett continued making movies, while also venturing into television — including joining the cast of the TV medical drama "ER" for its final season.
She became a mother through the miracle of surrogacy
In 2006, Angela Bassett took on the greatest role of her life when she became a mother. Her journey to motherhood, however, was not an easy one, as her attempts to start a family with her husband Courtney B. Vance continually resulted in disappointment. "If was difficult, it was challenging. It was not happening," Bassett admitted while appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
After several years of trying to have a child, including seven years of IVF treatments, she and Vance eventually turned to surrogacy. In 2006, the couple welcomed fraternal twins, daughter Bronwyn Golden and son Slater Josiah. "Surrogacy was the answer for us," Bassett said during a joint appearance with her husband on "Rachael Ray." "Just a wonderful family helped us out, and they're magnificent, and the kids are just brilliant."
As their twins grew from infants to teenagers, Bassett and Vance maintained a rule they'd instituted from the outset. "Our mantra was, 'Somebody's going to be home.' We're never going to have both of us gone at the same time and the nanny raising the children," Vance told People. And while Bassett admitted she'd feel guilty when an acting job took her away from home, she was also hopeful that it would serve as an example to their kids. "They'll see that hard work pays off," she explained. "And they'll be about that life for themselves."
A return to the stage with The Mountaintop
In 2011, Angela Bassett returned to the stage in New York, marking the first time she'd appeared on Broadway since "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" in the late 1980s (not counting playing Lady Macbeth in a 1998 Off-Broadway production of "Macbeth," that is). She starred opposite Samuel L. Jackson in "The Mountaintop," a drama written by Katori Hall. Jackson played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the night before his assassination, shortly after giving his now-legendary "I've been to the mountaintop" speech. Bassett portrayed a mysterious woman named Camae, who turns out to be an angel, sent to bring him to heaven.
"Broadway is exciting, where you're in the audience or onstage," Bassett said in a video promoting the play. "I'm really looking forward to it with a great deal of excitement, and just that healthy bit of anxiety and fear, you know, that'll keep you motivated."
During a 2024 appearance on "Tamron Hall," Bassett revealed she was eyeing another return to the stage, now that her twins would soon be heading to college. "Theater is my first love. On the stage you go out, it's you, the audience, every audience, every night, it's different. There's no cut and fixing it, it's there in the moment, so I love it," she said, via Broadway World. "[I'm] reading a lot of things now, you know, young, new playwrights, established playwrights, but maybe a new voice, that would be intriguing."
Meaty roles in American Horror Story
In 2013, Angela Bassett joined "American Horror Story" in its third season, playing legendary New Orleans voodoo queen Marie Laveau. "It's been a great experience and a great character," she told Collider of her entry into the "AHS" universe and confirmed she wasn't averse to returning. "I would be willing to entertain the idea, absolutely," she said of potentially appearing in a subsequent season.
True to her word, Bassett remained a member of the anthology series' repertory company. The following season, she played three-breasted sideshow performer Desiree Dupree and also appeared in the fifth and sixth seasons as, respectively, vampire/movie star Ramona Royale and actor Monet Tumusiime; she reprised Marie Laveau for one episode of the eighth season.
For Bassett, the experience of performing alongside the same group of actors, playing different characters in each season, hearkened back to her days as a stage actor. "I think the great pleasure about it for me is that I started in theater, and I love theater, and this gives me more of that feel," she explained in an interview with Vulture. "When you're working with an ensemble, you're all in it together, you know?"
She made her directorial debut with a Whitney Houston biopic
In 2015, Angela Bassett made a big move by stepping behind the camera to direct a TV movie for the Lifetime channel. The project was close to Bassett's heart: the biopic "Whitney," which depicted the relationship between Bassett's "Waiting to Exhale" co-star Whitney Houston and her husband, Bobby Brown.
"I had been looking for, hoping for, if I were to direct, a story that I felt deeply passionate about," she told CNN of why she decided to make her directorial debut with this particular story. "One that I could stay up all night just thinking about, caring for, and nurturing. I've had opportunities in the past, but nothing that just grabbed me like this did."
Bassett subsequently directed an episode of "American Horror Story" at the request of series co-creator Ryan Murphy. As Murphy told E! News, Bassett was eager to do more directing after "Whitney," but wasn't being given the opportunities for the projects that interested her. "So I told her, 'You're going to do this big, big episode and you're going to knock it out of the park,' and she did," Murphy recalled.
Joining the MCU with Black Panther
Angela Bassett made her first foray into the world of superhero storytelling when she starred alongside Ryan Reynolds in 2011's "Green Lantern," a critically reviled flop that quashed plans for a film franchise.
Her next entry into the genre was far more successful, with Bassett taking on the role of Wakanda's Queen Ramonda in Marvel Studios' "Black Panther." Not only was the movie a massive commercial hit, but it was also groundbreaking for its sheer volume of Black representation, both onscreen and behind the camera. It was that aspect of the film, she told Net-a-Porter, that made her particularly excited about its mainstream success. "To have a Black male superhero, but also to have strong, complicated, vivid, Black female characters was special," she observed. "Culturally, socially, it just resonates on so many different levels, and I'm so proud to be a part of it."
Her return for the sequel, "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," made history when her performance earned her a second Oscar nomination — becoming the first actor with the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be nominated for an Academy Award for a movie based on a comic book. "Other than breaking that glass ceiling, I've never been a first before," she said of her historic nomination in an interview with Deadline.
Small-screen success with 9-1-1
Angela Bassett's association with uber-producer Ryan Murphy didn't end with "American Horror Story." In 2018, Murphy hired her for a new television series he was producing for the Fox network, "9-1-1," in which she was cast as Los Angeles police officer Athena Grant. Interestingly, that was the first time in her long and varied career that she'd ever played a cop. As she admitted in an interview with Deadline, the role wasn't what she'd initially expected. "You just have this idea: 'Okay, you're running, you're pulling your gun, you're tough.' These cop stereotypes," she said.
That wasn't the only appeal. Her real attraction to "9-1-1" was the opportunity of working with Murphy and his team, having thoroughly enjoyed her "American Horror Story" experiences. "The characters that were written for me were always very intriguing, very different from something I had done before," she explained. "I know that they appreciate actresses — and mature actresses — those with history in what they bring to the screen ... I had faith that it would be a good ride to take."
That ride continued, even surviving cancellation when Fox axed the show in 2023 — only to be picked up by another network, with the series' seventh season airing on ABC. "I love the work that I do here," she told People of "9-1-1." "It's very satisfying."