This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick, and I'm going to turn things over

now to Michael Schoelman, a staff writer at the magazine who covers culture and entertainment.

In preparing to interview Angela Bassett, I kind of threw myself an Angela Bassett film

festival. I went back and watched or re-watched her great film performances from the 90s.

There's her Titanic star-making performance as Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With

It. And she kind of ruled the screen in the 90s. And she's worked really steadily since,

but you know, she's had this really interesting resurgence lately thanks to the Marvel Cinematic

Universe. Angela plays Queen Ramanda in The Black Panther Movies. And she's nominated

for Best Supporting Actresses this year for Black Panther Wakanda Forever. And she's actually

the first actor to be nominated for a Marvel movie for an Academy Award. We talked about her role

in The Black Panther Movies, and I was curious about the particular challenges of acting

in a Marvel movie. For instance, do you have to act a lot in front of a green screen?

Here's the thing. We did very little on the green screen here. So the throne room,

the throne room was there. Looking through the floor, maybe outside of the throne room,

that's not there. But everything and it's humongous, it's huge.

Joré, there's something that I need to tell you about your brother.

We had trees and bushes and we had water. We had water for yards and yards and yards and yards.

And Namor came up out of the water. I am not a woman who enjoys repeating herself.

Oh, oh, you.

So part of what you've done in this role as Queen Ramanda in The Black Panther films,

you know, they take place in Africa, but in an imaginary country Wakanda.

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