Angela Bassett on Playing Tina Turner and Queen Ramonda of Wakanda

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

It’s been almost three decades since Angela Bassett emerged in Hollywood as a “totem of empowered Black womanhood,” as Michael Schulman puts it—known for groundbreaking roles in films like “What’s Love Got to Do with It” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back.” Now, at sixty-four, Bassett is nominated for an Oscar for her performance in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” As the fierce, grieving Queen Ramonda, she is the first actor nominated for any Marvel movie. Bassett speaks with Schulman about her preparation for the film, and reflects on how a poetry recitation drove her to acting as a young person. “It was the first recognition for me, at fifteen, that drama, that theatre, that words, that passion from one human being could move another,” she says. “And that maybe I had a gift for it.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.8	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm going to turn things over now to Michael Schulman, a staff writer at the magazine who covers culture and entertainment.
0:20.8	In preparing to interview Angela Bassett,
0:22.9	I kind of threw myself in Angela Bassett Film Festival.
0:26.8	I went back and watched her great film performances from the 90s.
0:32.0	There's her Titanic Starmaking performance as Tina Turner
0:35.7	in What's Love Got to Do With It.
0:37.8	And she kind of ruled the screen in the 90s.
0:41.8	And she's worked really steadily since, but, you know, she's had this really interesting
0:46.9	resurgence lately, thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
0:50.8	Angela plays Queen Ramonda in The Black Panther movies.
0:54.0	And she's nominated for Best Supporting
0:56.4	Actress this year for Black Panther Wakanda Forever. And she's actually the first actor to be
1:02.3	nominated for a Marvel movie for an Academy Award. We talked about her role in the Black Panther
1:07.6	movies, and I was curious about the particular challenges of acting
1:10.8	in a Marvel movie. For instance, do you have to act a lot in front of a green screen?
1:16.6	Well, here's the thing. We did very little on the green screen here. So the throne room,
1:23.5	the throne room was there. Looking through the floor, maybe outside of the throne room,
1:31.4	that's not there. But everything, and it's humongous, it's huge. Jure, there's something that I need to tell
1:38.4	you about your brother.
1:50.2	We had trees and bushes and we had water.
1:56.2	We had water for, you know, yards and yards and yards and yards.
	...

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