Legendary actress Angela Bassett is sharing with fans how she manifested her role as Queen Ramonda in the hit 2022 Marvel movie, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
In a recent conversation moderated by another iconic actress in her own right, Regina Hall, the pair discuss the movie, Bassett’s role and the stamp it has made on Black culture.
“You guys have created something so magical and profound [with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever]. You have always been our Queen, but now you are literally ‘our’ Queen,” Hall began the discussion, before asking how Bassett was inspired to play the highly-coveted role.
“There was a time, you know when people ask you what character do you wanna play,” Bassett replied. “And I would just sort of off the cuff say I want to play a queen. I really would say that.”
She then recollected a time when she met with the movie’s director Ryan Coogler and how the meeting transpired.
The 64-year-old New York native recalled that she “had seen Fruitvale Station and fell in love with it. And I went to see Creed, his second film, I went to the premiere of that. I don’t usually go to premieres, unless they’re my own. Because we could just put on jeans, a t-shirt, no makeup and go to the movies, like real simple. But for him, there was just something, you know just intriguing, magical and artistic about this filmmaker, about that work.”
The Waiting to Exhale star continued: “So I went with a friend of mine and was able to meet him, you know [and told him] ‘I would love to work with you one day’ and I met his grandmother. He tells the story that he went home and said, ‘what were you talking to Angela about?’ And grandma said ‘she wants to be in one of your movies.’ I don’t know if I told his grandmother that, but I’m glad she was my advocate.”
While Bassett is now a household name due to her prolific works in a career spanning over 30 years, she says doors were shut in her face in the past.
“Many years ago, there was talk about X-Men – about being in that. This was years ago, and then it took about 10 years for it to actually happen. And our dear Halle [Berry], you know, ended up being in that, which was wonderful. So that was as close as I came to being in a comic book movie.”
She concluded by adding that not being selected to star in the X-Men film only intensified her desire to want to be in a comic book film.
“So when this came, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, you know, something has come back around in a sort of way with this marvelous director. And I’m just going to have to discover what this world is all about.’”
