Tina Turner’s life was commemorated long before her passing in May when the movie What’s Love Got to Do With It was created in the early 1990s. The film, starring Angela Bassett who played the iconic entertainer, would end up becoming one of the best biopics of all time. And now for the first time, Bassett is opening up about what it took to get into character.
The Black Panther star, who played Turner alongside Laurence Fishburne – who played her abusive then-husband Ike Turner, revealed that she would only eat “broccoli, string beans, Yukon potatoes, and bland chicken breast,” she said in a recent Variety interview. “That’s what my trainer suggested for me.”
She further added she would consume “black coffee and water. Literally. And there was no time to sit down at a table and eat those items.”
She continued: “You literally stood stuffing them in your face, one by one, and then jump back on the dance floor. I was losing inches every week.”
The limited amount of food and training caused her to lose a massive amount of weight, which was needed to recreate the build of the I Don’t Wanna Lose You singer during the time period in which she was being portrayed.
“I would go see Ruth Carter, our costume designer, and every week it was less and less of me — inches just melting away. It was a schedule you would never keep up again,” said Bassett.
The 64-year-old New York native further quipped that as soon as filming was over, she reverted to eating the things she once loved.
“I rebelled and overcorrected. When you’re bent so far in one direction, you just bounce right to the other side. You eat apple pie and all those things,” said explained.
Bassett would go on to win Golden Globe for the role and was nominated for an Oscar. She has since been recognized as one of the world’s most highly coveted actresses of her generation.
