E-mail a friendAngela Bassett
airdate March 12, 2008
Angela Bassett has made a career portraying strong, real-life African American women, with credits that include Malcolm X, What's Love Got to Do With It—for which she earned a Best Actress Oscar nod—and The Rosa Parks Story. She also starred in and co-produced Showtime's, Ruby's Bucket of Blood. Bassett holds B.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Yale and is an avid supporter of youth arts programs, especially the Royal Theater Boys & Girls Club in her St. Petersburg, FL hometown. She's next up in Meet the Browns.
Actress tells how she used her own mother as inspiration for her role in Meet the Browns. (2:39)
Angela Bassett
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Angela Bassett back to this program. The Oscar-nominated actress is back in theaters this spring in the new film "Meet the Browns." The project from filmmaker Tyler Perry opens around the country on March 21st. Here now, a scene from "Meet the Browns."
[Clip]
Tavis: Hey, Angela.
Angela Bassett: That's rough. (Laughs)
Tavis: Got a little rough, huh? A little rough. There were two or three things that got my attention when I first saw this, in no particular order. Number one, you are not a single mother - by the way, how are the babies?
Bassett: They're great, thank you.
Tavis: Twins, the twins are doing good, okay. You're not a single mother and yet you have, in your career, played a number of single mothers - very powerful single mothers - "Boyz n the Hood."
Bassett: Mm-hmm, true, true.
Tavis: This movie. I could run two or three of them. Is there something that draws you to those characters?
Bassett: Well, I was raised by a single mother.
Tavis: Raised by a single mother.
Bassett: A strong Black mother, and as this character says in here, the one thing Black women know how to do, and that's make it. And that's what she did. She held us together, she pulled our coattails, she made sure we were where we were supposed to be when we were supposed to be.
There were all kind of circumstances vying for our attention and to take us down another path, but she was our staunch advocate with little and next to nothing. So I applaud and I love and have such compassion and passion for single mothers, or for any parent that's doing it, because now with two, I see - I appreciate having a partner. (Laughter)
Tavis: So when you're playing a character like this, are you channeling your mother in any aspect of the character?
Bassett: Sometimes, some scenes.
Tavis: Yeah?
Bassett: Some scenes, oh, yeah, yeah. That scene we just showed there, I remember my mother getting us straight, and one thing she would say, oh, what'd she say? "I'll fix your little red wagon." (Laughter) And that seems like something really nice, I have a little red wagon, and she's going to fix it. What does that mean? (Laughter) But it was - the idea of it, oh, I will fix your little red wagon.
Tavis: That ain't what she - exactly, yeah. White folk are like, what does that mean? That's a Black thing, yeah. The second thing that got my attention, again, no particular order about this, this is not the typical Tyler Perry fare in that there's definitely some funny in this and the character Madea makes a cameo in this, but it's not the typical fare in that there's some - that scene, for example, there's some serious subject matter being covered in this film.
Bassett: Yeah, I don't know, maybe it's me. I say well, I bring the drama. I want to show up in a comedy. But I think he has the mix of them if you think back to "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," that sort of thing. But he - I don't know, for me going into it I was always concerned about now how are we going to mesh these two worlds, because they're opposite end of the spectrum.
And all I could think is to just be as honest, whether you're as funny, be as honest being funny. If it's drama, it's traumatic, it's serious, be real, be grounded. Whatever world it's in, as long as it's grounded, hopefully it'll connect and mesh well together.
Tavis: To the point that you made earlier, so many of your fans know you first and foremost as an actor who can pull off a serious role of drama in anything you do. Is that a good thing? Is that a good thing over the balance of your career that that's how people see you and you feel - I guess I'm asking you if you ever feel boxed in by the drama, even though you're awfully good at it?
Bassett: Yeah, sometimes, especially in straight life where my friends say, "You have to do a comedy." They think I'm awfully funny. But it's like it's so - it's difficult. It's easier, I think, to make people cry than it is to make them laugh.
Tavis: Do you think so? Why do you say that?
Bassett: I don't know. I get so - what's funny to one, certain things that pull the heart. A child that doesn't eat, or going through a difficult time, or a mother who loses a son, or whatever the case might be. A father dreams for his son and they don't pan out, that sort of thing. That's universal. But what's funny to you and what's funny to me?
Tavis: Yeah.
Bassett: It can be very different. What's funny in America, what's funny in London, what's funny all over the world? Sometimes the subtleties of that are more varied.
Tavis: How has being - we mentioned the babies earlier, the two babies - has being a mother at all changed - and I don't want to color this too much, I want to give you as much canvas as you need. Has being a mother in any way changed your acting, changed your acting choices, changed your priorities about acting, and you color it any way you want to color it.
Bassett: Someone asked me that recently. I don't think they've changed my choices, because -
Tavis: That was not an original question, I guess (inaudible).
Bassett: Right, I've - (laughter) just yesterday.
Tavis: Oh, yeah, and I worked all night on that question.
Bassett: But here's the original answer. (Laughter)
Tavis: All right.
Bassett: It hasn't changed my choices, because I've always been picky or discerning or choosy or whatever the case may be. I'm always looking for what's the message, what's the point, what's the purpose, what's the greater good, what's the (makes noise). That sort of thing. Even whether it's comedy or whether it's drama, just there's got to be a reason for it. So I'm always looking for that kernel.
And with the - of course the idea of being away working on the project and them being home, it's easier for me, making this movie, it was - they take so much of your energy. If I want to brush my teeth, I'd better do it before I go say hello to them, or put on my clothes, or eat something or whatever, because once I get with them they draw you in and it's hard to pull away.
And just listening and learning and growing and laughter and growing on both our parts, it's just so much going on, so it's hard to pull away. But when I'm working on a project, I want to give it my singular focus. And they can distract and pull me away from that, so trying to figure out that balance. And so far, it's go away and do the job, commit totally, and come on home and commit totally.
Tavis: You had a list a moment ago, Angela, of four or five things right quick, you ran this list of things that you are looking for when you're trying to figure out whether or not it's the right role for you to play. That's a pretty heady list. I raise that only because I wonder whether or not you don't see stuff often enough that matches up with what you're trying to find.
Bassett: It comes along. For an actor, it don't come along as often as we would like it to, but then at times it does. For instance, this past year it's been just a slate of things coming one after the other, which has been really nice. And this movie, the last, and now going to do "Notorious B.I.G." playing Voletta Wallace, the mother of Biggie Smalls. So it comes, it makes its way to me, yeah.
Tavis: I have not seen the script for this. Obviously you have, since you got the role. I assume that's got to be another - I'm just making an assumption here - that's got to be another dramatic, gut-wrenching kind of role, to play Biggie's mama.
Bassett: Yeah, it is, but it starts young.
Tavis: Starts young?
Bassett: It starts young in his life, from about six, nine years old. So there's great - there's joy before we turn (inaudible).
Tavis: We were having a conversation here on the set the other day between tapings talking about the number of African Americans who have either won or been nominated for Academy Awards and really what the trajectory of their career was after the win or after the nomination. Your name came up in that conversation. Of course, you've been Academy Award-nominated.
Has your career thought it was going to go after receiving one of those heady nominations?
Bassett: Well I always try to look back to the beginning of the career, when there was nothing, when there was no one to guide me through it or whatever, so the entire career has been more than I ever dreamt of or ever imagined, so that's the great thing.
And of course early on, before they could put your face and your name together, your face and name recognition, you just go in and work back to back to back. But once you ascend and you have more recognition, greater parts, bigger everything, then it has - it's not as - it doesn't come as back-to-back as it did. It used to be I would have a week off, but I guess most people work week-to-week except for a week. (Laughter) Or two, kind of thing. But it's a little different because your days are 16 and 18 and my longest day was a 25-hour day.
So I wouldn't want to do that throughout the year and only have a week off.
Tavis: Exactly. Especially now with two babies.
Bassett: Yeah. And as I said, actors, we're never satisfied. You're always going "When is the next job?" It's not enough.
Tavis: Yeah, you still love it, though.
Bassett: Unless you're winding up in every other picture. Then it's too much of you.
Tavis: Angela Bassett is overexposed.
Bassett: So as long as it's good, as long as it's good work, I think.
Tavis: Speaking of good work, it's hard to find an actor in this town better than Angela Bassett, and she stars in "Meet the Browns," Tyler Perry's new project, at a theater near you, as they say. Angela, nice to see you.
Bassett: Thank you, you too.
Tavis: Give my best to Gordon.
Bassett: Always.
Tavis: Good to see you.
Bassett: All right.
Tavis: That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. You can access our radio podcast through our website at PBS.org. I will see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A., thanks for watching, and of course as always, keep the faith.
Bassett: Keep the faith.
Tavis: You got it.
Back to March 12, 2008