Angela Bassett: Steel and Silk

Now I'm shaking my head. "OK," she says with a laugh. "I'm not spontaneous. Playing Stella was really difficult in a way, because there are no theatrics with her--she doesn't burn up the car, she knows who she is and she's comfortable with herself. I felt sometimes that I wasn't doing anything. I just had to deal with her emotions. She meets this guy and falls for him, but she's my age and he's in his early 20s, so she fights herself and thinks, 'He's young. What does he want with me? What do I want with him? He's only 10 years older than my child! What would other people think? What am I doing?'"

"She says this before she sleeps with him or after?"

"Before, during and after. She's just second-guessing herself and not allowing herself to enjoy it. You know how that is."

"Not really," I tell her. "I'm too much of a hedonist to berate myself over feeling good."

She stares at me and blinks really slowly, as if she hopes I'm kidding.

"Well, Stella fights herself right up to the point--wait, I shouldn't tell you this because I don't want to ruin the movie."

"Angela, Waiting to Exhale was a huge best-seller, everyone knew the ending and they went anyway. Stella was a huge bestseller, too. And everyone knew the Titanic would sink, but that didn't stop them from seeing the movie."

"True," Bassett agrees. "But I don't want to give away what Stella feels."

"OK, let me ask you something else."

Now she's cringing.

"I heard that you may be doing the Ella Fitzgerald movie. Is this true?"

Bassett looks completely shocked. "I've never even heard of this. There's an Ella Fitzgerald movie? Let me call my manager."

When I say good-bye to Bassett, I'm absolutely sure she is going to call her manager, and she's not going to think a lot about it first. A powerhouse like Fitzgerald? Angela Bassett knows that's a role to get downright spontaneous about.

______________________________________

Martha Frankel interviewed Terry Gilliam for the June '98 issue of Movieline.

Pages: 1 2 3