Angela Bassett has a reputation for playing strong women, but with How Stella Got Her Groove Back, she gets to soften her edges. Here, Bassett talks about playing a woman who falls for a guy half her age, discusses her real life with her new husband Courtney B. Vance and tells a sweet story about working with Ralph Fiennes.
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Angela Bassett is no stranger to strong women characters. As Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It, she strutted, took it on the chin from Ike and shook a tail feather so authoritatively we almost forgot what the real Tina looked like. Then, as the sturdy Betty Shabazz in Spike Lee's Malcolm X, she survived watching her husband get gunned down in front of her. And who didn't side with her when, as Bernadine from Waiting to Exhale, she dumped her unfaithful husband's entire wardrobe into his BMW and set the whole damn thing on fire in the driveway. No question, Bassett knows how to play women of steel.
Now Bassett's playing another woman of steel, but this one's got a silk lining. As Stella, a fortyish single mother who goes to the tropics and falls in love with a guy half her age in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Bassett gets to have soft edges and act sexy, confused and vulnerable.
On this particular day, Bassett has just come offstage at New York's Joseph Papp Public Theater, where she's been playing one of the steeliest women of all time--Lady Macbeth (opposite Alec Baldwin). After going berserk onstage for three hours, she's in her dressing room taking off her Medusa-like wig, slipping into sweatpants and a turtle-neck, and giving a kiss to her husband, actor Courtney B. Vance, who has just dropped in to bring her lunch (soup, half a sandwich and some chocolate-covered pretzels).
"This should do it," Vance says as he rubs his wife's shoulders and kisses her neck. Bassett smiles. They've been married since last October, but have yet to spend more than a few days together at their L.A. home because one or both of them has been working since the day after their wedding. Vance hugs Bassett one more time and leaves the room. "We're both looking forward to getting our lives back to normal," she says when he's gone.
"But with both of you being actors, it's never going to get back to normal," I point out.
Bassett takes this in. "Normal," she says, rolling the word around on her tongue for a while. "Well, 'normal' meaning that we'll get up in our own bed, make our own breakfast, be with each other until one of us has to go on location. As an actor, I'm used to life changing all the time, and so is my husband. So what seems normal to us may not seem normal to two people who have regular jobs."
"Angela," I say, noticing how delicately pretty Bassett is when she's not playing a fierce, sturdy female on a gigantic movie screen, "give it up. You have no chance with this 'normal' thing."
"Well it's a good thing I'm only in New York for a few months." Bassett throws her head back and laughs. "I used to live in New York, but I was not living then like I am now. Those funky old apartments, and now, this." Her hand sweeps around to encompass the plush little dressing room, the flowers and the notes of congratulations.
Raised in the projects in St. Petersburg, Florida, Bassett knew she wanted to act when she saw James Earl Jones portray Lenny in Of Mice and Men at the Kennedy Center on a class trip to Washington, DC. An almost religious dedication to studying earned her National Honor Society membership and a scholarship to Yale, where she got an undergraduate degree and a master's at the prestigious Yale School of Drama. Then she spent a few years in New York making a name for herself as a stage actress (in plays such as August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone) before moving to Los Angeles in 1988 to pursue a movie career. Three years later, John Singleton cast her as Cuba Gooding Jr.'s no-nonsense mom in the breakout Boyz N the Hood, and she was off and running. The following year she starred in Malcolm X and went on to do the TV miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream. Then along came What's Love Got to Do With It, which earned her an Oscar nomination. Kathryn Bigelow's futuristic Strange Days, in which Bassett starred with Ralph Fiennes, was a coup for the actress when she won her role in it, and nobody blamed her for the mess that resulted. Waiting to Exhale, adapted from the novel by Terry McMillan, who also wrote How Stella Got Her Groove Back, put her back in the money.
"I've just spent the last few days watching your movies," I tell Bassett. "Can I just pick a little bone with you?"
"Sure," she says, seeming genuinely eager to have a discussion.
"What's with all those men in Waiting to Exhale? Not one of them knew how to make love to a woman. These guys would jump on their girlfriends and then roll off and start snoring. What about foreplay? Is that unheard of? If a guy ever screwed me like that, I'd kill him."
To say that Bassett is speechless is an understatement. Her jaw has dropped and she's staring at me.
"Sorry," I say. "I figured everybody must wonder about that."
"God, I don't know what to say," Bassett finally says. "There was lots of flak after the movie came out, because there were people who were upset with the way black men had been portrayed. But I don't think that is exactly what they had in mind. They just thought the men couldn't commit or that they were liars. But this whole sex thing, let me think it over for a minute."
Bassett closes her eyes and takes a few breaths. She's still for so long I wonder if she's meditating. Then she opens her eyes slowly, and seems to have the whole thing figured out.
"It's funny," she says in that deep, throaty voice of hers. "If you love someone, really love someone, love their heart and soul and spirit and who they are and what they stand for, then they feel comfortable with you and you with them, and they don't fear that you're going to push them away because their sexual prowess is not where you think it ought to be. Or you'll take the time and show them and teach them. You develop patience. But if you really don't know them, you just sort of lust after them and think they're really cute or you're interested in them for other reasons, maybe what they represent or, often times the way they look....
"Well, when you rush the physical relationship, maybe they're a little clumsy and a little nervous and sometimes it doesn't work out the way you hoped. If they don't knock it out of the park--just to use an expression--if they don't match up to your standards right away, then suddenly you're not interested in who they are as much. That's when they start getting your answering machine instead of you. One day he's making the back of your neck tingle and the next, you can't stand to be in the same room with him. And I think the men and women in Waiting to Exhale, at least the scenes you're talking about with Lela Rochon's character or Whitney Houston's character, well, those relationships were all based on quick physical intimacy instead of a real, shared feeling of love. Does that answer your question?"
Question? What question? I'm voting for Bassett for president.
"Talking about Whitney," I say, "when you were working on Waiting to Exhale, there were all those rumors that no one could get along with Whitney and that you two were feuding. And yet you've said that wasn't true..."
"You know how it is," says Bassett. "If there are 10 people in a room, there are 11 opinions."
I nod in agreement. "My mother always says, 'Everyone's got an opinion. Everyone's got an asshole. That's how important opinions are.'"
Bassett looks like she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I would love to work with Whitney again," she says when she recovers her composure. "She and I got along very well and have a great deal of respect for each other. I admire her for what she's been able to achieve in the entertainment field. It's just amazing. And yet I wouldn't want it for myself to that degree, because there's this whole other thing that goes on--the craziness of the fans, of what they desire from her to help make their dreams and aspirations come true, and the lengths they will go to get it. You become responsible for so many other people."
"Spike Lee once told me that people rise to their own level of fame. That if you go out with bodyguards, you'll eventually need them."
Bassett thinks this over for a minute before saying, "It depends on the personality of the person. Some people are very fragile and others aren't. I've never courted celebrity. I don't believe in it. I like to be able to walk down the street and not be noticed. The other night Courtney and I were walking down the street and there was this older lady with a shopping cart full of groceries. She must have been 80 and was dressed very nicely. And she couldn't get the cart over the curb. Courtney looked at her and asked, 'Would you like some help?' She said, 'Yes.' He went and helped her get it up on the curb. She said 'Thank you' and kept going. This old woman didn't know who we were. That's the kind of stuff I would be hard pressed to give up."
"Sssshhhhh," I warn her. "Don't tempt the fates."
Bassett waves away my concern. "Honey, everyone gets to decide their own fate to a certain degree," she says with a beatific smile. "And to another degree, it's not in your hands. And I trust in that."
"How'd you deal with it when the producers of What's Love Got to Do With It decided to let Tina Turner sing at the end of the movie instead of you?"
"Oh, I was hurt," Bassett says, "the way anybody would be who feels they had just given all their blood, sweat and tears to something. I worked harder than I ever had to, and harder than I've had to since. Every fiber, muscle and sinew was pulsating with pain. But as time gives me distance, then it all becomes OK. It's what it is, it's what it was supposed to be. The movie stands on its own, and I'm proud of it."
"Did you believe all the hype surrounding your performance, people saying that this was going to open every door in Hollywood for you?"
"It did open a lot of doors for me in Hollywood," she answers. "I don't remember anyone else telling me it was gonna change my life--it was me who was telling myself that. And I was right! My life did change. Five years after the fact, people come up to me every day to say it was their favorite film, or it helped them out of their abusive relationship, or somehow gave them strength. "
"After making that film, you made Strange Days, which was such a depressing and upsetting movie. My attitude after seeing it was, if Hollywood's directing the future, I'm glad I'm not gonna be there."
"All my memories of _Strange Days _are dark," says Bassett, thinking about this. "But that's because we worked for three months at night. That part of it was terrible. I had to keep reminding myself that I was being paid very handsomely. But I loved working with Ralph Fiennes."
"Is he as stuffy as he seems?"
"He was very easy to be around," Bassett smiles. "I'll tell you a funny story. He can be very quiet, and observant, and it may make you a little nervous if you're a shy person, which I am. Because I can pull back, too. But with him, I found that if I just allowed him to be who he was--that sort of laid-back, observant individual--then he opened up. Once he was giving a dinner party, and he mentioned it to me long before it was going to happen. But he didn't mention it again. The night of the party, I just stayed home. I didn't know if invitations had been sent out or anything, and I was too embarrassed to ask. Then the phone rang and it was Ralph, and he was so upset. 'Where are you? Why aren't you here? Get dressed and get over here right now!' He was about to cry. I went, and he took care of me all night. We were just two really sensitive people."
"In both What's Love and Strange Days, you're so physically strong. Do you have a killer workout regimen? Even now, you've got arms that could break walnuts."
"Nah," laughs Bassett. "I worked out like crazy to play Tina Turner, because that woman is a force of nature. But I usually don't do much. Before I did How Stella Got Her Groove Back, I did lots of leg work because Stella has to wear bathing suits, and I had to get my legs and butt in shape. But the rest just sort of stays that way."
"Stella's a very spontaneous person--she goes for a vacation in the Caribbean after seeing a commercial on television. Are you spontaneous by nature?" I ask this question with a straight face, like I don't know the answer.
Bassett shakes her head slowly back and forth. "Not really. I'm more the thinker. I have to plan things. Although not as much as my mother, who says things like, 'OK, in May 2001 I'm gonna come and visit you on Mother's Day.' I try to be spontaneous in my planning."
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.
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Martha Frankel interviewed Terry Gilliam for the June '98 issue of Movieline.