Angela Bassett

What's beauty got to do with it? For the awesomely cheekboned and naturally gorgeous Angela Bassett, it's got to do with the challenge of acting, the depth of her characters and never settling for average by giving her performances 100 percent. Born in Harlem and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida, by a determined single mother, Bassett learned to be independent and never give up on her dreams.As a junior in high school, she went to Washington, D.C., with the cultural-enrichment program Upward Bound, where she saw James Earl Jones onstage in Of Mice and Men.

Moved to tears, she knew right then she wanted to be an actress, to make people feel the way she did that day. After attending Yale on a full scholarship, Bassett stayed three more years to earn her masters in drama. The rest is history.

Things did not come easy at first for Bassett, who struggled as a young actress in Manhattan and later L.A.--where she moved in 1988 and remains today. She first received critical attention in 1991, playing Cuba Gooding Jr.'s mom in the seminal Boyz N the Hood. A year later, she hounded her agent till he landed her the part of Malcolm X's wife, Betty Shabazz, in Spike Lee's epic Malcolm X. Her experience in that film seems to have sparked a hunger in Bassett to take on the challenge of political, historically drawn roles. From her soul-baring, gut-wrenching Oscar-nominated performance as singer Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It? (1993), to Michael Jackson's mother in ABC's The Jacksons: An American Dream, to Rosa Parks in CBS' The Rosa Parks Story, Bassett has built her career exploring the hearts and minds of some of the 20th century's most fascinating women. She can also mix it up, having starred in movies as diverse as Wes Craven's Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) and Kathryn Bigelow's thriller Stran ge Days (1995).

Bassett has spent the past few years carefully choosing her next starring role, while at the same time speaking out about Hollywood's bias against women, particularly black women (most notably in the context of Halle Berry's Oscar-winning turn in Monster's Ball, which Bassett told Newsweek was "a stereotype about black women and sexuality"). This summer Bassett stormed the big screen like a Florida hurricane with a lead in Sunshine State, where she joined director John Sayles for the third time. She's set to appear next in Seinfeld veteran Larry Charles' upcoming Masked and Anonymous, in which Bob Dylan stars as an underachieving cult singer amid a cast that includes Luke Wilson, Penelope Cruz and Jessica Lange. The fire in Bassett can heat up any role.

Margot Norton was a 2002 editorial intern at Interview. Opposite: Angela Bassett wears a dress by CALVIN KLEIN. Styling: L'WREN SCOTT. Hair: KIYAH WRIGHT for Artists by Timothy Priano. Makeup: REANN SILVA for Artists by Timothy Priano. Special thanks: SMASHBOX, L.A. For Fashion and photo detail see page 195.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning