Acting legend Angela Bassett admits she took no pleasure in reading the script for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever because of her character’s arc.
Per Entertainment Weekly, the Academy Award nominee reveals that she was as astonished as everyone else by Queen Ramonda’s fate in the sequel. She found the nature of her character’s demise quite distressing.
“I didn’t like reading either. I’m enjoying the script. I can’t wait to get to work and – then turn the page – and voila! It was an absolute surprise. No heads-up, no warning. I’m getting CPR, and I don’t make it. Oh, oh, I was distraught. Maybe that was the point.”
Bassett’s Oscar nod marks Marvel’s first Academy Award nomination for acting. However, this is her second nomination from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1993, she received her first nomination in the Best Actress category for portraying Tina Turner in the biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Before becoming Wakandan royalty in the MCU, Bassett starred as superhero Amanda Waller in the DCU film Green Lantern (2011). As Queen Ramonda, she has appeared in Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), in addition to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022).
Bassett graduated from the Yale School of Drama with a Master of Fine Arts in 1983. She has played fascinating and complex characters throughout her career, including Betty Shabazz in the Spike Lee film Malcolm X, Rosa Parks in The Rosa Parks Story, and Voletta Wallace in Notorious.
Ryan Coogler aimed to make a Marvel movie unlike any other as he paid eloquent tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman with the Black Panther sequel. In the midst of the complicated subject matter, Bassett’s performance as Queen Ramonda was an anchor in a stormy sea, and took the film to another level.
It remains to be seen if the 64-year-old will make history as the first actor to win an Oscar for an MCU film at the 95th Academy Awards on March 13. Whatever happens, Angela Bassett has already raised the bar.
