Angela Bassett recently made history for the Marvel Cinematic Universe by snagging the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, becoming the first actor in a Marvel film to snag one of cinema’s biggest accolades.
While we eagerly await whether she can keep the ball rolling and win an Oscar, the actress recently dished about the nitty gritty of bringing life to the Wakandan Queen. In an interview with The New Yorker, she was asked about the challenges of filming against a green screen.
Bassett dug a little deeper into the filming process for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, in response to an anecdote about Anthony Hopkins’ claim that “he just sat on a throne and shouted.” By the sounds of it, she had plenty more visual cues to draw upon than Hopkins did for the sake of immersing herself in the role:
“The throne room was there, the floor of red clay, the elevation with the Dora Milaje flanking around, the grand doors that they walk through. So maybe you don’t see the world of Wakanda, but we had that. When Shuri and I went out into the wild, we had trees and bushes and water for yards and yards and yards, and Namor came up out of the water and flew to us. We had the entire ship, and the attention to detail inside of it was just magnificent. So I had it much better than Anthony Hopkins. I’m sorry for him.”
It would seem that shooting movies about fantasy worlds has become more and more accessible for actors since the days of Thor. On the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania red carpet, Paul Rudd shared similar praise about the technology used to bring the quantum realm to life for himself and his co stars while shooting.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now streaming on Disney Plus, and Angela Bassett will win an Oscar on March 13, or we riot.