The one role Angela Bassett has always wanted to play: “I would love to explore that”
There have been plenty of bad typecasts that actors have struggled to clamber out of over the years.
Take Tom Cruise as the classic action hero, or Melissa McCarthy as the loud, boisterous friend, and good type casts, like Helena Bonham Carter as the eccentric quirky character leaning goth, or Morgan Freeman as the calm and dignified voice of reason, which can be adapted to different roles but remain iconically part of the actor’s identity.
Angela Bassett fits into this second category, as an actor who has become known for playing strong Black women throughout history. She did incredible justice to Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It, about which Turner herself was initially sceptical but even went so far as to describe Bassett’s performance as “perfect”.
Then there was also her defiant performance in The Rosa Parks Story, in which she played the titular Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a bus in 1952 and helped spark and helm the civil rights movement. Bassett even played Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King, in which she starred alongside Mary J Blige as Betty Shabazz, the wife of Malcom X, in Betty & Coretta, and had a prominent role as Queen Ramonda in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther.
It’s an impressive track record, and not one Bassett has taken lightly. “I have had the great privilege of portraying strong Black women in my career,” she told Coveteur. Her pride in her work tracks as well because, before she became a professional Hollywood actor, Bassett, now 67, earned a BA in African American studies at Yale and an MFA at the Yale School of Drama.
She’s not finished yet, mind you. When asked about her dream role, she came straight out with it: Queen Nefertiti of Egypt’s 18th dynasty. “The legend of her power, intellect, and beauty really draws me to her story, and I would love to explore that on the screen,” she told Coveteur.
Nefertiti was no ordinary queen, though. She helped steer a religious revolution with her husband, King Akhenaton, and became one of the most influential figures of the ancient world. Even so, her tomb has never been properly found, leaving her story half in shadow, half in rumour. All that’s left to cling to is her famous bust, stuck in Berlin, which still shouts of her reach and power centuries on.
Nefertiti’s story might be shrouded in mystery, but that hasn’t stopped her being reclaimed in modern Black culture as a figure of power. Long before empire and whitewashed history rewrote the narrative, she stood as a Black queen, and her image still carries weight now. You see it in the way artists like Beyoncé or Rihanna channel her – beauty, strength, legacy – all spun into something defiant, a way of taking back the story that was pinched in the first place.
And yet, when it comes to cinema, the only outing she’s ever had was a 1961 Italian flick, Queen of the Nile, with Jeanne Crain (a white actress) shoved in the role. Says it all, doesn’t it? Casting Angela Bassett as Nefertiti would be a proper way of setting the record straight, especially given Hollywood’s long habit of bleaching out Egyptians on screen. Liz Taylor’s Cleopatra is the classic case, one adored at the time, sure, but historians now rip it to bits as a complete fantasy.
Speaking about the importance of celebrating these strong leading women, Angela Bassett told Coveteur, “My hope is that Hollywood will continue to shine a light on these important women who have shaped history”.
The actor is certainly paving the way for this legacy, while also defining her own in the process, receiving a Golden Globe for ‘Best Actress’ in 1994 for What’s Love Got to Do with It, proving that it’s possible to reclaim history and share this with huge audiences.
