The Oscar-winning role Angela Bassett turned down: “I couldn’t do that”
Angela Bassett certainly has the ability and has been in enough high-profile movies to have received an Oscar by now, but, thus far, that section of her trophy cabinet remains bare.
She’s been nominated twice, once in 1994 for What’s Love Got to Do with It and once in 2023 for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but failed to take home the gold on both occasions, and while there’s still plenty of time for her name to be read out, she might have scooped it much earlier in her career had she not let her morals get in the way.
Bassett was initially cast in the role of Leticia Musgrove in Marc Foster’s Monster’s Ball, which followed the journey of a single mother Leticia raising her obese son in the wake of her husband being handed the death penalty, which leads her to strike up a relationship with corrections officer Billy Bob Thornton’s Hank. Things seem to be going well, but the catch is that Hank was the one who oversaw the execution, and that’s what I call baggage.
After both Bassett and Vanessa Williams passed on the part, Halle Berry was cast as Leticia, and when in an interview with Newsweek, Bassett was asked about her decision to reject the movie, she answered in her uniquely theatrical manner.
“It’s about character, darling,” she said, “I wasn’t going to be a prostitute on film. I couldn’t do that because it’s such a stereotype about Black women and sexuality. Film is forever. It’s about putting something out there you can be proud of ten years later. I mean, Meryl Streep won Oscars without all that.”
Both prior to and after Monster’s Ball, Bassett’s filmography has been dominated by strong Black women, earning her a reputation as one of the most reliable and consistent actors when it comes to representation. Thus, she believed that the role of Leticia, who is bounced around from one unhealthy relationship straight into another, wasn’t in keeping with her standards; however, the use of the word prostitute is interesting, as Leticia doesn’t engage in any sex work on screen, so she probably meant it in a more abstract and old-fashioned sense of someone comprising themselves for money or fame.
Berry made history when, at the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony, she became the first (and thus far only) Black woman to win ‘Best Actress’ for her performance, but even after this astonishing victory, Bassett doesn’t regret not taking the job. “I can’t and don’t begrudge Halle her success,” she declared, “It wasn’t the role for me”.
Ultimately, Berry would go on to have a very complicated relationship with her award, and if Bassett had won the prize for a movie she already didn’t believe in, then she surely would have endured a similar conflict.
Some people might not agree with Bassett’s stance on Monster’s Ball, but in her mind at least, she did the right thing. Even though she was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 2024, she’s still waiting on that first competitive win, which, if it ever happens, will be interesting to see what kind of role she wins for.
