ANGELA BASSETT EMBRACES ‘OTHERHOOD’
You can bet that T’Challa would never forget Queen Ramonda on Mother’s Day.
But in “Otherhood,” her new Netflix film, Angela Bassett — beloved by fans as the regal matriarch of Wakanda in “Black Panther” — plays a woman so accustomed to neglect by her adult son that she sends herself bouquets from him on the holiday each year. With this note: “You are the best mother ever.”
So when she and her similarly disregarded best friends, played by Patricia Arquette and Felicity Huffman, realize that they’ve become “others” instead of mothers, these suburban empty-nesters storm Manhattan in a Volvo station wagon in pursuit of their offspring’s attention and respect.
“I just thought it was hysterical — I was falling over,” Bassett said of the film directed and co-written by Cindy Chupack (“Sex and the City”). “That’s rare to read a script and to really laugh out loud.”
And dipping her toes into the comedic realm was a welcome counterbalance to her work on Fox’s “9-1-1,” which last season catapulted Bassett’s character, Field Sgt. Athena Grant of the Los Angeles Police Department, into natural disasters before marrying her off to the fire captain (Peter Krause).
Alas, mothering briefly got the best of “Otherhood” when its premiere was pushed from April to August after Huffman was arrested for her involvement in a college admissions scandal. “We all make mistakes. None of us is perfect,” Bassett said. “I think Felicity handled these unfortunate circumstances in a mature, responsible way. She held herself accountable and didn’t make excuses for her decisions, and I can only respect that.”
These days, Bassett is hoping to add a matching Emmy to that of her husband, Courtney B. Vance, with her nomination as narrator of “The Flood,” a National Geographic special about the Okavango Delta in Africa. Calling from Los Angeles, she happily chatted about how she’s trying to guarantee that Bronwyn and Slater, their 13-year-old twins, never let Mother’s Day go unnoticed.
These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: It’s been a while since you hung with girlfriends onscreen. How did you find your groove with Patricia and Felicity?
They were both warm, wonderful, delightful, talented, hardworking women that made you laugh. It was easy to establish a camaraderie.
Q: What are the joys to be found in the female squad-com?
A: I’ve done it a couple of times — “Waiting to Exhale” and then this. And the film “Gunpowder Milkshake,” which I just finished my portion of in Germany, is a female-driven action thriller, with the wonderful Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino and Lena Headey and Karen Gillan. It’s such a delight to be around women who get it — full of life, full of laughter and love. No egos. They just Netflix
shared the best of themselves, their knowledge of their experiences.
Q: Your character, Carol, has a son who’s loath to invite her to a work party. But you recently took your son to see the rapper Logic and he seemed pretty great with it.
A: Before I went away to work this summer, in Berlin for six weeks, I surprised him. It was a Friday. That’s the No. 1 surprise: “You’re not going to school today.” Then I’ve got the Logic T-shirt. And then I said: “Oh, and last surprise. You have a private meetand-greet with Logic before his show.” That’s when he really lost it. He was the best kid ever. I was the boss mom