Angela Bassett: ‘I did what I came to do. And I did it well’

Moments after the credits started rolling at the premiere of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Angela Bassett’s son, Slater, leaned over and whispered in his mom’s ear: “Oscar.” Months later, Bassett laughs at the memory because her immediate response, at least in her head, was “Aaaaaw, you’re my son. You’re supposed to say nice things to your mom. But thank you, darling!”

Ever since the January announcement that Bassett had earned an Oscar nomination for reprising the role of Queen Ramonda and, in the process, becoming the first actor to win academy recognition for a Marvel movie, Slater has reminded her more than once about that evening.

“At the time, the Oscars were the furthest thing in my mind,” Bassett tells me. It’s a Saturday, and we’re seated in a booth in a noisy breakfast spot not far from her La Cañada Flintridge home, a cozy spot where

Bassett stands out because she’s wearing a stylish pantsuit and has ordered only tea, forsaking the bulging breakfast plates that the wait staff carries by our booth. Also: She’s Angela Bassett! No matter the setting, her magnificence doesn’t exactly blend into the background.

We’ve been talking about transitions, thinking about Slater and his twin sister, Bronwyn, high school juniors about to make their first trip back east to check out colleges. “Thank you, Lord, for one more year,” Bassett, 64, says of their looming departure from home. “As they say, it does go by quickly. I was telling that to someone the other day that we always say that, maybe thinking time will slow time down. But it doesn’t slow down, does it?”

Not long ago, a friend asked Bassett if she was ready for an empty nest. Ready? She was practically incredulous. She has been preparing for her children leaving from the moment they were born, she says, realizing it was inevitable. That hasn’t stopped her from scrolling through pictures and videos on her phone lately, watching her babies dancing and singing, the years passing, cartwheels turning into car wheels, as the song goes, and here she is today, readying them for visits to Yale and Harvard.

“The other day I asked my daughter, just fishing, saying, ‘Oh, if you go to Yale, I’m going to get an apartment just down the street from you,’” Bassett says. “And she’s like, ‘That’d be great, Mom!’” Bassett shakes her head, laughing. “Just fishing, you know. Like, ‘I’m going to miss you! So I’m going to go back to college too.’”

But, talk about time passing: To Bassett, it doesn’t feel like it was all that long ago that she moved to Los Angeles, five years after graduating from the Yale School of Drama, ending up crashing at a friend’s Hollywood apartment just behind Sunset Bronson Studios. She’d walk down Sunset Boulevard to the gym, getting strange looks from motorists. “Like, ‘What’s wrong with her? Is she crazy? What’s she up to?’ All because I was walking,” Bassett says. “I’d just come from New York and didn’t have a car. In New York, you walk. If you do that here, you feel weird because there’s no one else on the sidewalk.”

Her mother and aunt wanted Bassett to go into nursing or teaching. “You want to be a princess?” Bassett bursts out laughing at the memory of how they felt about her career choice. “To them, understandably, it was a pipe dream.”

Bassett brings up the 1992 sci-fi comedy “Critters 4,” which I’d never have pegged as a career milestone. For her though, as a young working actor, it was a role in a horror franchise in which her character survived to the closing credits. “You mean, I don’t die?” Bassett recalls thinking, laughing. “That was a transition.”

One year later, Bassett earned an Oscar nomination for playing Tina Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” showcasing the full range of her talent and ability to shift between vulnerability and strength as well as dance in 5-inch heels while singing “Proud Mary.” During the shoot, there was chatter in the trades that the movie was in trouble and that Bassett had been miscast. Bassett heard it and asked to watch the dailies. She looked at two scenes — the “Proud Mary” performance and a small moment that had Turner finding peace through a Buddhist chant.

“I bought what I did,” Bassett says. “After that, I didn’t need to see anything else. I knew I was on the right track. I’ve always believed it’s better to be underestimated and then deliver.”

Bassett extends that philosophy to any and all expectations for industry approval. That first Oscar nomination came 29 years ago. And despite all the strong praise for her commanding turn in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” as a queen working through grief while standing strong for her people, Bassett never assumed she’d ever be back at the ceremony as a nominee.