Angela Bassett: The Queen | 267

Even the Rich

Wondery

Society & Culture

4.3 • 11.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s Women’s History Month, Richies! In honor of that, we have the queen herself, Angela Bassett. She’s been setting fire to the silver screen ever since she portrayed Tina Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” But her life - both in front of and behind the camera - has been chock-full of obstacles, disappointments, struggles, and surprises. (Like finding out her boyfriend’s a cheater on national television.) But none of it slows Angela down. With a slew of great film roles - not to mention an Oscar and an Emmy - she’s always proving that Angela Bassett really did do “the thing!”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wonderry Plus subscribers can binge the newest season of Even the Rich before anyone else.
0:04.4	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:11.9	Okay, Eresha, would you consider yourself to be resilient?
0:18.9	I mean, you tell me, I went to make an ice cream cone last night and the ice cream
0:22.8	fell onto the floor. Did I give up? Or did I make another ice cream cone?
0:26.7	See, because it was an ice cream cone, I think you made another one. Of course I did. And I did
0:30.6	eat some of the ice cream that was on the floor, but didn't touch the floor. So yeah, I'd say I'm
0:34.8	pretty resilient. Okay. Nothing can stop me.
0:42.8	Well, today's subject has got to be one of the most resilient subjects we've ever profiled.
0:47.8	She was raised by a single mom in the Florida Projects, found out in her 20s that her boyfriend was cheating on her in a very public way, and began a quest to have children in her 40s.
0:53.5	And she has emerged as one of the most formidable actors of our generation.
0:57.9	Today, we're talking about the incomparable Angela Bassett.
1:05.9	It's the spring of 1975, and 16-year-old Angela Bassett is in Washington, D.C. for the first time.
1:13.0	She hasn't left the South since she was an infant. But when a mentor secretly submits her to be a part of the presidential classroom for young Americans, she makes the cut.
1:21.9	So she's spending the week in the U.S. Capitol with other high schoolers from around the country and the world.
1:27.3	It's mostly lectures about the government and meetings with senators, which Angela thinks is
1:31.9	boring.
1:33.0	And there have been some tours of monuments, but tonight is different.
1:37.4	The group is going to the Kennedy Center to watch legendary actor James Earl Jones
1:41.3	in a production of of Mice and Men.
1:44.5	His performance as the tragic character, Lenny, rocks Angela to her core.
1:49.8	As the theater empties around her, she stays in her seat sobbing.
	...

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