Angela Bassett is an American actress. She was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City. Known for her work in film and television since the 1980s, she has received various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards. In 2023, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and she received an Academy Honorary Award.
Bassett had her breakthrough portraying singer Tina Turner in the biopic What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), which won her a Golden Globe Award and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She had success starring in Boyz n the Hood (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Waiting to Exhale (1995), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), and Music of the Heart (1999). In the following decades, she took on supporting roles in the drama Notorious (2009), and the action films Green Lantern (2011), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), and London Has Fallen (2016). She also played Queen Ramonda in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). For the latter, she won another Golden Globe and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
On television, Bassett has starred as Katherine Jackson in the miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992). Her portrayal of Rosa Parks in the television film The Rosa Parks Story (2002) gained her a nomination for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress. Her performances in two seasons of the FX horror anthology series American Horror Story earned her nominations for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2014 and 2015. In 2018, Bassett began producing and starring as an LAPD patrol sergeant Athena Grant in the Fox drama series 9-1-1.
