Angela Bassett is an American actress with a prolific acting career spanning four decades. Although she is commonly known for her title role in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, she’s famous for her ability to captivate audiences with her mesmerising and emotional portrayals of some of the most important women in history. Her critically acclaimed portrayal of Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It, earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

Bassett has starred in iconic films Boyz N the Hood and Malcom X, among many others. Her performances in these films demonstrated a rare ability to simultaneously embody vulnerability and strength and led to an invitation to perform the title role in The Rosa Parks Story, which earned Bassett an Emmy Award nomination for her nuanced portrait of a woman fighting racial inequality.

Bassett set the screen alight in 2014 with her directorial debut, a TV film about Whitney Houston entitled Whitney. She has also worked as a producer, adding her talents to films such as Our America, a gripping true story about two reporters investigating a child murder, and the 2017 documentary Remand, which follows an African father and his son as they fight for justice. Recently, Bassett produced and starred in the TV show 9-1-1 before joining the cast of 2018’s hugely popular Marvel super-hero flick Black Panther.