Black Panther: Wakanda Forever's Angela Bassett, our latest Oscars predictions, and more in EW's The Awardist

Angela Bassett on raising the game of the MCU

Interview by Gerrad Hall
Cover illustration by Joshua Swaby

Helen Mirren won an Oscar for playing one (Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen), so did Katharine Hepburn (France's Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter) and Judi Dench (Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love). And now, Angela Bassett may add to the list of royals with awards bling. Sure, the others were all real women, but like them, Bassett's Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a fierce protector and leader, guiding her kingdom and family through a time of great loss and grief.

Bassett, 64, has played numerous memorable roles in her nearly 40-year career, which includes another Academy Award nomination for her work as Tina Turner in 1993's What's Love Got to Do With It. Wakanda Forever thrust her into the awards conversation immediately upon the movie's release in November. In the process, she has made history as Marvel's first acting Oscar nomination — and she's picked up accolades along the way at the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards.

Below, Bassett takes EW through Ramonda's journey, one that shocked not only audiences but the actress herself.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We get our first taste of Queen Ramonda at the U.N., with that speech. There are, in the history of movies, these great speeches and takedowns, and you, I think, are now part of that list. When you have to pull the focus of the entire room for something like that, is there a different energy? Do you have a different approach as opposed to a simpler, more intimate scene?

ANGELA BASSETT: Well, yeah, it's a big room. It's a huge room. It was the first day of filming for the movie. But I tried to find what's intimate in it, whether it's the six brothers who are walking in flanking me, or whether I'm looking at the Consulate of France, or [Richard Schiff, who played the U.S. Secretary of State], which was someone that I knew who actually directed me in my first play out of drama school. So for us to come back around, for me to give him a dressing down — "I know what you've been up to" [Laughs] — that was really pretty comical to me. So I tried to find those individuals…as opposed to just speaking to the crowd, to the masses.

This is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we're talking about superheroes, people who have incredible powers. But as we see it here, Queen Ramonda is urging her daughter, Shuri, to use those powers in the right way. Take me through the approach to the relationship between the two of them in this second story versus where we had seen them previously.

With Shuri, Queen Ramonda is mother, and that's her main goal and focus with Shuri. She's, in a gentle way, always hoping that she will come to a place where she will appreciate the old ways. In some respects, she's trying to guide her; in some, she's gently pushing her, urging her, to care for herself, to not close off, to not shut down, to not distance herself from her emotions, from the reality of what's going on. There's mind, body, spirit, [and] it's her spirit and her mind that needs some tending to. She can't just stay busy working, making yourself busy to forget to sort of distance what has happened — losing the dearest person on this earth to her, her brother.

Ramonda, mother, is very mindful of that. And she returns to her from the ancestral plane as she's told her son as she tells her in a very different way, that you show people who you are…. It's up to her. Who will I be? Who will I become? But Shuri's not a vengeful, hateful person. She's a brilliant young woman who has everything ahead of her. So which path are you going to take?

On that topic, as you look back on your life and career, did you have that moment you were looking back, thinking about your ancestors, asking, "Who am I? What do I want to be? What have they taught me?"

Yes, absolutely. My aunt, who was very, very dear to me, my mother, my great-grandparents that I had the privilege of knowing and growing up with until I went away to college, to have them, to wonder at how their lives must have been, how different — not your mother or your grandmother or father, but your great-grandmother and father — in this country, how different their lives and times must [have been], but they're here, they were with me standing and just giving and generous and gracious and beautiful. So I felt very blessed to have them in my life. So I always think of them, and I always try to live up to their hopes and dreams for their children.

Let's talk about the funeral scenes in this movie, the first being for T'Challa. It was heartbreaking but beautiful all in the same way. What do you remember most about those days of filming?

The intimate one with just the family, that was one day. It was hot, it was muggy, there were mosquitoes everywhere. But it was beautiful out in the forest, in the woods with the trees and the mossy ground. And with the libations being poured. Just seeing the coffin there with the panther on it, I thought it was just beautifully designed, so thorough and thoughtful…. That day was cut short because the elements were not behaving. It was a rainy day, and I remember us being in a tent and it was just torrential rains. The scene that you see, we got that part, and we had to get it within a matter, it seemed, of a couple of hours. Because then the heavens just opened up and it just rained. We just sat huddled, trying to see if we could go back in and get another shot or two. They said, "Oh well, we didn't get it. We're gonna have to come back." But somehow…

And then to the different day with the processional, with everyone who so loved him, dressed looking glorious, to see the dancers, to see their faces and their energy, and for just this boundless love and excitement and joy for a life well lived — I love that dichotomy. And for Leticia as Shuri, she was just… I don't know if it was acting or not because you could really feel and sense her heartbreak. I would grab her hand or touch her hand as we proceeded just as a reminder: You stand strong, you represent your brother, you feel all of these emotions — you are your brother's sister.

In terms of Queen Ramonda's death — well, first of all, I'm trying to remember other times your character has died on screen.

Olympus Has Fallen.

There haven't been many, have there?

That's all that I recall.

So let's compare the two experiences.

I didn't like reading either. [Laughs] I didn't like turning the page… I'm enjoying my script, I can't wait to get to work. And then turn the page, and voila.

Did you know what was coming in either case?

No. Absolutely not. Absolute surprise. No heads up, no warning.

Whoa. So you are reading — in the case of Black Panther, Namor has just unleashed all of these water bombs, essentially, and you're trying to save Riri…

Trying to save her, and then I'm getting CPR and I don't make it. Oh, oh, I was distraught. [Laughs]

As were we watching.

I mean, maybe that was the point.

So filming that: Was that you on the ground or did you ask for a dummy?

No, no, that was me. That was me. I said, "Come on, Okoye (Danai Gurira), really save me." [Laughs] "Really put your strength into it."

But at that point, eyes closed, not reacting, hearing everyone around you. How do you even describe that sequence of events?

I think maybe I had made peace with it, you know? It was such a wonderful shoot, and that's not the first thing you shoot, so you have time to sort of process it and get into it. And so it becomes like any other day — you want to do good work that day. And after you finish, it's not the last day. You still have more to do. So that helps soothe you a little bit….I'm glad when the death scene was over because you were just wet and damp, and moist for 14 hours or 12 hours. I prefer to be completely submerged in the water than just wet and laying on the ground.

Since the movie's release and then becoming a part of award season, the term "veteran actress" has been thrown around.

[Laughs] This is the first time I've heard it.

Oh, no. Veteran, seasoned, legendary, those are words used when describing you. What does this role, this movie, mean to you at this point in your life and career?

[Long pause] It really has been one of the highlights of my career, to work with the artists that I've worked with, work with [director Ryan Coogler], the Marvel Universe, for it to be led by the narrative [of] Black female empowerment. To see that, for it to be successful, globally, and to move and touch audiences in a very rich and meaningful way, and really touch lives, it just means the world. It means absolutely everything.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

If you are an Entertainment Union or Guild Member, please click here to participate in a brief, 4-question poll on behalf of our team at EW.

Oscars Flashback

David Byrne on his Oscar-nominated song for Everything Everywhere All at Once: 'You want to pinpoint that the movie actually has a lot of heart'

By Leah Greenblatt

Decades before the directing duo Daniels dreamed up their kaleidoscopic marvel Everything Everywhere All at Once, now up for 11 Academy Awards, David Byrne may have invented the concept. Since his earliest days with Talking Heads, the creative statesman has made a multiverse of himself: musician, producer, playwright, filmmaker, indefatigable art star.

At an age when many of his peers have glided into semi-retirement or the greatest-hits circuit, the 70-year-old New Yorker also remains a famously enthusiastic and eclectic collaborator: "This Is a Life," the haunted, delicate duet he composed for EEAAO with the cultishly revered singer-songwriter Mitski, will face off in the Best Original Song category at the coming 2023 Oscars ceremony against the likes of Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and the juggernaut that is RRR's "Naatu Naatu."

Recently, a dapper, thoughtful Byrne, still elegantly rangy beneath his swoop of silver-dollar hair, sat down to reflect on the light in "Life," the vagaries of performing for a live TV audience, and how he might round out his EGOT (only an Emmy still eludes him).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you come into the Daniels' world? Was it via Son Lux, the post-rock trio who penned the score?

DAVID BYRNE: It was. I knew Son Lux and their manager, Michael, through an artist called Sufjan Stevens. And so Michael reached out to me and said, "Oh, we're doing a score for this movie, do you want to do a duet with Mitski?" And I said yes immediately. I knew their previous films, but the Daniels felt obliged to convince me, so they sent a link to a rough cut and I was blown away, even though it didn't have lots of the effects and this and that yet. I just thought, Oh, my God, this is really insane. It's wonderful.

And so we all talked and I said, "I think rather than doing a really crazy song after sitting through that, you want to pinpoint that the movie actually has a lot of heart. It's about compassion and forgiveness and this family reuniting, and that's kind of the emotional core of it." So it does feel like we're leaving all the bagels and the hot dog fingers and everything behind for a minute.

You've been in this seat before, when you won an Oscar in 1988 for Best Score along with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su for Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. In your speech, which was very brief, you had a great quote: "This is a lot of fun, but it's more fun doing it." Do you still have distinct memories of that ceremony? Even for an established rock star, it must have been pretty wild.

Oh, yes, I'd never been to anything like that before. I had no idea that they had seat fillers, which I'm sure some of your readers will know about, but that whole thing kind of blew my mind. Of course, they don't want the cameras to see empty seats when people go to the bathroom or go up to accept their award — I mean, sometimes it's a whole production team that comes on stage where it's like eight people or whatever, and that's a sizable chunk of an audience row. [Laughs] So that was another world for me. But it was a lot of fun.

The Last Emperor was nominated for nine awards and won all of them. Everything Everywhere is up for 11, so it could be another big night for you.

It could be, you never know. I was kind of surprised about Last Emperor. I thought, 'Well, people really like it, but look at this competition. Look at the other movies that are out there! Is it really gonna take all that?" And in a way, I feel the same [now]. Look at these other songs that have been nominated. It seems like an outside chance, but who knows?

I was sad to hear that Mitski has chosen to opt out of your live performance at the ceremony, though Stephanie Hsu [nominated for Best Supporting Actress for EEAAO] will be joining you onstage in her place.

It is sad. But as a fan of her music, she reveals herself a lot in her songs, and you realize she's an amazing creative talent, but she's also very fragile and maybe has a kind of thin skin about some of these public-appearance things. And I thought, okay, this is not a world that she's comfortable dealing with. But Stephanie and I had a little vocal rehearsal just sitting in a room singing this song yesterday. So that's going to be fun.

With a show like this, that has such a massive global audience, do you tend to treat it more like theater than a concert? I'm picturing something closer to what you did with American Utopia, but with a Daniels twist.

In a certain way, yes. We've been working with a choreographer and director, a guy named Ryan Heffington, who's done a lot of music videos and performance stuff [Heffington has an Emmy for Euphoria, and choreographed Sia's "Chandelier" video, among other things]. So there's a lot of video and extras and my choir and this and that — all kinds of elements that will turn it into something that we hope works for television. We do realize it's very, very different than a concert or just a regular performance. You're kind of doing it for whatever format people watch it on at home, and it's also really short, so you want to make an impact in that little bit of time you have.

Have you done your due diligence in terms of watching the other nominated films this year?

I've been trying! I haven't seen them all. I have to say it's exciting that an uncompromising movie like RRR — not an Indian art film or something, but a really popular Indian film — has showed up in the nominations. The world is opening up.

I'm sure it's been noted to you before that you are only one E away from an EGOT. I know you've guested on The Simpsons and done some other TV work. But in a perfect world, how would you like to get your Emmy?

I think it's a really long shot. But I am pitching a couple of television shows, so who knows?

Well either way, no one can take away that EGOT O from you. Where does your 1988 Oscar live now?

I think it's on a shelf in my office, along with just a lot of other stuff that I've collected over the years, like a wine bottle with the dictator who runs Turkmenistan on the label, and maybe some odd little statues. Also, a can of sandwich spread that has a link to Here Lies Love, this musical that I've been working on. And so people come into my office and they're kind of looking around the shelves and then they look down and they go, [gasping in disbelief] "David. David! Is that an Oscar?"

"And can I borrow your sandwich spread?"

[Laughs] Yes.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Dave Karger's updated Oscar predictions for 3 major categories

Now that virtually all of the precursor prizes have been handed out, we have some real suspense in several major categories at the Oscars this year. So who will actually win on March 12? Here's how I see things right now.

Best Picture: Everything Everywhere All at Once

All that suspense I was just talking about? Not so much in the night's biggest race: Everything Everywhere All at Once has now won the Producers Guild, Directors Guild, and Screen Actors Guild awards, and no film has ever pulled off that hat trick without also winning Best Picture. So you can take EEAAO to the bank.

Best Actor: Austin Butler, Elvis

All season long I've been bullish on Colin Farrell's chances for his career-best performance in The Banshees of Inisherin. And I still think he has a slight shot at an upset victory. But my head is telling me this is now a race between BAFTA winner Austin Butler and SAG winner Brendan Fraser. I do think the Best Makeup category winner will presage the victor here, as it did with The Iron Lady's Meryl Streep and Darkest Hour's Gary Oldman. Right now I'm predicting Butler; ask me an hour from now and I might have a different answer.

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, TÁR

Michelle Yeoh certainly has the momentum right now after her emotional SAG Awards victory. And Everything Everywhere stands to be the night's big winner (I'm thinking as many as seven Oscars total). And yes, Cate Blanchett already has two Oscars while Yeoh has none. But I just don't see how the Academy can ignore Blanchett's spectacular achievement in TÁR. I'm going with Blanchett by the slimmest of margins.

Check out Joey Nolfi's predictions here

Fire of Love director Sara Dosa on making the year's most romantic — and dangerous — documentary

By Joshua Rothkopf

Sara Dosa's Fire of Love debuted at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, where, even virtually (the fest shifted to an online event due to emerging COVID variants), it wowed viewers, many who were unaware of the story of Katia and Maurice Krafft. Swaddled in protective gear, the Kraffts were married volcanologists obsessed with running down the latest global eruption, capturing the plumes in gorgeous footage. The scientific passion that made them famous was, on occasion, indistinguishable from a death wish; it's no spoiler to note that the Kraffts eventually did get too close to the flame, a tragedy revealed early on in the documentary.

The Oscar-nominated Dosa recently won the Best Documentary prize from the Directors Guild of America. EW spoke with her about Frenchness, working with narrator Miranda July, and combating sexism as a woman filmmaker.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you come into contact with the story of the Kraffts?

SARA DOSA: We first learned about the Kraffts when I was doing research on the last film I directed, a vérité documentary entitled The Seer & The Unseen. That follows the story of an Icelandic woman who's in communication with spirits of nature. Once we started doing research on volcano archives in Iceland, that's when we learned about Katia and Maurice, because not that many people had filmed erupting volcanoes in Iceland before. We were just so struck by the power of their imagery.

Once we learned that they were a couple in love with not just each other, but with volcanoes, it felt like a mythic love story, something that transcended the realm of humanity.

Mythic and almost elemental, like something from the earth.

Elemental is a perfect word for it. And then when we learned that they shot hundreds of hours of footage, we just thought this was a dream project.

Did you resonate with the fact that a woman had shot so much of this footage?

Absolutely. Katia is such a skillful artist as much as she is a scientist, and she was very much celebrated in her day for being this pioneer, especially at a time when it was — I mean, it's still extremely difficult for women in the sciences, as it is in every industry. She was one of the very first women volcanologists, so she broke through so many sexist barriers to land at the acclaim in this leadership position that she rose to.

But the fact that she could also be celebrated for her art is so meaningful. Her compositions behind the camera are so artfully done. They communicate such a feeling of interconnectivity between all things. Some of her compositions remind me of Dali — there's a surreality to them and such a feeling of presence. And she thought very philosophically about her camera work. It wasn't just depicting an image, it was really a marker of time. And when you're thinking about the fleeting nature of human biological time set against the enormity of volcanic time or geologic time, which feels near immortal, there's an existential quality to her artwork that she captures through the camera, too.

An existential quality and then, obviously, a fatalistic one, too. Were there ever any moments when you're watching this footage and you're like, Come on, guys, this is way too dangerous?

Oh, yeah, all the time. We were constantly baffled.

Like: Are you stupid?

[Laughs] I don't think we ever said, "Are you stupid?" But we definitely were just continually shocked and awed by the lengths that they went for their work. I mean, "work" almost doesn't feel like the right word, because it was their passion. It was a conduit to living out their philosophy. But the acid-lake scene, the footage when Katia and Maurice go to Kawah Ijen and Indonesia in 1971, and I saw that footage, I just could not believe it, truly. I had read that they had gone there and had done this, but I could never imagine that there would be footage of it.

That was the moment for me, too. That was like Evel Knievel or something, watching him paddle out in a lake of acid, and you're just like: Come on.

Yeah. There are these incredible shots far up on the cliff that just zoom down to the tiny little raft in this turquoise cauldron, and you're just like: I cannot believe Maurice is on that. But there he is, and I feel like I can almost intuit the giant smile on his face. You can't see it from that shot, but it's there.

Miranda July's narration is such a beautiful evocation of that spirit, for all of her scratchiness and the rough quality of her voice. Tell me why she was perfect for you and how she responded when you invited her to be a part of this.

There aren't enough words for me to ever declare my utmost admiration for Miranda. I've loved her work across media, her writing, her short stories, her film work, her acting, for such a long time. We thought she would be a perfect narrator because she possesses this profound curiosity, and she has such a way in her art of making something that seems strange utterly familiar and human.

And for Katia and Maurice, their story is so unimaginable to many people. How could people live like that? Yet at the same time, they are so familiar because I feel like they tap into that universal passion and that quest for purpose and meaning in life. Miranda's work does that so well, and those were exactly the kind of colors and textures we were hoping for. There's a yearning and a warmth that you can feel in her delivery. Miranda, in our minds, possessed this kind of style of voice that we called "deadpan curious," which was what we wanted.

I like that. What was she like to direct?

Oh, it was unlike any experience I've ever had. It didn't feel like directing, honestly. It felt like having interesting conversations. We discussed some of the early influences and the emotions we were going for in various scenes, but she's just inhabited it beautifully and brought so much of herself into her delivery. Yeah, I can't quite describe it. It almost feels like I want to do some sort of bodily expression. I felt like there was just a connection there. It was just a very easy, intuitive, very natural and organic process of collaboration.

I love your musical soundtrack, the sonic landscape that you create apart from Miranda's voice. What was your aesthetic in determining that?

We wanted a score that felt retro-futuristic, that was the term we kept coming back to: dreaming of the future, but from a vintage past. And that was inspired from Katia and Maurice's style themselves — especially their helmets in the '70 that reminded us of this sci-fi B-movie aesthetic.

And we started brainstorming musicians that could really be playful with that style and Air, the French band, came immediately to mind, especially because we were trying to bring in as much Frenchness as possible. And we started listening to Nicolas Godin, his solo work.

We called him and it turned out he grew up loving the Kraffts because he saw them on television in France when he was a kid. And so he had just that instant connection. He brought that sense of romance and whimsy and play and style into the film.

The music definitely connotes a sort of dorky, cute laboratory kind of vibe. I love that about it. Meanwhile, it was very gratifying to see you honored at the DGA Awards, particularly when so many worthy women directors haven't even been recognized with nominations. What would you say to young women who hope to make films?

First, just thank you. I'm really touched by that comment and question. I've got to say, getting the DGA recognition was so meaningful for me because being a director has been my dream job for so long. And it was such a tough climb to get there, and I encountered so much sexism along the way, both the really shocking kind — it's not shocking because so many women encounter it, the really awful stuff — as well as the microaggressions that you don't quite realize how awful they are until it's almost too late. They're so pernicious.

But I would just say for me, the most meaningful thing has been building my community, finding collaborators who you love and trust and who you can support and they can support you. I've had such amazing fortune of working with some amazing women mentors who have encouraged me along the way, who I could confide in when I experienced some horrible things, who could share advice. And also just allies who, whether you're in a room and you give an idea that say isn't immediately heard, and then the man in charge gives the exact same idea and everyone's like, "Oh, great idea." And then you have a friend who is like, "Oh, yeah, that's what Sara just said."

Those are the little tricks that so many women have been developing for years. This is not a new thing by any means. They're the ways of getting each other's back, and whether it's small linguistic things like that or advocating for big structural changes, I feel like the most impactful thing is finding your people, your community. And knowing that it is possible.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV. If you are an entertainment industry association, guild, or union member, sign up here to receive future EW print issues.

Related content:

• Forever changed: The grief and joy of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• The unbearable lightness of being Mitski
• Fire of Love review: Married volcano lovers get too close to the flame