Angela Bassett is gracing screens in the new limited Netflix series Zero Day, which sees her starring opposite Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons, Connie Britton and Matthew Modine. The 66-year-old actress takes on the role of the US President Evelyn Mitchell, who calls on former Commander-In-Chief George Mullen (played by De Niro) to take on an unprecedented role in American history after the deadly cyberattack causes havoc.
Bassett previously teased of her character: “She's a woman who gets business done.”. While Zero Day’s writer and executive producer Eric Newman said of casting the Black Panther and 9-1-1 star: “When your former president is Robert De Niro, who are you going to get who you’ll watch and believably think, ‘Oh, here’s someone who can hold their own against Bob?’”.
Bassett was the first name who came to mind, with Newman adding to Tudum: “She probably could have been president for real if she had set her mind to it.”. Many viewers are keen to know more about the acting heavyweight - here’s the lowdown. Bassett was born in New York City and attended Yale University, subsequently training at Yale School of Drama where she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts.
It was at Yale where Bassett met her future husband and fellow actor Courtney B. Vance in the 1980s, however, they only became a romantically involved a decade later when they met again in LA. The pair got married in 1997 and in 2006 they welcomed twins via surrogate with the family living in LA.
Bassett and Vance, 64, shared the stage in 2005 in a production of His Girl Friday at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The cute couple even wrote a book together called Friends: A Love Story with Hilary Beard. Bassett previously said on Live With Kelly and Mark how it wasn’t love at first sight with her husband Vance.
She explained: “We met in drama school and he came with and left with a girlfriend and I was like, ‘Wow, the commitment of that guy. Amazing.’. “Years later we ran into each other in LA and like, ‘Oh, a familiar face.’ I had a party and I was like, ‘Invite the girlfriend’ and he was like,’ She’s gone.’”.
Bassett recently set social media alight after she was name checked in Ariana DeBose’s BAFTAs rap in 2023. The West Side Story star honoured many of the female nominees at the British ceremony, including Dame Emma Thompson and Michelle Yeoh. DeBose’s line for the American Horror Story star was: “Angela Bassett did the thing”, leaving many people scratching their heads over the sentiment behind the lyric.
Many wondered whether “the thing” in question was Bassett’s performance as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Bassett later addressed the moment with good humour when accepting an accolade at the NAACP Awards and told the audience: "I guess Angela Bassett did the thing!".
