Angela Bassett Wins Golden Globe For ‘Wakanda Forever’

Angela Bassett made history Tuesday night, becoming the first actor to earn a major award for the Marvel movie. While holding the glistening award, she said, “I got to find my words. I’m so nervous. My heart is just beating. But in order for that destiny to manifest, I think that it requires courage to have faith. It requires patience, as we just heard. And it requires a true sense of yourself. It’s not easy because the past is circuitous and it has many unexpected detours, but, by the grace of God, I stand here. I stand here grateful.”

The 64-year-old took some time to also acknowledge her husband and actor Courtney B. Vance, her Marvel collaborators, as well as Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler. Bassett took the time out to acknowledge her on-screen son, Chadwick Boseman, who died in 2020 after his silent battle with colon cancer. His death plays a significant role in the plot of the Black Panther sequel. “We embarked on this journey together with love. We mourned, we loved, we healed. We were surrounded each and every day by the light and the spirit of Chadwick Boseman,” she said about the actor.

This isn’t Bassett’s first round at the Golden Globes. In 1994, she took home her first trophy for her role in 1993’s Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It. There has only been four nominees for Best Support Actor at the Golden Globes for a superhero movie, and they were all men before the Waiting To Exhale actress took home the award.

In an interview with Variety, Bassett talks about her role as Queen Ramonda and that Coogler stressed how “important and vital” her character was to the sequel. “She had to be strong. She had to be a mother. She had to be a leader. He was just throwing all of this at me,” she said.