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https://twitter.com/ImAngelaBassett/status/1030109517705437185
Much has been said about Angela Bassett's agelessness, but this is a step beyond. There's "black don't crack" and then there's "etched in marble by the gawds themselves." I am 38 years old and Angela Bassett looks younger than me. I'm having my agent submit my headshot to play Angela's uncle, dad, and kindly older neighbor and I'm not even mad.
Truth: A few years ago, Angela Bassett appeared in the Broadway play The Mountaintop by Katori Hall opposite Samuel L. Jackson. Her character: a hotel maid in her mid-20s. They had to age her up.
Okay, that last part is not true but did she play a woman who was, tops, 30, midway through her 50s? Yes. Did it work? Honey, do you even have to ask? Angela Bassett started out her career playing iconic mother and leaders like Betty Shabaz and Katharine Jackson and she's going to end her career convincingly playing Diane from black-ish.
What is your skin routine, ma'am?! Step one: be born perfect; step two: dunk entire head into the Fountain of Youth; step three: twirl on the haters. She's out here using the Heart-Shaped Herb from Wakanda as her night cream and I am mad I haven't read about it in GOOP yet.
Angela Bassett has been successfully working in film, theater, and TV for three decades and yet she hasn't aged a day. THE RANGE! The temporal shift range! Remember how jacked she was playing Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It? She tells ELLE in this month's issue that she only had 30 days to prepare for the role. Angela Bassett's body was born ready!
Remember when she went to Jamaica with Whoopi Goldberg and Taye Diggs and invented the groove? Remember when she lit a car on fire and automotive sales never recovered? HER IMPACT.
Angela Bassett makes me want to be a better person. And by better person, I mean a 60-year-old icon out here living her best eternal life.
Follow R. Eric Thomas on Twitter.
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