Variety will honor “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” actor Angela Bassett with the Creative Impact in Acting Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The award will be presented on Friday, Jan. 6, as part of the annual 10 Directors to Watch brunch at the Parker Palm Springs.
Bassett is an actor, director and executive producer known for her captivating, emotional performances in treasured films such as “Malcolm X,” “Boyz n the Hood,” “Waiting to Exhale,” “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” and, of course, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” for which she won a Golden Globe Award and received an Academy Award nomination. She has since made star turns in the historic “Black Panther,” “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” “Bumblebee” from Paramount, as well as the television hits “9-1-1” and “Master of None.”
Her other recent projects include Disney and Pixar’s Academy Award-winning animated feature “Soul,” for which she lent her melodious voice for the character, Dorothea Williams; feature films “Otherhood” and “Gunpowder Milkshake” from Netflix; and “The Flood” from National Geographic, for which she received an Emmy nomination for outstanding narrator. She’s also received Emmy nominations for outstanding narrator on the “Imagineering Story: The Happiest Place on Earth” and guest actress in a comedy series for “A Black Lady Sketch Show.” Bassett recently wrapped production on the Netflix Originals feature film, “Damsel,” opposite Millie Bobby Brown.
Past recipients of the Creative Impact in Acting Award include Javier Bardem, Emily Blunt, Steve Carell and Robert De Niro. The award celebrates Bassett’s body of work, including her latest Golden Globe-nominated in turn Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” directed by Ryan Coogler.
“Few actresses have stepped into so many iconic roles, from rock queen Tina Turner to Malcolm X’s widow Betty Shabazz to Queen Ramonda to Coretta Scott King, and emerged triumphant from all of them,” said Variety’s EVP of content Steven Gaydos. “In the three decades since Angela Bassett’s Oscar-nominated turn in ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It,’ the versatile actor has balanced deep humanity with regal grace and heroic strength, all qualities essential to her work in the global film phenomenon that is ‘Wakanda Forever.’”
The Palm Springs International Film Festival will be held Jan. 5-16, 2023.
