Angela Bassett Says She Deserved to Win Oscar for ‘Wakanda Forever'

Angela Bassett is getting real about losing the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2023 for her work in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” If you remember, Jamie Lee Curtis won instead for “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”

Bassett’s muted reaction to Curtis’ win went viral. Some folks called her a “sore loser,” but the race was tight, and Bassett, who had won the Golden Globe for her performance just a few weeks prior, had every right to believe that Oscar was calling for her.

In an interview with Town & Country, Bassett takes it one step further, tackling the viral moment and how she felt “deserving” of the award. She’s still not over the loss.

I found it interesting, that I wouldn’t be allowed to be disappointed at an outcome where I thought I was deserving. I love applauding people. But in that moment ... I have put in: put in the time, put in good work over time. I didn’t think that was a gift. I thought it was a given.

Bassett’s performance as Ramonda in ‘Wakanda Forever’ was the first MCU role to be nominated for an Oscar. That in itself is a major feat. I didn’t think the performance was anything to write home about, but there was this fervent push to get the actress her first Oscar.

Critics, pundits, the powers-that-be, were all banging their drums by launching a “Bassett for Oscar” campaign even before anyone had even seen ‘Wakanda Forever.’ You were already hearing whispers that Bassett’s role could be the first time an acting performance from an MCU movie ever got Oscar-nominated.

When the film finally screened, I was convinced she wouldn’t figure into the Oscar conversation, but pundits like Anne Thompson, Clayton Davis and Scott Feinberg kept Bassett at the top of their Best Supporting Actress predictions, for months on end. This resulted in her getting Oscar nominated.

Bassett was Oscar-nominated one other time in her career, and that was for her intensely brilliant performance as Tina Turner in 1993’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” That was a deserving nomination, and she might have won that year if it weren’t for Holly Hunter’s incredible work in Jane Campion’s “The Piano.”