Angela Bassett Opens Up About ‘Fight’ for Her Oscar-Winning Career — and the Lessons She’s Teaching Her Twins (Exclusive)

Angela Bassett has long ruled Hollywood, but off-screen her powerful career – which now includes a shiny new Oscar – has depended less on glamor and more on determination.

For the actress and mom of twins Bronwyn and Slater, 18, with Emmy-winning actor Courtney B. Vance, it’s always been about “the work, not the fame,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story, which kicks off Women 2024’s Problem of Changing the World.

“I have always been a hard worker,” the 9-1-1 says the star. “You have to know what to say no to, as well as what to say yes to. And during this time, many things were worth saying yes to.”

With more than 100 roles under her belt and two Oscar nominations behind Bassett’s successes (she also executive produces 9-1-1 and 9-1-1 Lone Star and he has a new fantastic movie, A girlon Netflix March 8) are long days, hard choices, and an unwillingness to accept reductive roles.

Slater Vance, Angela Bassett, Bronwyn Vance and Courtney B. Vance at the 2024 Governors Awards.

Frazer Harrison/Getty

She often leaves her home before sunrise and returns after dark to film 9-1-1 (which kicks off Season 7 with a disaster honeymoon on ABC on March 14) has been feeling guilty for a few days about the time she’s spending away from her teenage children, who are starting college in the fall.

Angela Bassett smiles alongside her husband and their two children in a rare family moment at the Governor’s Awards

“But I also hope that the result of this is that they see a mom, a woman, a black woman achieving her dreams, having success,” she says. “They will see that hard work pays off. And they will decide for themselves about that life.”

And when Bassett, 65, can make dinner, there’s a new competition in town. “Now there is a change. They are older. They love DoorDash. I said, ‘I’m going to cook tonight.’ [They go]’Oh, Mom, my meal will be here in five minutes,'” she laughs. “So much for my spontaneity.”

Angela Bassett and Peter Krause in a scene from ‘9-1-1’.

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Born in Harlem and raised mostly in Florida by her mother, Betty, Bassett says that as a child she felt driven by the challenges her family faced. “Growing up with a single parent and when she retired she was only making $11,000 a year, that’s something about growing up there and not having any money, where you have to fight to get it,” she says.

Angela Bassett recalls how it took Tina Turner years to share her reaction to ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’

In January, Vance, 63, and their children were proudly by her side as Bassett took home an honorary Oscar celebrating a career that began with her 1991 escape. Boyz n the Hood and received Oscar nominations nearly 30 years apart for his portrayal of Tina Turner in 1993. What does love have to do with it and the mourning queen in 2022 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Many saw her Oscar win as a long shot, a reminder of the sobering statistics surrounding women of color at the Oscars (95 years on, Halle Berry remains the only black woman to win Best Actress). In her acceptance speech in January, “I tried to make it clear in a way that was gentle to receive,” she says, while paying tribute to trailblazers like Cicely Tyson and Ruby Dee.

Angela Bassett in ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’.

Everett

Vance notes that in her private life, Bassett is “very coy” about her accomplishments. “She’s never going to blow her own horn,” he says. “The Honorary Oscar was a wonderful night, but I went back 30 years when they didn’t call her name, and then when they didn’t call her name last March. This was her chance to stand up there. A lot of people saw it, but not the billion people who would have seen it at the Oscars. But it meant everything to her.”

“One of the things I always tell myself and my kids is, ‘Find the good and praise it,'” Bassett tells PEOPLE, noting “a chain of miraculous events” lately: Her twins turned 18, her career is going strong than ever, and Oscar is sitting in her living room.

“The fact that it’s all happening at the same time can be a little overwhelming unless you just breathe and remember to be grateful,” she says. “For all that. For what you prayed for, what you worked for, what you dreamed about.”

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