There’s a reason Angela Bassett looked so stunningly similar to Tina Turner while playing the icon in the 1993 hit “What’s Love Got to Do with It’ — because Turner herself stepped in to do Bassett’s hair and makeup at one point.
In a recent interview with InStyle, Bassett answered some “true or false” questions, as part of a “Badass Questionnaire.” When asked to confirm whether Turner herself actually did work on Bassett’s look toward the end of the film, the actress confirmed that, yes, it really happened.
“It was funny because everyone kept knocking on the door, wanting to know if — wanting to be so helpful. ‘Do you need anything? Anything to drink? Anything? A comb?” Bassett recalled, adding Turner’s adamant response. “And she was like, ‘No, no, no. We’re fine. Leave us alone.”
Bassett added that Turner was also quicker than the film’s hired stylists, and just as good.
“She did my makeup and hair in a quarter of the time that the hairstylist did,” Bassett admitted with a laugh. “And it was just as fabulous.”
Bassett also debunked rumor that she got Turner’s impressive guns with an arm workout that included doing 300 bicep curls. And when asked which character of hers has the best wardrobe, Bassett briefly returned to Tina Turner, before rethinking her answer, and giving fans a slight tease of the upcoming “Black Panther” sequel.
“No, let me back up,” Bassett said. “We haven’t seen it yet. Ramonda, in ‘Black Panther 2.’”
Of course, with Bassett having played Tina Turner and other influential women in history on screen, the question is, who would she like to see play herself in a biopic? But that didn’t take much thinking.
“Bronwyn, my daughter,” Bassett said. “I think she knows me best by now. 15 years of studying mama.”