Friends: A Love Story

by Angela Bassett

  At the same time I knew from my own experience of being encouraged by great film and theater personalities that those who have gone through the fire can inspire the rest of us. People can come out stronger on the other end. Or perhaps they just barely come through it, but if they regain their strength or choose not to perpetuate that kind of behavior, they can infuse the rest of us with their spirit. I knew Tina’s story had that power and I wanted to make the audience feel it.

  Once we started filming, we worked for seventeen to eighteen hours each day. According to my union contract, I was supposed to get twelve hours off between tapings. But it was nothing to have eight, maybe ten, hours before I had to be back on the set. I was asked to waive my twelve-hour turnaround about thirty-five times in fifty-three days. They asked and because there was so much to do, I couldn’t say no; the movie had to be made in three months so its release would coincide with Tina’s world tour. Most movies don’t go from principal photography to on-screen in front of a paying audience that quickly and look like anything of substance. It just doesn’t happen.

  In spite of these challenging working conditions, making What’s Love Got to Do With It? was an incredible experience. One amazing scene took place immediately after Laurence, as Ike, disrespected me and called me sorry, backstage, immediately before a concert.

  “I’m sorry, Ike.”

  “Yeah, you sorry.”

  Now we stood onstage about to perform in front of all the extras who were playing the concert audience. I was looking out at them. Laurence was behind me, standing in front of the band, his back to the audience. Suddenly I sensed him at my side. At this point we were totally unscripted and in the moment I turned and looked at him. I was in the emotional place where he just told me I was the sorriest bitch he’d ever known. I thought he was going to say something like, “Sing. Don’t you embarrass me.” But he, as an actor, made the opposite choice and he did something really sweet and tender—he kissed me on the cheek. At that point something just surged through me. One tear flowed down my cheek. Right at that point the music came on and she sang that primal “Ohhhhh, there’s somethin’ on my mind….” You couldn’t have planned or scripted that. The acting, the sound and the music and the lights were all perfect in that moment. That became one of my favorite scenes. We did it in one take, and that photo of us with that one tear rolling down my cheek eventually became part of the poster for the movie.

  But few scenes happened that easily. I remember filming the scene where Ike dragged Tina to the bedroom and the little baby boy watches him beating his mama. That day, I cried—I screamed—at the top of my lungs for seventeen straight hours. I thought my head would burst open from the pain. We performed “Proud Mary” so many times I lost count. Each time we’d finish, the director would say, “Let’s do it again.” There were four or five cameras, each filming from different angles, yet we had to do it over and over. That was the one time I spoke out. From the outside looking in, the dance looked easy. But when you’re dancing and singing in five-inch heels, you feel like you’ve caught a wool sweater in the back of your throat. You can’t breathe or swallow. Your feet ache. You’re sore at the top of your sternum. It wasn’t that simple to just do it over and over again.

  “Can an actor have a moment? Can we take one minute—just sixty seconds—to rest?” The production schedule was so tight that I literally meant one minute.

  Another time during a bathroom break, I plopped down on the toilet and started doing my business but noticed there was no sound of pee meeting the water in the toilet. Why is this taking so long? I wondered. Then I realized that I, a grown woman, had forgotten to pull my underwear down. I was that fried in the brain. “Isn’t that funny! I haven’t done this since I was a toddler.” I got up, threw my panties in the trash, went out and filmed the scene again. Our last day on the set was twenty-five hours long. We were filming the argument in the limo when Tina finally strikes back physically.

  While all this was going on, my friends were telling me, “Oh, no, that’s too much! You should go to your trailer and not come out until such-and-such a thing has been handled.” I didn’t have time for all that. I didn’t have time to be upset, to play those games. This was a war and I wanted to win it. Little slings, arrows, hurt feelings—the trivialities—weren’t very important. For once, I saw the finish line—my dream: a starring role in a major motion picture. I had to make it. I couldn’t stumble with personal hurts, aches, pains, tears and frailties. This was going to be on celluloid and last forever. I was trying to do good work. I was trying to be somebody. There was no way I was going to stumble.

  I survived filming What’s Love on fear. I was afraid that I would fail, afraid the movie wouldn’t turn out well, afraid I wouldn’t be believable, afraid I wouldn’t do Ms. Turner’s story justice, afraid I wouldn’t have what it took to accomplish the job, afraid I might not have the strength and energy to finish. I was afraid that if the movie lacked in any way, it would in some measure—large or small—be my fault. The fact that movies are filmed out of sequence made me question myself even more. When you make a movie, you film every scene that happens in one location, then you tear that location down, leave and move to the next set. It doesn’t matter if it happens at the beginning, the middle or the end of the movie; if it happens at that location it’s going to get shot while you’re there. You do a scene, cut and move on to the next one. But since you’re not performing sequentially, in an emotionally explosive movie it’s especially hard to chart where you are. Each scene has to fit with the scene that came before, which you may have filmed days or even weeks earlier or may not have filmed yet at all. I wondered, Is it going to flow when we put it all together?

  But rather than collapsing under the weight of my fear, I tried to work it to my advantage. I would constantly self-talk to motivate myself. I’d look into the mirror and give myself a talking-to like a parent or girlfriend would. Sometimes I would be gentle and kind; other times I would be rough with myself. I might not have been able to take tough talk from somebody else unless they softened it with love. But I knew I loved myself, so I could tell myself whatever I had to.

  “I can’t do this,” one part of me would cry.

  Then the strong part would answer, “What are you going to do—quit?”

  “I really want to…”

  “You know you’re not going to do that. You are going to do it.”

  “But I can’t—I don’t know if I can do it. What if I’m not good enough? What if I mess everything up?”

  “You tried out and you got the job. You got it fair and square. You got it on your own merit, so hush.”

  “But it’s just too much…”

  “Yes, it’s hard—and it ain’t as hard now as it’s going to get. But this is the hardest thing you will ever have to do, Angela. The next time you do something this hard you’ll be birthing a child. Just think—anything you do from this point on will be easy. It will be a breeze.”

  “But I’m so tired…”

  “So what do you want to do now—sit down?”

  “I just need some time to rest.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what—you’ve got five minutes, ten minutes. Why don’t you sit down for ten minutes, then get up and hit it again.”

  Or when my throat would tighten and my eyes would brim with tears, “What do you want to do—cry? That’s not going to do anything, but if it makes you feel better, go ahead and have a good cry. Then after ten minutes, get up and let’s get started again. Is that all right by you?”

  “Okay.”

  In addition to my self-doubt, I also had to fend off the naysayers. Few black women had had the opportunity to star in a major motion picture before, and their roles were not this visible or of this magnitude. A lot of people worried that I wasn’t the woman for the job. I’d hear that folks were whispering, “Well, they got what they got, she ain’t no dancer.” Others couldn’t imagine I’d do justice to this larger-than-life person with whom so many people h
ad had wonderful entertainment experiences. I wondered whether an inadequate portrayal of her might cause her to lose this higher-than-life status in people’s imaginations and hearts. I worried that my performance might not satisfy. How could you possibly capture her life and put it on film? How can you capture lightning and put it in a bottle?

  One day I read an article in one of the trade papers that said something like, “Well, the word is out. It’s not going very well. We don’t know what’s worst—the script or the dailies” (the scenes that have been filmed that day). Shortly thereafter, I gathered enough strength and nerve to ask to take a peek at the dailies. I waited several weeks—until I thought I had proven myself. The director didn’t have to let me see them at all. After all, who was I but a newcomer on the block? But Doug, the movie producer, was very accommodating and kind (at the time I had no way of knowing that directors usually try to accommodate leading performers). I asked for dailies of the “Proud Mary” sequence, since it’s quintessential, trademark Tina. I went back to my trailer to watch them alone. I knew that if I bought my performance, everything would be okay. If I could make that scene work, then I wouldn’t have to look at any more dailies. I inserted the tape and watched. I was pleased. I was relieved.

  “Oh, wow! The work is paying off. They can say whatever they want to say. I won’t say anything. I’ll just keep doing it.”

  I didn’t have the time to indulge myself anyhow. I had work to do. At least now I knew I was on the right track. For the next six weeks, I continued singing, dancing, crying, running, getting a cake smashed in my face, my butt beat and raped. Every day it was physically and emotionally something. And it wasn’t boop, boop—day’s over and I can go do whatever. No, I gotta go home and lie down and think about what I have to do tomorrow. I had to get the song together for the next day. I had to hit my marks, make sure I was lip-synching right, inhaling and exhaling at the right place. I had to look like I was performing and delivering each song. I would just lie in the bed and try to get the rhythm in my body and the breathing so I’d be right in synch with her—not lagging behind the sound track and not coming before it. Then I had to sleep ’cause I had to get up tomorrow and do the same thing all over again.

  I gave What’s Love everything I had. At the end of the three months, I was whipped. I was a wet rag of noodles, a brain-dead body hurting from the throat on down. I had sciatica up both thighs and into my butt. My rotator cuff was sprained and torn. My hand had been fractured. I was broke down—to’ up from the flo’ up. I couldn’t even get out of bed to go the best spa in the world, where the producer wanted to send me to be rubbed and scrubbed. Eventually, I rolled myself into my Jeep and drove myself out to the spa in Palm Desert. They pampered me, but it wasn’t enough. I needed about four months to decompress and come down—a month to sleep and just not have to do anything. And after all that screaming and fighting and crying, I felt old emotionally.

  In the meantime, Joe was probably feeling more than a little neglected. He was dedicated to the relationship and had put up with the way it was falling. Because I didn’t want to have to come up with excuses at the end of the day, for basically four months I had totally immersed myself in What’s Love. Another kind of woman might have said, “He’s feeling bad, he’s feeling neglected. Maybe I don’t have to learn all these steps.” Not me. I followed the advice my mama gave me when I was a child: “Get your work done first then play.”

  While I was filming, it was hard to keep up and massage the relationship. We still communicated and saw each other, but much less than usual. I didn’t have a cell phone back then. One time he came to visit me on the set. “Okay…” when he brought the idea up (I admit that sometimes I expect people to read my mind), but once he arrived I was really thinking, Please don’t get in the way, I’m working here. It might not have been the library, the hospital or the fire department, but it might as well have been the operating room as far as I was concerned. When filming ended, Joe called me up and asked if I wanted to get together, where—East Coast, West Coast or in the middle—and what I wanted to do when we got there. But thinking about what I wanted moment to moment—much less the logistics of getting together—was just too draining; it took me too much effort to answer a yes-or-no question. I was just too exhausted. I tried to explain.

  “My adrenaline is gone and I’m left with what I’m left with,” I told him. “I can’t even feed myself right now.”

  “Relationships are very important and you have to nurture them,” he chastised.

  “I know, Joe, but I just need to lie in bed and sleep like a bear and hibernate. I don’t even need the phone to ring.”

  “Well, relationships need to be nurtured.”

  “I’m trying to tell you that I’m worn out, Joe. I can’t even think. I don’t need this conversation.”

  “Do you want to break up?”

  “Yeah, sure. Bye.” Unlike the times when Charles had asked, this time I said it: “Yes.”

  In a way, my response was one of self-preservation. I felt like my back was against the wall. I didn’t have the ability to make nice, I didn’t have any defenses, I had nothing left. My tank was at zero and I needed to fill it up. In my bed. Alone. I was smart enough to know that. “Don’t ask me nothin’!”

  Of course, that conversation wasn’t the end of it. He had to call back and tell me how selfish I was, how he had invested so much in our relationship, how he had lowered himself to date a gypsy actor. How he had seen our relationship going to the altar but now it would never make it.

  Now, I had been fine with the first hang-up; I had been in my power. “Yeah, whatever. It’s over.” But when we hung up that second time, he felt better and I felt bad. I cried. But I done cried and broken up from relationships before. I knew it wasn’t gonna kill me. I knew you move on.

  In spite of my total exhaustion and our breakup, I felt good about myself. I realized that I was much stronger than I had ever known, physically and emotionally. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on my body. I had marshaled all my strength, all my reserves and all my nerve to get through it. I learned that I’m not a quitter. From a technical standpoint as an actor, I had taken something terribly difficult and made it look easy. While a fellow actor could look at my performance technically and imagine how difficult the requirements were to perform the role, a regular person in the audience would just get transported. To them the performance looked easy. I felt an incredible sense of personal satisfaction. I felt proud—not an ego pride, but a pride in myself as a human being that I had accomplished something so difficult. I hoped I had done it gracefully and with an open heart. I felt that my character had stood the test. When you answer the call, you feel really good.

  Three months passed between the time What’s Love finished filming and the date the movie was to be released. I was still anonymous, going to the store, running my errands, doing my thing. I remember thinking, It’s quiet now, but I knew that was about to change; I’d be getting a lot of attention soon. As our opening date drew near, I remember sneaking into a screening in Pasadena. I sat in the back so I wouldn’t be seen. During the rape scene the guy in front of me said, “Nooo! Oh, God!” When the movie ended, that audience applauded. I could tell people were really affected by the film. I ran out quickly so I wouldn’t be seen, but I felt, “Amazing!” It had turned out better than I could ever imagine.

  For some reason, I don’t remember the movie’s premiere. What I do remember is receiving an incredible amount of recognition from people in the industry and the public. I got a telegram from Kim Basinger, saying she liked me in the movie, a little card from Norman Jewison, roses from Winona Ryder. Flowers—so many flowers! Flowers, flowers everywhere! “Where should I put these?” “Put them in the bathroom!” I remember wishing I could call the florist and have them deliver one bouquet a week. That way I would enjoy fresh flowers for at least a year! And the phone kept ringing, ringing, ringing. “Congratulations!” Eventually, the phone rang so much that I had to tur
n the ringer off. It drove me to distraction. It has been my quest to find the softest ring possible.

  Now when I went to the grocery store or to run errands, people would say, “Hi!” or want to touch me. That’s what I remember most: people grabbing my arms and being entranced with my physicality. “All those muscles!” or “You still got those muscles?” Men, especially, would touch and feel on my body without asking. That was strange. I didn’t want to snap, “Don’t touch me. I don’t like that. I don’t even know you. Mister, you’re feeling on me!” I didn’t want to appear ungracious, but that kind of stuff really unnerved me and made me feel kind of skittish sometimes. And every now and then I’d get approached by someone who looked like they had been lonely in a room with my picture or fifteen hundred index cards containing celebrity autographs. At times I’d get the feeling that I needed to watch myself.

  But most of the time people were really nice. The movie touched them. I was told countless tearful stories of, “I was in that situation. When I saw your movie, I got out of it,” or “My mother was in that situation.” Those interactions always touched my heart. They made me know that all the sacrifice and work was worth it; my work had touched, even helped improve, someone’s life.

  In the meantime there was all this Oscar talk. It started soon after the movie came out—though before big Oscar campaigns were mounted as they are today the process was a lot more subtle. However, there was interest in my performance. It had gone very, very well. And the movie was a hit, it was positive and people loved it. What’s Love contained memorable performances and mine was one of them. As people began to talk, I would look around and ask myself, Is there anything more memorable? Is there anything that touched me more? I wasn’t sure that there was, but I didn’t know what other people thought.