The film, adapted from Turner’s best-selling book I, Tina, co-written with music journalist Kurt Loder with a script by Kate Lanier, charts the life and times of Turner from her early days singing in nightclubs in St. Louis, Mo., to become the lead singer of the Ike and Tina Turner Review , up through her epic comeback and rise to global stardom in her mid-40s. Turner went on to win 12 Grammys and sell out music arenas worldwide, among other achievements far too numerous to mention here.
Of Bassett, Turner wrote: “I was a little bit skeptical when work began on the 1993 film. First of all, who are they going to find to sing, dance and act like me? Then, I looked up, saw Angela and immediately started to smile. Angela, the first time we met, you didn’t look, sound, or move like me—that came later after you worked so hard to make it happen. But even then, I could see that the young woman standing before me had strength, determination and big, big dreams, just like me.”
A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Bassett had been making the rounds as a young up-and-coming actor on both the stage (Broadway and Off-Broadway) and screen (big and small) for the better part of a decade before she landed the highly coveted role.
Bassett became known for playing strong women like Reva Devereaux, the successful single mother of Tre Styles (portrayed by Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr.) in “Boyz ‘N The Hood,” the Oscar-nominated debut film by the late writer/director John Singleton. The following year, she starred in two iconic roles. First, as Katherine Jackson in the hit 1992 ABC miniseries “The Jacksons: An American Dream,” and later in writer/director Spike Lee’s magnum opus “Malcolm X” as Dr. Betty Shabazz, the wife of the controversial civil rights leader.
Bassett has said that around the time the opportunity to audition for “What’s Love Got to do With It?” presented itself, she was ready to really cut loose onscreen and hoped to board a project that would present a unique set of challenges. That mission was accomplished.
Dozens of actresses were considered for the part of Turner, including future Oscar winner Halle Berry, Pam Grier, Vanessa Williams, Robin Givens, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston (with whom Bassett would later co-star in the 1995 box office hit “Waiting to Exhale”). It came down to Bassett and Sheryl Lee Ralph (2022 Emmy winner for “Abbott Elementary”) after a marathon day of auditioning opposite Samuel L. Jackson, who played Turner’s mercurial husband Ike Turner during the audition. Laurence Fishburne, an Emmy- and Tony-award winner, would go on to play Ike in the film, landing himself a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar nomination along with Bassett’s Best Actress nod. He famously turned the role down five times, citing the one-dimensional lens in which Ike Turner was being portrayed as the main deterrent preventing him from signing on. Following rewrites that gave the character dimension, and once Bassett was cast as Tina, Fishburne signed on.