Angela Bassett has portrayed many commanding figures throughout her career, but in Zero Day, she takes on one of her most formidable roles yet—President Evelyn Mitchell. As a sitting U.S. president navigating a national crisis, she is intelligent, strategic, and unshakable. In an exclusive interview with ESSENCE, Bassett shared what resonates with her most about the character.
“I think her calm demeanor—calm, cool, and her intellectual capacity to hold so many thoughts and ideas and concerns within the palm of her hand,” Bassett explained. “As you can imagine, the tenacity that it would take to even rise, to be able to sit behind that desk, whatever the strength that she had to develop or that was innate, that she could withstand slings, arrows, barbs, and still persevere to even have the idea that this were possible and to go forward probably when many thought otherwise.”
Bassett is also no stranger to political thrillers, having starred in Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, and Mission: Impossible – Fallout. And now, with Zero Day, Bassett delivers yet another commanding performance—one that’s both timely and powerful.