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Angela Bassett has been a beloved actress for decades. After her career breakout in the 90s with performances in hits like Boyz N The Hood and Malcolm X, she has been a staple of the entertainment industry. By her side for much of her career has been her husband Courtney B. Vance. The pair have had a marriage that has lasted for 25 years, and they seem to still be going strong! Find out everything you need to know about the couple’s long-standing relationship here!
How Did Angela Meet Courtney?
While they didn’t tie the knot for many years, Angela and Courtney actually first met when they were students in drama school at Yale. The pair weren’t college sweethearts though. Angela revealed that when the future husband and wife first met, he was dating someone else. “He had a beautiful, beautiful girlfriend at the time, who was also in drama school with us,” she told People in 2018. Funny enough, Courtney revealed that he “[didn’t] remember her at all” from their early drama school days in a 2007 appearance on Oprah.
Angela continued and mentioned how the pair reunited to eventually fall in love again. “So maybe about 14 years later, our paths crossed here in Los Angeles. And I was single, he was single. And I had such an appreciation for him over those years — of his consistency, how he treated other people, of what a supporter he is, what a connector of people and ideas he is, how passionate he is,” she told People.
The Malcolm X star revealed she didn’t cross paths with him again until 1994, on Oprah. She joked that their first date “wasn’t memorable,” but did confess that he was a “really nice guy.” Courtney said the pair’s second date was to play golf, and that was when they really started to fall for each other. Thankfully, it all worked out for the couple in the long-run. After reuniting all those years later, they said their “I do’s” in 1997.
Courtney is also an actor
Given that they were both in drama school, it should come as no surprise that Courtney is also an actor, and he’s incredibly acclaimed in his own right. Early in his career, he focused much on being a stage actor, and he even won a Tony Award in 2013 for “Best Featured Actor In A Play” in Lucky Guy.
Besides his stage work, Courtney has also appeared in a number of critically-acclaimed movies and TV shows, including The Hunt for Red October. He’s also won two Primetime Emmy Awards for his performances in the horror series Lovecraft Country and the true crime biopic American Crime Story, where he played the lawyer Johnnie Cochran.
They have twins
After nearly 10 years of marriage, the couple welcomed their kids with the help of a surrogate in 2006. They have a son Slater and daughter Browyn, both 16. The What’s Love Got To Do With It star has gushed about watching her little ones grow up on plenty of occasions. “It is a joy seeing them growing so beautifully, you know, so bright, so smart, so compassionately, and you just want them to be aware, you know?” she told Closer Weekly in a 2019 interview.
They’ve collaborated on some projects together
While both star actors have been in a number of projects apart from each other, the pair have occasionally gotten to work together. The couple starred alongside each other in the stage production of His Girl Friday for a month-long run in 2005, per Playbill.
Aside from the play, the couple also have a production company together, fittingly called Bassett Vance Productions. Some of the company’s productions included a remake of Courtney’s 1996 film The Preacher’s Wife and the docuseries 1000 Years of Slavery.
Angela says the couple have the same beliefs
When it comes to a long-lasting marriage, Angela has revealed that one of the most important qualities of the pair having a successful relationship has been sharing the same values. The Black Panther star said that it’s important that “you’re both looking in the same direction,” as she put it in a 2020 interview with People. “You’re not clones of each other, but you have similar or closest similar belief systems and, you know, pleasant personalities. Because we all have strengths, strengths and weaknesses, and we want to support one another. But I think also recognizing that we are each individuals, we have our individual dreams and desires and hopes and ways of, of doing things,” she told the outlet.
Angela also reflected on their early relationship in the above-mentioned Oprah interview. She said that he’d written her a note, where he opened up about their feelings. “I saw his heart in the note, and we’d spent that time together—that week together—and I think I began to see the heart of the man, and it was intriguing,” she said.