Exclusive: Angela Bassett Talks Unanswered Prayers, Guardian Angels
Award-winning actress Angela Bassett is also a woman of great faith, and the star revealed her thoughts on prayer as well as signs of God's love.
Bassett is currently promoting the upcoming movie "Black Nativity," and The Christian Post was able to sit down with the actress to discuss real-life triumphs of faith in her life during times of struggle.
Even in times when your faith is tested and when praying seems futile, Bassett revealed God's wisdom.
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"Prayers are answered in their own time, we pray for what we think we want right now, but to answer that one might set of a chain reaction of other things we might not want," the actress knowingly imparted.
"As they say, there's grace and there's mercy; grace is a gift you don't deserve, and mercy is a punishment you do deserve, but God keeps from you," she laughed.
Then, Bassett told CP of a moment she will never forget, when God's grace saved her from a hopeless and frightening situation on Los Angeles' Highway 101.
"I believe in guardian angels, I have been stranded on the freeway on the way to an audition. It seems trivial, but not to me, it was a big deal," she began to explain. "I was driving and my jeep's gas gauge wasn't fixed. LA is a driving culture, you can't be late, you want to be a professional person, on the 101, accelerating and going nowhere fast, the pedometer kept going down, and I went into the median."
In a time before cell phones, Bassett had literally nowhere to turn.
"I remember praying, 'Oh lord,' I threw my hands up, 'Lord you gonna have to help me, I don't know what to do,'" she recounted. "And then within 30 seconds, a flatbed truck drove up in front of me, backed up, drove down to a gas station, and pumped $10 gas, for me."
With a simple act of kindness, a stranger saved the actress from a dire position, all while reaffirming her faith in God.
"He was just an answered prayer, an angel in that moment, I was stranded and I said a prayer," Bassett noted. "I didn't get the job though, what I got was so much more."
While she is well known for starring in several biographical films portraying real-life women such as Tina Turner, Bassett said there is one woman she would love to play some day- a notorious life-long jewel thief.
Doris Payne is an 83-year-old Southern California woman just plead not guilty after decades spent as an international jewel thief, including an $8,900 diamond ring from a San Diego mall.
"There was a woman on the front page of the LA times, a sister, an 83-year-old jewel thief from the south who never had anything and has seen some days in America," Bassett explained. "She must have fashioned herself in such a way that she would go into these high end places and got people to believe she was the persona that she portrayed, and she stole all kinds of things, rings and diamonds…"
The actress admitted a fascination with the woman who once described her profession as "jewel thief."
"It didn't end well, but it's interesting," Bassett said. "That's who I'd like to play."
A movie is said to be in the works with Halle Berry portraying Payne, but filmmakers take note- Bassett is interested.
Meanwhile, "Black Nativity" stars Bassett alongside Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, and Mary J. Blige, among many others. The film hits theaters on Nov. 27.
Watch a trailer for the film " target="_blank">here.
