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Few film roles exceed Angela Bassett’s qualifications, even those intended for a man.

The Oscar-nominated actress returns to the screen this month in Olympus Has Fallen portraying the director of the Secret Service, a position never occupied by a female and a character initially written for a male actor.

But so what, Bassett says. There’s really nothing special about it other than it’s never been done.

“It’s significant in that, in this fictionalized world, this barrier has been obliterated,” the 54-year-old actress tells theGrio. “At times, we’re fond of saying that life imitates art or art imitates life. Hopefully, one day life will imitate this art, where it’s just the best person for the job.”

The film, opening in theaters Friday, imagines a colossal terrorist attack on the White House in which the entire capital city is overtaken by Korean extremists. It is the latest project by Training Day directorAntoine Fuqua, and brings the action thriller to the max with its continually rising stakes and shifting power struggles. Bassett’s character, alongside the Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman) and other military commanders, is forced to negotiate with the enemy and make life or death decisions on behalf of the country when the president (Aaron Eckhart) is taken hostage.

From the outset, Bassett seems quite comfortable in her high-level get-up, regardless if she is the first of her kind. As the actress points out, change in the world sometimes begins as ideas set in motion by the camera, and perhaps that’s where this leads.

“We’ve seen us say, ‘Oh, we’ve never had an African-American male as president of the United States,’ when we saw Morgan in Deep Impact, or Dennis Haysbert in 24,” she recalls. “‘Oh wow! They’re bold right there! What is that?’ But then you begin to see these images, and it’s not so odd or scary.”

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article courtesy of Joy105.com

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