Angela Bassett wanted to play Sethe in the film version of Beloved and because Danny Glover starred in it without her she had his scenes cut out of How Stella Got her groove back.
shareWhich character does he play in this movie?
shareWRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
Why can't people post the TRUTH when they use these message boards? So many IMDb users lie like rugs on these boards, and for what aim?
True, Angela Bassett would have made a remarkable Sethe in the film version of "Beloved," and unlike Oprah Winfrey, she would have been able to play Sethe as both young and middle-aged with total ease.
But it's high time the facts come to light: when Oprah bought the rights to "Beloved" in the late-1980s from Toni Morrison it was always her intention to star as Sethe in the eventual film adaptation, a fact that she has expressed numerous times over the years in various print and television interviews.
And as far as Danny Glover's casting goes, he wasn't even the producers (Oprah included) first choice to play Paul D, Denzel Washington was. And it was Washington who suggested they offer the role to Glover instead, a fact that he verified in a print interview around the time the film was released in 1998.
As for why Glover's scenes were cut from "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" that is unclear as nobody involved with the film has gone on record as to why they were deleted. And considering I'm a huge Angela Bassett fan and have read or seen practically all of her interviews over the past 13 years, I feel that its safe to say that Niv-1's claim is not based on fact.
For those people who are exceptionally perceptive, Glover can be seen in the film for a brief moment during a scene where Stella, submerged in a pool, is talking to Winston (who's standing poolside), and points out an older man who's been hitting on her during her stay. In a quick long shot, Glover can be seen in old age make-up holding a flower he intends to give to Stella.
Considering Bassett and Glover went on to co-star opposite one another in the 2000 South Africa-based drama "Boesman and Lena," and the fact that Glover has cast Bassett as Suzanne Louverture, the wife of Toussaint Louverture (to be played by Don Cheadle), a Haitian slave that led a successful slave rebellion in the 18th century that sparked the Haitian Revolution, in his feature film directorial debut, "Toussaint," which will go before cameras by early next year in South Africa, there's obviously no rift between them.
So the accusation that Bassett would have held any sort of grudge against Glover regarding not being cast as Sethe in "Beloved" makes no sense as the role was never her's or anyone else's (other than Oprah), to have.
Let me also add that anyone who has read the book would agree that the old man's role didn't affect the outcome in the end. It was just something to show us how she was too "young acting" to be with older men; that the older, or middle-aged lifestyle wasn't for Stella. The old man was simply a symbol of that and nothing more.
Although his role in the book was slightly longer, it wasn't really that relevant to the story. Movies, being on time constraints, would obviously only show us this brief symbol before moving on to more important parts of the book. So I'm not surprised in the least that his role was cut short. If it had been any longer then it would have taken away from the film. It would have just been excess film used that served no purpose in explaining the story to the viewer.
I've also never heard of any rift that Angela had with Danny.