Angela Bassett

Jet, Nov 1, 1999

Stars As Principal In True Story Of A Woman's Passion To Teach Music

Angela Bassett's latest film, Music of the Heart, has the superstar actress tackling the role of a tough, yet tender Harlem principal who goes to bat for a teacher who has a passion for teaching violin.

The movie is based on a true story of Roberta Guaspari (Meryl Streep), a single mother whose world crashes when her husband leaves her with two young sons to raise. She leaves the suburban comfort of New Jersey and moves to East Harlem to get a job teaching violin to youngsters.

The school's busy principal Janet Williams (Bassett) is hardly impressed since Guaspari has been little more than a military wife, moving around from place to place whenever her husband was transferred. But eventually Williams is won over by Guaspari's persistence and finds a way to get the dedicated music teacher into the classrooms.

Most of the students are Black and Hispanic and not expected to have an attention span of more than a few seconds. Some of the faculty and parents have reservations about a suburban White woman coming into Harlem; they assume it is out of guilt. But Guaspari is able to transfer her love of the violin to kids who go from wild and reluctant to polished and enthusiastic.

Bassett said of her character: "Education is so important to her. Children really are our future, and Janet, my character, sees that. She knows if you motivate them, if you love them, if you invest in them, if you discipline them, give them their boundaries and exposure to the world, then there's no limit to the great things they can do."

Both Bassett and Streep, considered two of Hollywood's best actresses, have admired each other's work and were excited about working with each other. "The bulk of my scenes are with Meryl Streep, which was another reason that I was excited about working on this project. It's been really great."

Streep was equally impressed. "I've idolized Angela for a long time, so I was really, really thrilled to work with her and to get to scream at her and have her scream back at me," Streep said. "We have a great relationship in this film."

The film also features Aidan Quinn, Cloris Leachman and marks the feature film debut of Latin singer Gloria Estefan, who also plays a teacher. Estefan, who has worked tirelessly for the Save the Music programs, was a natural for the movie. "My mother was a teacher for years," she recalled. "I went with my mother to school, and I know what it's like to not only have over-crowded classrooms, but to start a program that is not popular. My mother actually had to go to get funding from the outside."

In Music of the Heart, Janet, who is initially skeptical of adding Guaspari to a school with such tight funds, ultimately becomes the premier supporter. She is just as crushed as the students and teacher when the Board of Education kills the music program.

Bassett saw some easy parallels between the budgetary problems in the film and what often happens in real life. "In our day and age, we find that whenever the money gets short, the first things to get cut are the things that children tend to enjoy a great deal ... Not everyone can be a mathematician or a scientist or excel in English. But they may be an incredible artist or musician. I would say that Music of the Heart is about nurturing the spirit in our children, the creative spirit in our children."

The movie reunited Bassett with director Wes Craven, one of the kings of horror films. He'd directed her in Vampire in Brooklyn and Midnight Cafe. Craven had also directed the huge moneymakers Scream, Scream 2 and Nightmare on Elm Street. With that film background, Craven had to convince the real Roberta Guaspari, who still lives and teaches in Harlem, to agree to have her story made into a serious feature film as well as get topnotch actors to play in it.

When he called Bassett and asked her to be in the film, Bassett recalled telling him, "Well, send me a script. I looked at it and fell in love with the story, a real story, a true story. He's a wonderful storyteller." He eventually won over a super-busy Meryl Streep and Estefan.

In the film, when the music program, which educates hundreds of students, is threatened, Bassett's character shows how tough and supportive she is. She manages to find ways to help the music teacher bring attention to the program.

"I think in our society, sometimes we don't put as much importance on our children as we should," Bassett said. "And we should."