Angela Bassett says mom's advice to be independent helped her achieve goals in life

What's being independent got to do with it? Everything, according to famed actress Angela Bassett, who says that her mother insisted that she not depend on anyone to help her attain the goals she desired in life.

"She said, `Get it for yourself,'" the star of the box-office smash, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch about her mother's firm advice. "She said, `You get your own. You get your own so you don't have to rely on anyone else.'"

That's exactly what Bassett did. The versatile entertainer didn't wait for anybody or anything to assist her in steering the course of her life. After earning a master's degree in drama from prestigious Yale University, she remained focused and dedicated to her craft even though jobs weren't pouring in for her. Bassett's tenacity won her over. She went on to star in critically-acclaimed movies such as Boyz In The Hood, Malcolm X, What's Love Got To Do With It? and Waiting To Exhale.

The talented performer says that her mother, a single parent, always knew what she wanted for her children.

"She didn't want life to be as difficult for us, and that's the reason she stayed on our tails. With my mother, you just knew for years and years and years you were going to college. There was no alternative," Bassett explains to the newspaper.

Though the newlywed, who recently married her longtime beau and fellow Yale classmate, actor Courtney B. Vance, said she discovered her "passion" for acting as a teen after she witnessed James Earl Jones performing onstage, she admits she did pick up a thing or two about being a thespian from her mom.

"My mother has a little drama in her. So I came by it quite naturally. I got it legal."

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