Angela Bassett on Why She Felt 'Very Comfortable' with 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back' Sex Scenes

Angela Bassett and director Kevin Sullivan attended a special 25th anniversary screening of 1998's "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" at the Tribeca Festival

Angela Bassett is looking back at her 1998 movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back.

At a special 25th anniversary screening of the movie at the 2023 Tribeca Festival on Saturday, Bassett, 64, reunited with director Kevin Rodney Sullivan for a panel on the film's production.

During a Q&A, Sullivan, 64, said he remembered feeling nervous about making sure he directed the movie's sex scenes between Bassett and costar Taye Diggs "from a woman's point of view."

"It’s my fantasy, he has to be naked not me," the actress noted of the movie, as Sullivan said he and Bassett worked collaboratively as he storyboarded the scenes with her input. "Our fantasy."

"Yeah, it was very, very comfortable experience," Bassett continued. "I had a couple other [experiences filming sex scenes], like you say it, from the male point of view, whether it was What's Love or whether it was City of Hope, where you have these love scenes and men are directing it and it's their fantasy."

"Sometimes as an actor, as a woman, you feel a little uncomfortable. You don't know how it's gonna go," she said of those instances, before repeating that her experience on How Stella Got Her Groove Back "was just very comfortable."

Related: Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance's Relationship Timeline

How Stella Got Her Groove Back follows Stella (Bassett) and her friend Delilah (Whoopi Goldberg), who convinces Stella to join her for a vacation to Jamiaca, where she meets a younger man named Winston (Diggs) and falls in love.

The movie was filmed before film and television productions began utilizing intimacy coordinators on set to ensure actors' comfort during sex scenes, which Bassett noted.

"Yeah, we didn't have that, now," she said after Sullivan noted that modern-day productions commonly hire intimacy coordinators. "'Can I put my arm here? Can I put my hand there?' You know, I guess that's how we go."

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Sullivan, whose work in recent years includes directing episodes of television series like Riverdale, This Is Us and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, among others, added during the panel that he feels "very comfortable with" working with intimacy coordinators now.

"I'm comfortable with it because it makes the actors more comfortable. That's my priority," he said. "I'm not trying to impose my will. I'm trying to encourage a great performance. So if an intimacy coordinator helps, I'm all in."

Related: See the Cast of 'What’s Love Got to Do With It' Compared to the Real People, as the Movie Turns 30

Elsewhere during the panel, Bassett and Sullivan recalled casting Diggs, 52, as the movie's co-lead Winston Shakespeare, with the actress noting Diggs was one of three actors whom she filmed screen tests with.

"The whole experience was new for me because you know, [you are] just used to being the actor," she explained. "You go and audition for your little thing. But to be on the other side where you get a vote about who that was? That was, you know, quite a responsibility."

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