Keke Palmer’s impression of Angela Bassett is spot-on — and Angela think’s it’s ‘awesome.’
via People:
The 9-1-1 star, 65, appeared on Wednesday’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and reacted to a video of Keke Palmer doing her best impression of Bassett during a November 2021 appearance on the late-night show.
“You know who loves you? Our pal Keke Palmer. We love Keke. She came on our show and she did an impression of you,” said host Jimmy Fallon before introducing the throwback clip.
The video showed Palmer, 30, impersonating Bassett’s portrayal of Katherine Jackson in the 1992 miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream.
“I do one where I don’t know if you guys have seen it. It’s the American Dream. The Michael Jackson story where she plays Katherine Jackson,” Palmer said in the video. “And it’s the moment where she finds out Joe [Jackson] cheated on her, and he comes in [and she says] ‘You a liar, and you a cheat, and I don’t want you. I don’t want you, I don’t want you.'”
Bassett was shown in the lower right corner of the screen laughing as the clip of Palmer played. After it ended, Fallon, 49, asked, “Is that great?”
“That’s awesome. The little tremor,” Bassett replied.
The talk show host then asked Bassett about her experience playing Palmer’s mom in the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee.
“That’s my baby. She requested me to be her mom in Akeelah and the Bee. So I was like so touched. I’m so proud of her,” said Bassett.
Palmer recalled how Bassett helped her during the project’s filming when the two interviewed one another for Vanity Fair in December 2022. The Password host said Bassett advised about performing a crying scene that was “a lot of pressure.”
“I just remember that you looked at me, you grabbed my hand, and you said, ‘You love what you do, right?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I love acting,'” Palmer told Bassett. “You said, ‘And who does that with you?’ I said, ‘I do it with my mom. We do everything all the time together.’ And you said, ‘What if she said, ‘I can’t do this with you anymore. You’re gonna do it all on your own if you’re gonna do it at all, and I can’t be there with you?’ How would that make you feel?'”
Palmer said she “immediately started crying” after talking with Bassett and credited her for helping her “just focus in, and not only focus in but to attach it to something that’s real for me.”
Check out the clip below.
