Angela Bassett stars as Brenda, a single mother living in inner city Chicago who has been struggling for years to make ends meet and keep her three kids off the street. But when she is laid off with no warning, she starts losing hope for the first time - until a letter arrives announcing the death of a father she's never met. Desperate for any kind of help, Brenda takes her family to Georgia for the funeral. But nothing could have prepared her for the Browns, her father's fun-loving, tactless small town Southern family. Brenda struggles to get to know the family she never knew existed...and finds a brand new romance that just might change her life. The story is adapted by Tyler Perry from his stage play "Meet the Browns." Perry will portray Madea and Uncle Joe in a small cameo role. Other cast members include: Rick Fox, Lance Gross, David Mann, Tamela J. Mann, Sofia Vergara, Jenifer Lewis, Margaret Avery, Irma P. Hall and Frankie Faison.
Angela Bassett has built her career around playing some of the most celebrated real-life, pioneering Black women of the twentieth century. She was Oscar-nominated and won both the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture-Comedy/Musical and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture for her star-making performance as Tina Turner/Anna Mae Bullock in What's Love Got to Do with It. She won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for her work as the late-Dr. Betty Shabazz (widow of the slain civil rights pioneer Malcolm X) in Spike Lee's Malcolm X. She would later play Dr. Shabazz in a cameo appearance in Mario Van Peebles' Panther. She delivered the only three-dimensional performance in the 1992 ABC miniseries about The Jackson Five and their family, The Jacksons: An American Dream. In 1999, she played Janet Williams--the principal of the school where Roberta Guaspari taught in Music of the Heart. She was also in the running to play Dorothy Dandridge, until Halle Berry beat her to the punch with HBO's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Her first and only Emmy nomination to date was for her lead role in The Rosa Parks Story. Angela Bassett turned down the role of Leticia Musgrove in Monster's Ball because she did not want to perform nude.
In 1974 she began to consider acting as a career choice after an 11th-grade class trip to Washington, DC during which she saw actor James Earl Jones perform in a Kennedy Center production of the play "Of Mice and Men". With the assistance of an academic scholarship, she received a B.A. degree in African-American studies from Yale University in 1980. In 1983, she earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Yale School of Drama. It was at Yale that Angela met her husband, Courtney B. Vance, an '86 graduate of the Drama school. Soon after graduating from Yale, she appeared in her first film Doubletake in 1985. However she is more recognized for her role in the F/X TV series in 1986. I first saw her in the TV series "Tour of Duty" as Lieutenant Camilla Patterson. But it was not until 1990 that a spate of TV roles brought her notice. Her breakthrough role wasn’t until 1993, when she earned widespread recognition for her portrayal of Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It. Angela Bassett had never seen Tina Turner perform before taking the role. Captivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters, stages, and television screens throughout the world. A native of New York City, New York, Bassett & her sister D'nette grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida with their mother Betty. As a single mother & social worker, Betty stressed the importance of education for her children. Angela and her husband, Courtney B. Vance, became the parents of twins, Bronwyn Golden and Slater Josiah, on January 27, 2006 in California through a surrogate. Other memorial roles played by Angela Bassett include: Akeelah and the Bee, Ruby's Bucket of Blood, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Waiting to Exhale, and Boyz n the Hood.
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