Angela Bassett Remembers Casting Taye Diggs for ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back’: ‘He Had to Fulfill the Fantasy’

Tribeca 2023: Bassett and director Kevin Rodney Sullivan reflect on the classic comedy’s legacy at 25 years

Angela Bassett speaks onstage during a Q&A at the “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”
Angela Bassett speaks onstage during a Q&A at the “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” screening during the 2023 Tribeca Festival (Credit: Dominik Bindl/Getty Images)

“How Stella Got Her Groove Back” star Angela Bassett and director Kevin Rodney Sullivan didn’t hold back Saturday night at a Tribeca Festival screening and talkback celebrating the movie’s 25th anniversary. Going long in a lively discussion moderated by Torell Shavone Taylor at the SVA theater in New York City, the two got candid about choreographing Stella’s sex scenes, casting at 20-something Taye Diggs to “fulfill the fantasy” and trusting an Oscar-winning scene partner like Whoopi Goldberg to hold the film together.

The beloved romantic comedy from 1998 stars Bassett as Stella Payne, a 40-year-old businesswoman who takes a well-needed vacation in Jamaica, only to fall for a handsome man half her age, Winston Shakespeare (Diggs). Bassett

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