‘I’m Just a Girl Who Wanted to Act’

Angela Bassett is now an Emmy winner.

Bassett won the award for outstanding narration on National Geographic’s nature documentary “Queens” on Saturday, the first night of the Creative Arts Emmys. Following her triumph, Bassett came backstage to the press room, where a reporter asked her what the win meant to her.

“We don’t work for these, but we receive them for all the hard work that we do,” Bassett said. “Of course, it’s not work that you do alone, even though it’s for narration. There’s a whole team that pursued me and believed in me, fought for me, and worked with me to tell this amazing story of females in the wild kingdom, led by an all-female production team, a first in wildlife documentary filmmaking. So that was pretty inspiring to me in and of itself.”

Bassett was on a hiatus from FX’s “9-1-1” when she agreed to the project. Asked what drew her to accepting the project, she said with a laugh: “I was awfully tired after chasing bad guys and being a cop. The idea of an all-female crew in the wilderness telling this story and centering it on the matriarchs and the conservation they were doing — it touched my heart.”

Bassett is now halfway to earning an EGOT (she received an honorary Academy Award in January of this year). Despite being a favorite to win in the narrator category at the Creative Arts Emmys, she was still shocked when they called her name.

“This is one of the big ones, and that doesn’t usually happen,” Bassett said. “Whenever you’re acknowledged, I’m just, you know, a girl who just wanted to act. My mentors were way out ahead of me. I just looked to them and got inspiration and hope and, and I just put my focus, my energy and my love to try to make it happen in my life and for my life.”

She added: “So each and every day, I try to remember that first love and when this happens, I appreciate it.”