Angela Bassett was GOBSMACKED when she didn't win an Oscar for Wakanda Forever

Angela Bassett was "gobsmacked" when she failed to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

For her work on the sequel to Black Panther, Bassett made history when she became the first person ever to be nominated for an acting award in a Marvel movie.

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She played Queen Ramonda, the grieving mother of T'Challa, who passed away before the events of the movie. Art imitated life, as the entire Black Panther and Marvel family mourned the loss of Chadwick Boseman, who lost his battle with cancer prior to the development of Wakanda Forever.

In the Best Supporting Actress category, Bassett was up against Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Hong Chau for The Whale, Kerry Condon for The Banshees of Inisherin and Stephanie Hsu for Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Curtis eventually won, and Bassett couldn't believe it.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Oprah told Bassett: “I just knew your name was going to be called. I was beside myself (when it wasn’t). We were beside ourselves.”

Bassett replied: “I was gobsmacked! I was. I thought I handled it very well. That was my intention, to handle it very well. It was, of course, a supreme disappointment, and disappointment is human. So I thought, yes, I was disappointed and I handled it like a human being.”

The disappointed Oscars face

Bassett knew it was important to show humility in the loss  “for myself and for my children who were there with me.”

“There are going to be these moments of disappointment that you’ll experience, but how do you handle yourself in the midst of them?” she added. “We’re going to smile, we’re going to be gracious, we’re going to be kind, we’re going to party anyway.”

She was the favourite to win the award after winning the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.