Soul: Angela Bassett Calls Being Part of Pixar’s First Black-Led Film “Humbling”

When Soul debuts on December 25th, the film will make history for Pixar. The much anticipated film will be the first from the animation studio to feature a Black lead character in Joe Gardner, voiced by Jamie Foxx, as well as a mostly black cast, including Angela Bassett who gives voice to Dorothea Williams, a jazz musician who Joe hopes will give him his big break. And while Soul is breaking ground in the world of animation, for Bassett, this is her second groundbreaking Disney film having starred as Ramonda in Black Panther and it’s an experience she says is humbling.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Bassett said that being part of both Black Panther and Soul meant the world to her, and while there’s still a long way to go, she is both humbled and proud.

“It means the world to me, and it’s quite humbling to come through a time where you’re raising children and you’re this whole, keep it moving forward, keep striving and yet there’s this ground that we have to retreat that we’re just trying to move forward,” Bassett said. “And so here are these firsts, you know, they may think everything is everything and it’s like, ‘No, we still have good trouble to get into,’ as John Lewis would say, and good work to do. And just in terms of what I do can be a part of that good work. I’m really humbled and proud.”

For Soul co-director Kemp Powers, He’s most proud of how the film doesn’t shy away from Black culture and its importance to the larger American culture.

“Joe’s character, it’s interesting because, again, it was all very organic, and it was really… I feel like a broken record because I’ve been saying this a lot in that people can be afraid of cultural specificity. And I think that that’s actually the key to uncovering these universal themes that we can all relate to,” Powers told ComicBook.com in a previous interview. “I think that one of the things we’ve been able to do on this film that I’m the most proud of is actually not shy away from the fact that Joe and his culture, while American, are also Black. You saw in the footage that you saw, there’s a flashback where Joe says, ‘Dad, I dont’ like jazz.’ And his father corrects him and says, ‘Black improvisational music. It’s one of our big contributors to the culture of this country.’”

Powers continued, “That, to me, is a very potent, important thing to actually acknowledge, the specificity of the Black contribution to American culture in a very, very subtle small way that might go right over a little kid’s head. But for some little kids, it’s going to be really, really important. It’s going to say that you are a part of this country. You are a part of this thing that we have today. So I think the fact that when they decided it was going to be a jazz musician, that it became important that it be a Black jazz musician, is key because that allows us to lean into the Black, the very African-American contributions to not just jazz music, but music in general.”

You can check out the synopsis of Soul below.

Soul follows Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. But one small misstep takes him from the streets of New York City to The Great Before – a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks, and interests before they go to Earth. Determined to return to his life, Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22 (Tina Fey), who has never understood the appeal of the human experience. As Joe desperately tries to show 22 what’s great about living, he may just discover the answers to some of life’s most important questions.

Soul debuts on Disney+ on December 25th.