Angela Bassett brings 'Whitney' story to Lifetime

Not only did Angela Bassett know Whitney Houston, she knows what it's like to play a music icon. Those two factors work in the star's favor as she makes her directing debut with the Lifetime movie “Whitney” Saturday, Jan. 17.

The teleplay focuses largely on the passionate, sometimes stormy relationship the late Houston (played by Yaya DaCosta, with singing vocals by Deborah Cox) had with husband-to-be Bobby Brown (Arlen Escarpeta), framed by Houston's career trajectory as a star of records and movies.

One of those films, 1995's “Waiting to Exhale,” acquainted Bassett with co-worker Houston. “I had such regard for her and such respect, love and adoration, from the first time I met her,” Bassett says.

Bassett's husband, Courtney B. Vance, acted opposite Houston in 1996's “The Preacher's Wife.” Bassett embodied a music legend herself in her Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe-winning portrayal of Tina Turner in the 1993 film “What's Love Got to Do With It.” That gave her a feel for working with DaCosta to capture Houston's essence: “I couldn't have done it without her, absolutely not. She was the first choice, that vision I had in my mind.”

Houston's family and Brown did not assist with the production of “Whitney” — quite the opposite, in the cases of some relatives who have denounced the project — but Bassett was touched that Vance considered her “the perfect person” to be the TV movie's director, as were “a lot of people who were (Houston's) friends and acquaintances,” she says. “That went a long way toward being the wind beneath my wings and giving me confidence.”

Given the performance sequences, the elaborate wedding scene and the more intimate moments “Whitney” spans, Bassett had her work cut out for her. She said she had “no idea whatsoever” the movie would be her first calling-the-shots venture before executive producer Larry Sanitsky told her he was planning a Houston film.

“I suppose two years later (after Houston's 2012 death), it wasn't as offensive to me,” Bassett reflects, adding that she already believed such a film “was a foregone conclusion. I thought, ‘This woman meant so much to the world — and, in particular, to the African-American community — maybe a black director would have more sensitivity to her.'”

Bassett suggested others including Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) for the job, though she admits she had “a wistful longing” that she could do it. Now that she has, she says of Houston, “I worked with her, I love her and as a ‘celebrity' ... have a little bit of insight. I don't have the popularity she had, of course, but I get some love.”