Angela Bassett returns to the "Mission Impossible" franchise this weekend after a seven-year absence and she's gotten a promotion this time around.
Her character, Erika Sloane, was the CIA director in 2018's "Mission Impossible: Fallout," but when she reappears in this weekend's "Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning," her new title is president of the United States.
She's already played the queen of rock and roll, the queen of Wakanda -- and she even got to voice former First Lady Michelle Obama in an episode of the Simpsons throughout her storied career. So adding POTUS to that roster seems only logical.
And Bassett is eating up the chance to return to the franchise.
"It's really freaking great," Bassett said at a red carpet premiere at Atlantic Station on Wednesday. "It's pretty powerful so it's good to sit there in that seat, behind that desk (in the Oval Office), with all of the weight and the stress on your shoulders."
The new film includes call backs to nearly 30 years of "Mission Impossible" films, most notable the very first film from 1996, and many people have speculated as to whether this will be the last film in the franchise or at least the last one to star longtime franchise lead Tom Cruise.
"The Final Reckoning" continues the AI threat storyline that was started in 2023's "Dead Reckoning." This time around the AI program, known as The Entity, is taking over the world's nuclear stockpiles one country at a time.
The U.S.'s nuclear arsenal is, of course, the last domino to fall.
Bassett's President Sloane has to weigh the choices of launching America's nuclear weapons at the other nations arsenals, plus one American city that would be a sacrificial lamb in hopes of preventing a war, or letting the world's nuclear stockpiles rest in the hands of an AI that will start a nuclear war against the human race.
Or she could put her faith in Cruise's Ethan Hunt to pull off a daring set of missions that leave no margin for error so he can unleash a computer virus on The Entity and trap it.
That's not exactly an easy choice to make.
Obviously, this is a Mission Impossible film, so she puts her faith in Hunt but keeps her other options open.
Since, Bassett last appeared in the franchise, she's done several years of the action drama TV series "9-1-1," where she's gotten to be more of the action star -- even fighting terrorists on a cruise ship.
"Oh we do action every week, and we do it in 12 days so I'm sort of used to that," Bassett said.
Granted, playing the president, where she is in a bunker surrounded by advisors and letting Tom Cruise do all of the death defying stunts, is not like getting into the scrapes that her "9-1-1" character gets into.
"They don't compare at all," Bassett said.
Still, this will be a big weekend for Bassett's family. Her husband, Courtney B. Vance, has his own big movie -- the live-action "Lilo and Stitch" -- opening against "Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning" on Friday.
Both are big tentpole films, but they cater to different audiences. Whereas the "Mission Impossible" films cater to a more general audience who likes action and tense drama, "Lil and Stitch" is firmly in the family entertainment category.
Bassett isn't looking at this weekend as a competition with her husband, even if the only thing on the line would be Vance bringing her breakfast in bed for a week if "Mission Impossible" wins the box office race.
"I think we think he's going to have the bigger opening but, as Tom would say, there's no competition in cinema," Bassett said. "We'll both have big openings, but with different audiences."