Angela Bassett has been forced to turn down a Broadway part opposite her acting heroine Cicely Tyson because her role as a mum is much more important.

The What's Love Got To Do With It star was asked to join the cast of the revival of A Trip To Bountiful, but she had to pass because she had already made commitments to her husband Courtney B. Vance and their twins.

She tells Wenn, "I was asked but I decided not to do it with Cicely Tyson, which I will probably regret one day because she's one of my sheroes (sic). I consider her a mentor and mother figure in terms of actress to actress.

"But I just couldn't make it work in terms of just finishing a film in New York - Black Nativity with Forest Whitaker - and then be there for my husband, who is doing Broadway in The Lucky Guy with Tom Hanks.

"We have twins with the nanny and his mother is 78, so I had to let that go. I came back to the New York stage two years ago and did The Mountaintop and the twins were five then, almost six, so they could sort of get it. The timing was they weren't in first grade so I could bring them to New York for three weeks and they could stay over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

"This year, with Courtney being here, they got the weekend and he got Monday (off)! I will probably return to the stage when he comes home from the stage or my twins get a little bit older."