Betty Shabazz said some oomph was added to her screen persona in the movie about her late husband, Malcolm X.
"I was not assertive as she was," Shabazz said Sunday in New York on WNBC-TV's "News Forum" program.But in general, Shabazz said, Angela Bassett's portrayal of her was "marvelous."
"I always wanted to be assertive," she said. "I always wanted to identify what it was that I wanted and just develop objectives and go straight towards them.
"You know, I couldn't do that with Malcolm. There were so many of the sisters who felt perhaps that God had put him on Earth for them, and so I just kind of held back," Shabazz said.
And while "it is totally impossible to portray his total life, his variances," Shabazz said Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" film "captures the essence of Malcolm quite well."