Actor Angela Bassett has won her first Emmy Award, nine nominations later.
At the Creative Arts Emmys on Saturday, Bassett nabbed the win for her outstanding narration in “Queens,” a docuseries from National Geographic about matriarchies in the wild.
“Oh my God. Wow,” Bassett said while accepting the award, per PEOPLE. “My first Emmy!”
“It feels good . . . really, really good,” the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” star said of her win. “National Geographic, Wildstar Films and all the directors — all women! — who brought this incredible story, this incredible docuseries centered on the ferocious and magnificent things in the animal kingdom. I couldn’t be more thrilled and more grateful. Thank you, each and every one of you.”
Speaking to a reporter who acknowledged her look of surprise upon hearing she had won, Bassett said, “This is one of the really, really big ones, you know what I mean? And so that . . . that doesn’t usually happen.”
“But also, whenever you’re acknowledged . . . I’m just a girl who just wanted to act, and my mentors were way out ahead of me,” Bassett added. “And I just looked to them and got inspiration and hope, and I just put my focus and my energy and my love to try to make it happen in my life, or for my life.”
Bassett’s first Emmy comes after she won an honorary Academy Award in January, an honor many considered to be long overdue after the veteran actor’s decades of work in Hollywood.