Gabrielle Union has been heating up social media lately, frequently posting jealousy-inducing vacation photos of herself and husband, Dwyane Wade, in the sun.
But Union first got her big break leaping around high school gymnasiums in the iconic teenage romp, “Bring It On,” from 2000.
As Us Weekly reported, the film starred Union and Kirsten Dunst as the leaders of rival groups of cheerleading squads – the Clovers and the Toros – competing to win a national championship.
“Bring It On” fans got a fun treat over the weekend when Union shared some quick, previously unseen clips from the filming of it on TikTok.
“Story time,” Union, 49, explained, next to the surprise footage. “So, we shot these snippets that you see here after the movie wrapped because once test audiences saw the movie, they wanted more of the Clovers.”
“So,” she continued, “we shot these only for the trailer and not for the movie to make people think we were in the movie more than we were. The end.”
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The oddity of scenes popping up in trailers that weren’t in the finished movie happens more than one might think, for reasons of marketing, as Union suggests, or because of last minute changes, TV syndication reasons, or simply editing mistakes.
In any event, also “missing” from the film itself, in Union’s opinion, is the real way she wishes she had developed her character, Isis, as she told Good Morning America last September.
“I do think it was a mistake,” she stated. “I was given full range to do whatever I wanted with Isis… and I chose respectability and to be classy and take the high road, because I felt like that would make her be appropriate, the right kind of Black girl. Black girls aren’t allowed to be angry. Certainly not demonstratively angry, and I muzzled her. I would have allowed her her full humanity, and part of being a full human is the ability to express rage when harmed.”
“I would have given her all the anger,” she continued. "I… made her this gracious, decent leader, and I was still a villain in that movie. I did all that shape-shifting for a character, and then I realized I was doing that to myself too. I wasn’t allowing myself the full range of my humanity.”
The actress/model also addressed her second thoughts about the role in her recent biography, You Got Anything Stronger?
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Whatever Union’s latter day misgivings, fans of the film have been happy to make it a modern day comedy classic, and have created enough of an appetite for the cheerleading tales to inspire five sequels since the original.
Union has clearly made peace with it, as she frequently talks about the film in interviews and posts fun throwback memories.
And while there haven’t been too many public updates of late, Union told PureWow last year that a ‘Bring It On’ sequel featuring the original cast could one day be in the works.
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