Gabrielle Union.
Gabrielle Union. |
Aug. 25, 2000
Gabrielle Bringing It On
You'd think having been a cheerleader, playing one on the big screen would be easy. "I was only in eighth grade," laughs Gabrielle Union, who's doing a lot more than shaking her pom poms in the battle of the vault-and-tumble cheerleaders in Universal's "Bring It On."
"It wasn't anything close to being like what we did in the movie. Nothing remotely close," says the former high school basketball player who assumed her athletic background would prepare her for a stint in cheerleading training camp.
"I kinda walked in there like Al Bundy, like, 'I used to be an all-star point guard,' she sniffs, playfully tugging on her pants with a smug curl on her lips. "And I, literally, got my butt kicked every day for that whole cheerleading boot camp thing," she laughs. "I would come out of there dragging, covered in Ben Gay and it was nothing nice about that. I have a newfound respect for what the young men and women do who are cheerleaders."
Not that she didn't revel in the challenge. Or the chance to star opposite Kirsten Dunst, who plays the captain of the rival suburban cheerleading squad that's been biting routines from Union's inner city hip-hop team. But don't let the movie trailers, and its emphasizes on an unharmonious ebony and ivory, fool you.
"It's very misleading because you think you're going to see something like 'Colors' or some kind of race war thing," she laughs. "It's more about these two squads that are very competitive, and one wants the respect and recognition that has not been given to them over the years. It's not all race based," she said, although pointing out. "For the record, our squad got nine days," to practice their routines at the training camp, "the other squad got about three weeks. Guess they thought we'd pick up on the dances a little bit better, I don't know." she snickers, her implication of preferential treatment toward Dunst & Co. obvious. "I don't know, just F.Y.I."
Right now, we're hanging out at Pauley Pavilion at Union's alma mater, UCLA, where she transferred after a stint playing for the women's soccer team at the University of Nebraska. An honors graduate, with a degree in sociology, she was considering going off to law school when a fluke internship led to a series of modeling gigs. Then came the acting roles, mostly as sassy teenagers in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "She's All That," and as Sanna Lathan's rival for Omar Epps' affections in "Love & Basketball."
But this second go 'round in adolescence, she's happy to say, may be coming to end and she'll finally get to act her own age, which she'll only say in the "mid-twenties." (She's happily engaged, by the way, to the NFL's Chris Howard of the Jacksonville, Jaguars.) On the big screen next year, she'll play Morris Chestnut's best girl, in the just wrapped romantic comedy, "The Brothaz," with D.L. Hughley, Bill Bellamy and Shemar Moore. "It's the male version of 'Waiting to Exhale." And on the tube this fall, as the new surgical intern, Courtney Ellis, on the CBS "City of Angels." She's careful about not using the word "replacement," when asked about taking the lead following Vivica A. Fox's unceremoniously dismissal "It's a whole different character," she says, "I'm filling the young, black, female thing."
But that's cool. There needs to be more black women on television, and sooner, rather than later, is always better. "You know, me and my girl were talking and I was like, 'Who were we trying to be when we were growing up, except for singers and stuff? I was like, 'I wanna be Molly Ringwald,'" she laughs. 'We didn't have anybody, as minorities [in movies and television], to look up to and to emulate." She hopes to be that person for young women now. "That's what's important to me at the end of the day," she says, "bringing honesty and integrity, not just with the roles, but when I'm conducting myself in interviews and in everything."
With such an inwardly positive and outwardly beautiful role model as she, can't you hear the little girls screaming now, 'I wanna be like Gabrielle.'