In a new interview with 'GMA,' Union said she would portrayed her now-famous character much differently today.
Gabrielle Union has a few things she'd like to change about the way she played her character, Isis, in Bring It On. In a new interview with Good Morning America, Union opened up about the regret she feels about the way she "muzzled" her character, and the apology she wrote to her in her new book, You Got Anything Stronger?
"I do think it was a mistake," Union told GMA. "I was given full range to do whatever I wanted with Isis in Bring It On, 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."
She continued, "Black girls aren’t allowed to be angry. Certainly not demonstratively angry, and I muzzled her."
As far as how she'd play Isis today, Union said she would've allowed her "full humanity."
"I would have allowed her her full humanity, and part of being a full human is the ability to express rage when harmed," the author and actress explained. "When you don’t really allow yourself your full range of emotion and you muzzle your own emotions, it allows people to think, ‘Maybe what I did wasn’t that bad.’ I would have given her all the anger."
And even though she held back, Union said she was still painted as the villain in the the now-famous cheer movie.
"I had muzzled her and made her this gracious, decent leader, and I was still a villain in that movie," she added. "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."
Last August, Union and Kirsten Dunst looked back on their time on the set of Bring It On in honor of the film's 20th anniversary. The actresses reunited for a prerecorded Zoom call with director Peyton Reed and writer Jessica Bendinger. During the candid chat, the ladies at one point pitched some ideas for a potential Bring It On sequel.
"The impact, 20 years later, that this movie had and continues to have, that's awesome," Union raved. "So whatever that we may one day come up with, I mean, Kirsten, maybe we're like co-heads of the PTA. I don't know."
"Or we run a cheer school like Cheer," added Dunst, referencing the Netflix documentary about the championship-winning cheerleading team at Navarro College. "Who knows."
Hear more from the pair and the possibility of a potential sequel, below.
RELATED CONTENT
