Gabrielle Union Reveals Secret Behind ‘Bring It On’ Scenes That Didn’t Make the Movie

Gabrielle Union opened up in a new TikTok video about an unfortunate experience she had while making the classic teen comedy Bring It On, which costarred Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku. In the video, Union explains that there was extra footage shot of the Clovers, the black cheerleading team, that was made specifically for the trailer to make their involvement seem more significant than it actually was in the film.

“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,” Union explained. “So we shot these only for the trailer, not for the movie, to make people think we were in the movie more than we were. The end.”

Union spoke about her breakout role in September while appearing on Good Morning America to promote her book You Got Anything Stronger? Basically, if she could do it all over again, she would change how she portrayed Isis. As she explained, she felt as though it was a “mistake” to not portray Isis as a fully developed character with a wide range of emotions. Union said that she felt the need to express Isis in a certain way so that the character could be acceptable to a mainstream audience. 

“I do think it was a mistake,” Union said. “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.” If she were to step into Isis’ shoes again, Union would do things differently. She said on GMA that she would want to showcase Isis in a more fully developed light. The actor also added that she would have no problem making these changes, especially as the character was still portrayed as the villain despite how Union “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,” Union said. “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.” Bring It On came out in 2000. The film followed the Toros, led by Dunst’s Torrance, as they attempted to create a new winning cheerleading routine after finding out that their previous captain stole moves from the Clovers, led by Union’s Isis. The famous cheerleading movie is beloved to this day and spawned five sequels, the last of which was released in 2017.