Gabrielle Union Says She Regrets the Way She Portrayed Her ‘Bring It On’ Character

It’s been over 20 years since Bring It On was released. The cheerleading film starred Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union. Even though the film is in her past, Union does have some regrets to this day about how she portrayed the character of Isis. 

While appearing on Good Morning America to promote her book You Got Anything Stronger?, Union reflected on her time working on the movie. 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.