Gabrielle Union achieved superstardom thanks to doing movies like Bring It On. Despite her fame, however, Union still found herself being confused for this other actor on a consistent basis.
Gabrielle Union once opened up about being mistaken for other Black actors
Union has always been candid about her experiences being a Black female actor in the film industry. She once posted a video on social media poking fun at the stereotypes she’s had to deal with over the years. This included being repeatedly mistaken for other actors.
“I’m a Black actress and producer in Hollywood. Of course, I’ve been mistaken for Garcelle Beauvais, Brandy, Ashanti, Sanaa [Lathan], Nia [Long], both Halles [Berry and Bailey], and both Reginas [King and Hall],” Union once said, according to Vibe.
When it came to Lathan, however, Union asserted that it wasn’t just fans who might’ve confused them for each other. But people who she worked with in the film industry. Speaking with Hot 97, Union recalled how she reacted when a top film executive mixed her up with The Affair star in a meeting.
“’I just gotta say I loved you in Outta Time,’” she remembered the executive telling her. “And I said, well that’s not me, that’s Sanaa Lathan. But I will let her know how much you love her work, and I promptly left. These are people I pay money to, and they don’t know we’re different people.”
Union felt the mix-up was an example of Hollywood lumping certain Black actors and movies together, making them interchangeable.
Why Gabrielle Union initially wasn’t friends with Sanaa Lathan
Union and Lathan were already somewhat familiar with each other from their time together in the film Love & Basketball. But Union admitted she didn’t get the chance to know Lathan on the film’s set, especially since Lathan was the more experienced star at the time.
“Me and Boris [Kodjoe] were, like, newcomers and we…nobody talked to us,” she once said in an interview with DJ Whoo Kid.
However, this changed a couple of years after Union had a chance encounter with her co-star.
“It’s funny. Me and Sanaa we became friends. I was doing Bad Boys II in Miami, and she was shooting Out of Time. We were staying at the same hotel. But after Love and Basketball, I was all, ‘I don’t mess with you. I needed to see all I needed to see.’ She was all like, ‘No, no, no!’ So, after a couple of cocktails at the Delano, we’ve been BFFs ever since. I was with her last night,” Union recalled.
Sanaa Lathan helped Gabrielle Union make an important change to her career
Union and Lathan became such good friends that Lathan even gave Union some much-needed career advice.
“I used to just take whatever project like me back. I’d get a script, and I’m like, ‘Well, do they want me? Okay, awesome.’ I was literally the choose me girl,” Union once said in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “Whatever was choosing me, I chose them back. There was no strategy, and then Sanaa [Lathan] would be like, ‘Why are you doing this? It’s not challenging you. What are you doing?’ And I’m like, ‘Girl, you work like once a year and totally by choice. How do you take it?’ And she said, ‘I’m selective. If it doesn’t scare me, it’s not worth doing.’ That never made sense until the last year and a half. If I would’ve listened to Sanaa 20 years ago, I would’ve had a completely different career.”
Taking a page out of Lathan’s book, nowadays, the Being Mary Jane star only gravitates toward roles that resonate with her deeply.
“I just want the projects to match where I’m at and the excavation that I’m currently in to be an extension of that. If I cannot be of service to the character or the project, it’s just not for me. I’m not check-chasing at this stage of the game. I only wanna do projects that move me in some way,” she said.
