Gabrielle Union Wants to Face Her Fears
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Gabrielle Union’s career spans nearly three decades, but she’s just beginning to show a new depth to her artistic craft. The actress, producer, and entrepreneur is earning rave reviews for her performance in The Inspection, the first feature film from documentary director Elegance Bratton, which hits theaters this Friday. Union makes a stellar, chameleonic turn, playing a woman that is her complete opposite in several ways. While speaking to BAZAAR.com over Zoom, she describes the role as one that required her to reckon with the trade-offs and compromises she has made throughout her career, an examination that is bringing her into a sort of rebirth.
The Inspection is director Elegance Bratton’s semi-autobiographical drama, following a young man named Ellis French (Jeremy Pope) who undergoes basic training for the Marine Corp under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” edict. Union plays French’s devout mother Inez, who kicked her son out of his home at age 16 for being gay. In a distressing early scene included in the film’s trailer, French visits Inez with news of his enlistment, and she responds with derision and resentment for the unfulfilled “dream” she had for him. This mother is not an easily relatable character, and Union admits she was surprised when Bratton offered her the role after she became involved with the film as a producer.
“I didn’t understand what I've ever given off that anyone would think I could ever play a homophobe,” she tells BAZAAR. Union is an outspoken ally and proponent of LGBTQ+ rights, and fiercely loves her daughter, Zaya, whom she has raised with her husband, Dwyane Wade. “Elegance had a confidence in my ability that I did not have in myself, and he was like, ‘Only you could play this.’” What came after her decision to take the role was a period of soul-searching, which continued thanks to her work in the forthcoming third season of Apple TV+’s anthology drama Truth Be Told.
While listening to the actress recall the emotional aftermath of such a difficult role, and the impact it has had on her mindset with projects going forward, it’s clear that she has tapped into a series of lessons learned over her prolific career with a new frame of mind. Now, in addition to a professed change in how she’ll choose acting projects, she also speaks with passion about her future in producing. Her years of experience on different sets have manifested into a clear goal toward improving an area of Hollywood that has had its run of bad actors. “I like being a part of the entire process, not that I am completely in control or everyone listens to me all the time, but at least having a say so, I'll take it.”
Below, Union speaks about deciding to take the role of Inez, approaching future roles with a new mindset, and obsessing over the efficiency of film sets.
I did want to ask about your journey to getting involved with this project. I know that you also executive produced in addition to playing Inez. What did you first think when you read the script itself?
As a producer, I was like, "Oh, it's a winner." I easily understood how I could be impactful as a part of the producing team. And they're like, "Thank you, and what do you think about playing the mom?" Elegance had a confidence in my ability that I did not have in myself, and he was like, "Only you could play this." He explains it a little bit better than I, but by his estimation, there was only one actress that would make his mom happy and proud and make him undeniable to her. That was me, which is wild, cause I had a list of actresses I was ready to suggest that I thought would kill it.
When he had that confidence in me, I was like, "Okay, let's go for it." Immediately I tried to start figuring out a way in, because previously I judged all my characters. I read the script, and I thought, "Oh, she's a bitch. Ugh, she's a doormat." I judge them and then I act out that judgment onscreen. [With Inez] I knew that in order to play her, I had to find her humanity, and I had to find our common ground. Where do our lives intersect? I realized that before she was a mother, she was just a girl who had dreams and who had been sold this bill of goods called the American Dream. That if you just act this way, present this way, speak this way, and do everything that cis-het rich white people who control the institutions tell you you should be, you will be safe and worthy and good. I realized that, it didn't make me homophobic, [but] I definitely have have traded my self respect, my Blackness, my culture, my language, my body, my soul, to try to get this much closer to being covered by white supremacy, if that makes sense. We did have that in common, and I never looked at it that way until preparing. And that's very dark. It would've never occurred to me that I too had been making trade-offs that cost me things that I will never get back and things that will take years to repair or heal from or see, even. If I wanted to be impactful and I wanted this character to be impactful, I needed to meet the darkness head on.
It's really interesting to hear you talk about that, just because I see you as a paragon of self-care and honesty, especially with your books. How did you come back from that darkness and continue to take care of yourself?
It was a process. Immediately I went into extensive therapy, twice a week, a couple hours a day. I'm like, I don't wanna waste time in traffic. Let's just give it all to the Zoom. So I'm literally doing four hours of Zoom therapy a week, but [my schedule] led me right into committing to season three of Octavia Spencer's show Truth Be Told, where another part of my soul got ripped open that I didn't even realize I had been dissociating for 30 years, and I had come back in my body finally. So this has been a year of discovery and hopefully a rebirth and, I can't say a rediscovering, but a discovering of what freedom looks like to me and what it is to decolonize my spirit and my soul and my mind to find out, who am I really if I'm not centering white supremacy in all that I do and think in everything.
You’ve already spoken about Elegance championing you, but I’m curious. At this point in your career and especially this being such a different role, why did you choose to take the leap and go ahead and play Inez?
As the parent of a queer child, we fight this battle every day. There's days where I feel like I'm running out of tools to fight. I'm running out of weapons. This movie is like a sword in a sense, in my battle. If I can portray her so convincingly—I mean I consider myself to be a pretty reasonable ally, pretty solid, I'd like to think—but if people can see through this performance that they too have been a villain in someone's story, probably their own, maybe they won't like what they see on screen, and in turn won't like what they see when they look in the mirror. Then they will make an adjustment. They will see that throwing away your child should never be an option. They will see that your kids are exactly who they are and that that makes them inherently good and worthy and deserving, and they were actually worthy and deserving and good from birth.
It's just another way to combat everything that's going on in this country, [like] people I thought were on the right side of history who are not. People who really find transphobic and anti-trans humor to be super entertaining. To see members of my own community speak in such a way that puts my own child at harm. I gotta do everything I can, to not only offer my child peace and safety and comfort and unconditional love. I gotta show other folks how to do that as well. That is actually my responsibility as a parent. So that's kind of how I got to this point.
How was your experience working with a filmmaker like Elegance Bratton, who had this very honest and unapologetic vision?
He had to be unapologetic and focused because parts of it are his actual life, and to tinker with that is to tinker with his soul, right? Including his memory of his mother and his bond and connection to her. So it comes with great responsibility. Jeremy [Pope] really brought it into focus when, very quickly in the process, he realized that for Elegance to lead and [this film] to be semi-autobiographical, it does expose you. You are giving something that you can never take back, and that can be a very dangerous and/or extremely vulnerable position to be in. We had to protect him in that space and keep it safe for him, as actors, as a producer, as a mom, as a decent human being. As we are working through this material every day on set, he is working through things that none of us could even imagine, still, in real time. We had to make space for all of it and make space for his greatness.
You’re now in the stage of your career where you’ve taken on more producing projects. What do you enjoy about being more involved in the behind-the-scenes side of the camera?
Controlling the process. You realize that some people think that being abusive is a part of Hollywood, and it's actually not. It's actually inefficient. It's illogical. It is literally the worst thing you could do for a workday. If you want to make your day, and use your money wisely, abuse really doesn't have a place in that equation, but we've made it so normal. When I realized just from observing as talent, I was like, why wouldn't they do this and change that schedule, and why are they wasting this person's time because they're on the clock, we still gotta pay them. It started with me becoming obsessed with call sheets and making them more efficient, and then just wanting to influence the process and the entire production, and make it more enjoyable and more logical. There's so much about how Hollywood works that is not rooted in reason or logic that blows my mind. So I just wanted to change it and certainly change it for us.
I love that it's so granular that it just started with the efficiency of the set.
My level of obsession with efficiency and time is probably problematic, but my time is not wasted. If they have to choose, they're like, not that bitch. They know, don't mess with my money, don't mess with my time and don't mess with my family. Otherwise, we’re good in the hood. I'll be over here playing Words With Friends. Call me when you need me.
As for thinking of this next stage of your career as a rebirth, what projects are you looking forward to? Is there any ethos that you want to apply to choosing your projects in the future?
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. 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 in the last year and a half. If I would've listened to Sanaa 20 years ago, I would've had a completely different career. I would've tried for different projects. So now, after this and Truth Be Told, just give me a comedy. I need some chuckles and some lightheartedness. 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.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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