In Reunited, Awards Insider hosts a conversation between two Oscar contenders who have collaborated on a previous project. Today, we speak with the Inspection star Gabrielle Union and director of The Woman King, Gina Prince-Bythewood. They previously worked together on 2000’s Love & Basketball.

When Gabrielle Union first auditioned for Love & Basketball, it was for the lead part of Monica Wright, the aspiring basketball player who falls in love with her neighbor Quincy, played by Omar Epps. That role eventually went to Sanaa Lathan, and Union was cast as Shawnee, another love interest in the film. 

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But Union still formed a bond with director Gina Prince-Bythewood, and for both of them the 2000 romantic drama remains a significant milestone in their careers. So when we bring them together over Zoom to reminisce, they quickly pull up stories about Union’s audition, as well as some of the tension on set. 

They also realize that the work they’ve released this year—Union’s powerful performance as a mother who can’t accept her gay son in The Inspection, and Prince-Bythewood’s epic, historical action film The Woman King*—*pushed them to new heights. For Union, it’s the type of gritty, dramatic work that she herself didn’t even know she was capable of; for Prince-Bythewood it’s the large-scale action movie about Black women that she’d always dreamed of making. Together, they discuss their journeys to this point, and the industry hurdles they had to overcome to get there.

Vanity Fair: What do you remember about the first time you met?

Gabrielle Union: It was one of my first auditions for a movie, period. At that point I had done 10 Things and She's All That. But then it wasn't like I had a ton of auditions in between. I think I auditioned for each once and that was it, I got it. And I remember walking in and I had my North Carolina basketball shorts, and I felt like, “Oh, athlete to athlete, she's going to get it, she's going to get me.” And it felt very quick. You were like, "I don't think you're right for this, but there's another role that I think you're perfect for. The sides are out in the lobby, take as long as you need. So I'm like in my basketball shorts, in my little sporty outfit and I'm like, "Oh she's a hoe. The character you see for me is a hoe!”

Gina Prince-Bythewood: It's so interesting because even though I think we briefly talked about it, I didn't really realize that you were an “athlete athlete” until a couple years later. And it's not even like, “Oh I see a hoe.” It was like, “I see talent and I want you in it, what is another way I can get you in the film?” I think because I had known it was going to be Sanaa at that point because she had done the Sundance reading but she hadn't played ball, so I was still keeping it open a little bit.

Union: It was also the first time I'd ever read for a Black woman. And I don't think it happened again for a long, long time. Black casting people, but not a director.

Prince-Bythewood: I don't know why I'm acting surprised because yeah, certainly back then,  it's been a desert for a very long time.

Union: And you felt young, you felt like a contemporary. I liked that you were in charge but you were like my age.

When you look back on it now, how did Love & Basketball affect or influence your career trajectories? 

Prince-Bythewood: Absolutely set the tone for my career. I think it is so important for your first film to do that, to reflect who you are, say who you are, introduce yourself. Which is why I'm so glad it was Love & Basketball and not something I had almost done. I was getting advice to do anything you can to get into the door, even if it doesn't reflect you or even your values. There's a bit of—not desperation, but you're trying so hard, how do you crack it, how do you get in? But I’m really glad that I did not follow that advice. 

Union: For whatever reason I was doing movies in clusters. The summer before it was 10 Things and She's All That, and then that summer was Love & Basketball and Bring It On. When I think about my career in totality, these two movies that are always talked about whether people are dressing up as my character from Bring It On or they're asking me about Love & Basketball because they believe I live it to this day, living with this athlete [husband Dwyane Wade]. 

I made lifelong friends, real friends. And it's funny because Sanaa didn't talk to me during the filming and then the next summer, we were both working in Miami, I was doing Bad Boys II and she was doing Out of Time. I saw her and I was like, “she gave me dust on this movie, I'm giving her dust.” But we sat in that lobby and talked it all out and she talked about her process and everything that was happening at the time. 

You two didn't get along during filming?

Union: No. I'm like the puppy dog, like, “Want to be my friend?”And she was like, “No bitch, I don't.” When we'd have scenes together, she kind of kept it in character. But her and Omar [Epps] were a real life couple and so Omar didn't really mess with Boris [Kodjoe] like that and Sanaa didn't really mess with me like that. Even though I'm like, “I screw athletes,” she didn't get that. So I have to take space. She learns later, but she just was giving me dust. 

Prince-Bythewood: I will give her a little break in that it was really hard on her and I was hard on her. Not ever in a disrespectful manner, but because she had never played ball before. I knew she had the acting chops, but that was my big fear. There was a lot of pressure that I put on her and I did learn a little bit from that experience.

I want to jump to your current projects, The Inspection and The Woman King. What made you say yes? Why did you know that this was a story you wanted to be a part of? 

Union: I chose it because I live it, and I was running out of ways of trying to connect with other parents and to show them that there's other ways of loving your children that don't cause trauma and harm and dysfunction. They first approached me as a producer and I was like, "Okay, I see where I can be additive as a producer." And [director] Elegance [Bratton] was like, “I also want you to play my mom.” And I just had gotten it in my head that I wasn't good enough to play those kinds of roles. As a producer I'm thinking I have my own cast list and I wasn't on it. He just had a freakish amount of confidence in me. He said, “We've known you could do this all along.” I knew what he meant: Black people have seen that I have more range than others perhaps. He just had such a confidence in me that it became contagious. 

Prince-Bythewood: God, there's so much to talk about, but starting with that you didn't have you on your own list, even though your connection to the story! And I love that he saw you for that and sometimes that is a reality and this industry can do it to you as well.

It was heartbreaking, it was hard to watch, but in the best way. And it made me think, I'm not in that situation, but I have two boys, it just made me think about me as a mother. When your child is born you have all these dreams for them, but they're their own person and some of us can't break out of that. 

Union: We got greenlit on Valentine's Day 2020 and his mom died on February 18, four days later. Grief is a motherfucker and it can change everything. Grief may want you to soften edges that were pointy as hell or make somebody more prickly than they actually were. And is your child the most reliable narrator through the grief? The death of a parent where you still had hope, that hope everlasting, where it runs into a brick wall and you're feeling it from this child who's also the director. And I'm feeling it as a mother of a child who is sitting in the same situation. And it was a lot to hold at the same time. But when we got through that scene in the hallway, we were just all hugging each other and bawling and crying, 

Right after Love & Basketball, maybe the summer after, I called Sanaa from New York and shit was just kind of going left. Of course, when your career is going in one direction, there's people who are like “she doesn't deserve it.” And I was upset and trying to figure out what my next thing was and almost trying to shrink myself so I could be more likable. And she said, “baby, if it doesn't scare you, it's not worth doing.” And that never made any sense until that moment in the hallway, and I called her when I got in the car and I was just bawling and I was like, “I fucking get it.” I've denied myself this for 20-plus years because I didn't think I was worthy of that. Well, can't put the genie back in the bottle, so what's next?

Prince-Bythewood: That's amazing that even as long as we've been in the industry, we can keep growing. I literally had that conversation with some of the actors on Woman King. I truly believe the day I'm not scared is a day there's something wrong. Because then I'm either complacent or my ego has gotten to a point where I don't think I have to do the things that I've done to get to this position. That would scare the shit out of me to not be scared because that fear of failure drives me and drives my work ethic and guides my choices as well.

What scared you about Woman King when you were starting out?

Prince-Bythewood: Oh, it's certainly the biggest film of my career. After Old Guard, I knew how to do the action, I knew how to tell the story, but this is the film I've wanted to make my whole career — a historical epic with us. And not only us, but black women at the heart of it. I knew what it meant and it's Viola Davis and I also knew that if I fuck this up, we're not going to get another one because that's what our industry is.

Union: I think for a lot of us, the movie felt very personal. It felt almost like a validation of our strength. That scene where she talks about rape, it just ripped my heart out and it was so brilliantly and beautifully done but not overcooked. And as an audience member who — I've lived it — it was just beautifully done and you had your stamp on it and I was so proud. 

Prince-Bythewood: It's my favorite part as a director to see great performances and know what you guys are pulling from. That's why I have so much respect for actors. And I don't know that people often respect what you guys do, where you need to go, sometimes the dark places, to give us truth. And you have to respect it and you have to create a space safe enough for you guys to give us that. And the way that you said you were crying at the end of that end scene, because it's real, you're literally pulling from a real place. It's an amazing thing to witness and to feel.

Gabrielle, you were saying that the genie is out of the bottle. Now that you've done this role, how is it affecting what you're looking for next?

Union: I think the cap is off. I'm reading everything. Whereas before I'm like, “How much? No.” I get to share the responsibility by having a spouse who makes decent money. But according to my prenup, I have three separate households that I am personally responsible for. So unfortunately I think for a lot of minority talent, when one person makes it, that one person makes it for everybody. And so you then are motivated by money because you’ve got to cover a lot of mouths. So hopefully most of my extended family are in positions where I can be a little bit more selective, I can take more chances, I can crash and burn dramatically and I can live to fight another day and not be paranoid that I'll never work again and I will have no way of supporting all these people. I'm reading everything, but all of a sudden I'm 50 and I'm being treated like an ingenue. I'm like, "Huh, okay." So I'm open. 

Prince-Bythewood: I just want to ask: given this performance and given the chatter about you, do you feel like this was always in you, but either the industry or yourself was not giving you the opportunity? Or is this surprising, even to you?

Union: It doesn't surprise me. I guess it's more of, I put myself in a gilded cage. Well I should say the industry put me in a cage when they were like, “You make money and you specifically make money with black people.” And we're going to keep you there, and then I was like, bet. And I locked it from the inside and tossed the key out. I have just stayed in the cage. And I think after a while you forget what you are capable of. D[wayne] would be like, “Can you come rebound for me?” And I'm in the gym, looking at the banners, all his accolades. And I was like, “Whatever.” And I start putting up a couple shots, and you realize, like, “Oh shit, I haven't done it, but it doesn't mean I can't do it. I still got it.” I just put it away for whatever reason, and now I'm just dusting everything off and bringing out all my toys. I could do literally anything. I'd at least like the opportunity to try.