February 22, 2022 • 26 mins
Glory catches up with actress and author Gabrielle Union to talk about her latest book You Got Anything Stronger? In this episode, they also talk about Gabrielle’s lifelong love of reading, how some of her most iconic roles still bring her joy, and how writing and living without fear bring her closer to her best life.
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Pushkin Before we get started, let's talk about Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a subscription podcast program available on Apple Podcasts.
Members will get access to exclusive bonus content like my
weekly bookmarks, where I talk about how I got a
(00:39):
book agent and what I'm watching on TV that week.
You'll get uninterrupted listening to many of your favorite podcasts
like Revisionous History, Cautionary Tales, and The Happiness Lab. Sign
up for Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple
podcast or at pushkin dot Fm. I just want to
(01:03):
move through the world completely honest. I think when you
cling to the fake versions of yourself, you deny not
only you, you deny other people of getting to know
the real you and loving you for all the amazing
things that you actually are. Gabrielle Union is amazing. She
(01:26):
is a businesswoman and a best selling author who has
made her living in the public eye. She's an icon.
Gabrielle became a household name, which she starred in the
TV show Being Mary Jane, which is one of my favorites,
and with her star turn roles in cult films like
Bringing On and She's All That, she is unforgettable. But
(01:50):
as an author, she shows us a much more vulnerable
side than her on screen characters. Reading her work is
like having a conversation with a loving sister. Welcome to
(02:13):
well read Black Girl, the literary kickback you didn't even
know you needed. I'm your host Glory Adam. Today I'm
joined by Gabrielle Union. We chat about her lifelong love
of reading and how some of her most iconic roles
still bring her joy. In her latest memoir, You Got
(02:36):
Anything Stronger, we see how she embraced living in open
and honest life and how she's used her writing to
get closer to the person she has always wanted to be.
(03:01):
Thank you again for coming through coming on the podcast.
I'm so so happy to see you, and I really
want to talk to you about the joy of your
life and what you found brought you joy when you
were writing both of your books, the process of writing itself.
I find so much joy in a lot of joy
(03:23):
and a lot of peace. I'm finding that the older
I get, the things that softened my heart that don't
cause those jumps, you know, that roller coaster of emotion
that I used to think was fun and entertaining and
necessary in order to feel alive. I don't really require
that anymore. The parts of me that I don't post
(03:45):
on social media probably are the things that bring me
the kind of joy that people probably aren't aware of.
I know, you're always reading, you're always writing, you have
children's books, you have both of your memoirs. How are
you seeing present? Like? Well, books kind of still bring
you joy in peace. Well, the one I just finished
(04:06):
was called The Prophets. Yes, such a good book. We
got to get into the projects because over the years,
as I've been doing my own research for different projects,
I'm like, well, where where do the lgbtq I A
community magically disappear? To you know, during the Civil rights movement,
during slavery, during every major part of black history, where
(04:29):
does the lgbt QIA community go? We didn't disappear. So
to hear about the book, I was like, I gotta
get it, I gotta get it, I gotta get it.
And when it finally arrived, it was it was the
best gift I've I've ever been given. And it took
me six months to read it because I didn't want
it to end and confirmed what we all knew. Well,
(04:49):
that's the power of narrative too, because it's like it
corrects the record, right, It's like, this is why we're
so enthralled with the sixteen nineteen project and so many
other stories, because it's like, we need these stories to
correct the record and show that we had so many
more experiences that have been left out of history. So, yes,
it's fiction, but that was a reality for us that
wasn't covered, that wasn't appreciated, and now we had the
(05:10):
space to read about it and have dialogue and not
leave people out of the conversation. Now I'm yeah, one
thing that I'm really curious to hear about is your childhood.
What books kind of showed up or what stories did
you read that you still remember. My older sister had
an obscene collection of Nancy Drew mysteries, and they weren't
(05:32):
really my thing, but because I wanted to connect my
sister so badly, she was she was it for me.
I wanted to be her, so anything that she was into,
I was into. Perry Mason. Yes, me too, your sisters.
I mean, I mean as a child, it's a little odd,
but but yeah, and Nancy Drew. So I read all
(05:55):
of the Nancy Drew books. I read all anything Judy
Bloom has ever written in life. I have read My God,
I Love Judy. Yeah, those are the pages of my life,
of my childhood. That's where I felt most seen for
certain chunks of my childhood. I don't share this often,
and my mom is like rolling her eyes. I'm sure
they wanted me to skip third grade and my mom
(06:17):
was like, no, no, you know, we just moved from
Omaha to Northern California and we moved into the top,
you know, school district with the highest test scores, and
I'm sure they thought they were going to, you know,
send this new little black child into the slower track.
And I came in and they were like, she's at
a reading level that's kind of beyond. And my mom
(06:39):
was like, no, I think emotionally, she's probably not ready.
And then they asked again if I was able to
skip the fourth grade, and my mom was like, still no.
So I was just always kind of ahead and certainly
with like reading and reading comprehension and all of these things.
So my mom was like, maybe she's ready for, you know,
some more advanced subject. And it wasn't that she didn't
(07:00):
think I would understand it. I think her fear was
that I would and I would understand how are our
country treats black people and black children? And I think
she was worried about what does an eight nine year
old do with that? And then my mom took me
to a reading that Nikki Giovanni was reading poetry at
(07:21):
the Oakland Children's Museum, and she took me and I
was transfixed and transported, and then it sort of opened
up the world of black authors and people that look
like me. Who you know, who are writers? What I mean?
She was the first one I saw in, you know,
(07:41):
in the flesh. She made it it all feel possible
and real. And when you grow up in predominantly white spaces,
you think that some of the things that bring you
the most joy are really reserved for white people and
white kids, and you're like an interloper, you know, like
a voyeur, if you will. And so seeing Nikki Giovanni
(08:01):
and listening to her and listening to her cadence and
how she would turn a phrase, her syntax, I was like, yeah,
I found white people, and even just looking around and
seeing other kids in the audience that looked like me.
So it was these trips to Oakland and San Francisco
where I was able to just see other black people
(08:24):
and other black children who liked, you know, reading and
poetry and writing, and that kind of opened the door.
And then Anne Moody was the first author that blew
my world open, and Coming of Age in Mississippi was
the first kind of older kid book that I read
at I think I was in the fourth grade. It's
so wild because I'm a new mom and I'm trying
(08:44):
to figure out what to teach my son. But I
always remember I went to a conference or some kind
I can't even remember. I think it was a reading,
but Alice Walker was there, and Alice Walker said that
you need to treat young children like humans, like treat
them with enough consideration that they can understand complex things.
Did you ever write as a child too? Did you
like see Nikki Giovanni and tried to attempt to do
(09:06):
your own poems? Yes, the ones I remember are from
high school, and I found them not too long ago.
I wrote a lot of bad poetry. After Jason Kidd
NBA legend. He was one of my high school boyfriends,
and after he broke up with me three weeks before
junior prom in front of my dad and a gymnasium,
full of people. Um, it's okay, I'm a right not u.
(09:33):
But there was this poem and it was called like
You're my Crystal Sextant, and it was like you're my
Crystal sextant leading me to my fate. And then there
was one called little Boys. Little boys like to play
childish games from night to day. They think they're old,
but to their dismay their years from where her maturity
and manhood lay. What the bitterness is just dripping? Wait,
(09:57):
how old were you? He was the sixteen or seventeen? Yeah,
Oh my gosh, yeah, oh the artist and you started early.
I love that. I love that so much. Yeah, it
is a book of them. I mean I was clearly
just cranking about in my misery. The fact that you
remember it though, it left an impression, you know, it
(10:19):
left something on your heart, and I feel bad producing kids.
He should not have done that. Yeah, you've said in
your first book, We're going to need more wine, which
I loved. There were a lot of chapters that you
wrote that you weren't ready to share. Can you talk
about why it's important for you to tell the entire
story and why it's so important for folks to hear
the truth, whether your experience in Hollywood or your experience
(10:41):
with motherhood. Why is that significant for you to be
able to tell the whole story and not just pieces
of it. Yeah. I think as I evolve, and as
I get older, and as I triple down on therapy
some weeks, I just find it important for me to
be as honest as possible. If I am going to
be occupying a public space, I don't want to occupy
(11:04):
that space as a fraction of me. I don't like
to have to remember what lies I've told like, I
just want to move through the world completely honest. My
whole last self has always served me well. And I
think when you cling to the fake versions that you
have sent out of yourself, you deny not only you
(11:28):
of your own truth and peace that comes with living
your life out loud and transparently. You deny other people
of getting to know the real you and loving you
for all the amazing things that you actually are. In
both your books, you talk about like your childhood and
your experiences coming to this level of being so open.
(11:48):
How did their acting career influence your writing, Because when
you read your books, it really does feel like we
know you right was that learned somewhere or was that
something like that showed up Just because when you're acting
that has to come out on the screen didn't make
it easier to write the book. What made the book
easier to write was therapy. Unfortunately, for the good chunk
(12:10):
of my acting career, I didn't know how to access truth,
and truth didn't feel safe, and I think it reflected
in my work. And then as I embraced radical transparency,
I just got more comfortable what living out loud and
in truth feels like for me personally. So I'm like, okay,
(12:30):
if I can do it as me Gab, I can
find the truth with my character and not be afraid.
As artists, as individuals, you want people to like you.
You want your character to be likable. You have to
represent a whole race of people. You want your character
to be beyond reproach. But that kind of snatches the
(12:53):
truth of the character when you have to pander to
respectability politics. So if I couldn't find it in my
real life to feel safe enough to exist, I am
so firmly committed to assimilating to the white gaze and
white fears that I have completely lost myself. You know,
your humanity is stripped when you commit to assimilation. And
(13:13):
if I have lost myself, how the hell am I
going to find it? For a character? Right? So, the
more I have worked to free myself and unlearn, and
to stop centering white fear in all things that I
do and certainly my art, I can now truly become
an artist. As a lover of memoirs and biographies, I
(13:49):
have benefited from authors revealing themselves so that as readers,
we can see ourselves. The truth's collected in those pages,
typed out letter by letter as they were lived moment
to moment, build a community of kindred strangers. I owe
these writers a debt, and while I can never repay them,
(14:10):
and I can at least honor them by sharing my
own truths here with you, readers gather the courage to
become storytellers, and the lifeline is past person to person,
book by book. The message remains keep going. Hi, this
(14:34):
is Gabrielle Union. You are listening to well read Black Girl.
I'm Glory Adam and you're listening to well read black Girl.
That was Gabrielle Union reading from her recent memoir You
Got Anything Stronger. I'm joined by Gabrielle today. I'm really
(14:56):
curious to hear how your love of writing and just
like art pivoted over into acting. Like when did you
know what you wanted to become an actress and really
pursue that. I'm still waiting for that moment. It's just
it's because I didn't. I wasn't in drama club. It
was never a thing for me. So I got this
internship at a modeling agency, and eventually the man I
(15:17):
had been interning for he was like, well, let's just
make up a fake resume and send you in and
see how you do. So I was like, how hard
could this be? And I booked my first audition, but
it was still nothing that I thought I wanted to do.
I didn't want to give up my good job, you
know how we are, And my good job was making
six dollars and sixteen cents an hour as the book
buyback supervisor at UCLA bookstore. I thought that was going
(15:40):
to be the pathway to my career, whatever that was
going to be. But then the money the first year
I made more than my parents and they were like, listen,
I think this acting thing is going to work out.
I also need a new roof. So for a long time,
it was just something I did that was fun. I
got to work with cool people, but I didn't know
what I was doing. I mean for years and years
(16:01):
until I started taking acting glasses with a private acting coach,
and I felt like I started to understand the material
in a different kind of way. I challenged myself and
that's when when my love affair with acting really took hold.
You know, everyone knows your role and Bringing On? Did
you know it was going to be such this like
(16:22):
cultural moment where everyone would be like dressing up as
you've Ralloween and like copying your ponytail. So by the
time Bringing On came around, I had already done ten
things I had about you. She's all that love on basketball,
So they were just like, oh, she's the black of
the moment. But by that time, the movie was called
cheer Fever, and it was already set up at Universal
(16:43):
and they had arranged a table read. But from all
of those actors, the only person that ended up in
the movie was me. Cheer Fever wasn't actually the movie
I wanted. I wanted Sugar and Spice, the cheerleading robbery
movie that was positioned as the cheerleading movie to have,
and I think they were like twelve leads or something,
(17:06):
and turns out none of them could be black. So
I begrudgingly took cheer Fever. I'm like, oh, oh my gosh, Okay,
well at least it's a check. The check will clear
like whatever. So yeah, no, none of us took Bring
It On or cheer Fever because it was like, you know,
the movie that we all wanted and we could foresee
(17:26):
this legacy. And no, not at all. It was like
the movie we took because we didn't get the movies
we wanted. But then it was a big deal because
black folks came out because it looked like it was,
you know, us versus the Toros. And then people saw
it and it was like they're like in a third maybe,
and so it was a conversation and articles and whatnot,
(17:46):
and you know at the time, but then you know,
it's been twenty years. So when somebody tagged me with
it and was like, where were these scenes in the movie,
and I was like, ah, time for another story time
on TikTok, where I explained why after we finished the
movie they had cut it. They'd shown the footage to
test audiences, and the test audiences wanted more of the Clovers,
(18:09):
so they didn't want to, you know, do reshoots and
have to really truly change major plot points. But they
were like, well, we can shoot additional footage that only
lives in the trailer in the hopes that audiences would
think that the movie was more equal between the Clovers
and the Toros. But I think what the main takeaway
(18:31):
is and that you could see it easily in all
of the sequels that followed were the Hood teams were
always centered in the sequels, whereas we weren't centered in
the original because we wanted more Clovers. Hello, but clearly
everybody did. And you know it's holding to this day.
I mean from day one it was magic. Like I'm
(18:54):
still close to everyone associated with the movie. It's a
gift that keeps on giving, right right. I also love
just like the friendships you have. You've have homegirls that
you've known it's like the third grade and you know,
you guys have grown up together. Can you just talk
about the places where you found community and what those
spaces mean to you. Yeah. I've always been very lucky
(19:14):
from the beginning of my career that the black and
brown folks around me, whether they were in front of
the camera or behind the camera, We're like, oh girl, okay,
come here, come here, Okay, what you want to do
on this next take? And they just weren't interested in
watching me fail? And nowadays it seems crazy because so
many people are very interested in watching people fail. If
(19:38):
you fail, that's a space for me. If the light
goes out on you, that means it's shining brighter on me.
And that's just not what I faced. You know, Tisha
Campbell to Sheina Arnold, they have always pulled my coattails,
always put me on game. Regina King been day one,
og never been interested in watching me fail. But that's
(19:59):
what that is who my community has been. Oh I
love that. It's time for everyone's favorite segment, rapid Fire.
So rapid Fire is we just say the first thing
that comes to your mind. You should say it. Okay,
(20:21):
So the first one is a favorite children's book you'd
like to read with COFFEA Shady Baby of course, natural
um pilates or yoga pilates, Maya Moore or Cannie Parker.
Come on, I mean that's I gotta go with Cannas.
That's my girl, do you prefer red or white wine?
(20:41):
And why I prefer white Shannon Blanc It's my favorite.
D Wade Sellers has an amazing Shannon Blanc available. It's
legit actually now available everywhere. But um, yeah, I love
Shannon Blanc. Is my favorite favorite versus battle so far.
I'm gonna go with Miss Patty and miss um Miss Gladys.
(21:02):
Oh yeah, that was a good one. Um. Even though
I felt like it wasn't a bad a battle, I
just thought they were just like it's a kid. Yeah,
that was a love supiciite? Okay, So either best friend
or back to the streets. Oh yeah, my best friend. Yes,
of course, best friend. And that's our rapid fire. Boom
(21:22):
boom bah. Thank you, thank you, thank you, And I'm
glad that they gave me extra time because I could
literally talk about books all day long and I don't
get the opportunity to talk about books that often, So
thank you for allowing me to talk about books and
writing and reading. Gabriel Union has continued to have strong
(21:45):
friendships and fostered a community of fans that support her
whole self. Thinking back on Gabrielle's love of reading growing up,
I'm happy to see her work join the ranks of
her heroes, giving that same comfort to her readers. I'm
hoping that this is only the beginning of more stories
for Gabrielle to share. After the break, we'll get some
(22:10):
book recommendations from one of my favorite bookstores in Los Angeles.
Every few episodes, I'll check in with one of my
(22:30):
favorite bookstores to see what they're reading and what their
staff recommendations are. With Gabrielle Union on the West Coast,
I thought it'd be great for you to hear from
the LA based shop Reparations Club. My name is Jazzie
mcgilbert and I'm the founder and owner of Reparations Club
in Los Angeles. My mom worked a lot. She was
(22:52):
always at work, and she worked on the Third Street
promenade in Santa Monica, which had a big Barnes and Noble,
and so I would go there and while she finished
the work day after she'd picked me up from school,
the library bookstores. That's where we hung out. But we
never talked about opening a bookstore. I don't think I
had any moles of even business ownership in my life,
(23:13):
so not something I thought was an option for me.
In life, but she'd actually didn't know that I was
doing that or even had that idea at all. Sitting
on my bed right now is didn't we almost have
it all? Which I have been devouring. I am a
Whitney Houston stand and this is a biography written by
(23:35):
Garrett Kennedy about Whitney Houston's life and legacy. And it's
also in some ways a memoir of Garret's life too,
which I think is a really cool way to tell
that story. But how Whitney has impacted us all and
so I'm really obsessed with it. Hi, my name is Kayla.
In a new book i'd like to recommend is Dear
Sendern by a Quake a Messy because it is, hands down,
(23:57):
in my opinion, the most captivating and creative approach to
a memoir. I definitely urge everyone to read this memoir
if you're anything like me and I guess constantly exploring
the more heavier, darker narratives. Hi, my name is Temika
and the book I'd like to recommend is called Wild
(24:19):
Rain by Beverly Jenkins. It's a historical romance. It's so
historically accurate and write smack in the middle of it
is a beautiful love story and I am obsessed. So
she's a master. You heard it here first. Listen to
more of these conversations now on our bookmark series exclusively
on Pushkin Plus. We can all learn something from Gabrielle's journey.
(24:47):
I mean, Gabrielle Union moves through the world with such honesty.
She encourages her readers to take risks, make mistakes, and
most importantly, support each other. Be sure to get a
copy of You Got Anything Stronger if you haven't yet.
In the next episode, I'll be speaking with Brooklyn based
author and culture critic Zeeba Play Well Read. Black Girl
(25:23):
is a production of Pushkin Industries. It is written and
hosted by me Glory Dam and produced by Cher Vincent
and Brittany Brown. Our associate editor is Keishall Williams. Our
engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias.
Our executive producers are Miya Loebell and Leet Hall Molad.
(25:46):
At Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel,
Julia Barton, Jen Goerra, John Schnars, and Jacob Wiseberg. You
can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Well read
black Girl. You can find pushkin and all social media
platforms at pushkin Pods, and you can sign up for
(26:07):
our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm. If you love this
show and others from Pushkin industry, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
and uninterrupted listening for four ninety nine a month. Look
for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you're
(26:28):
already a subscriber, make sure to check out my exclusive
Bookmark series on Pushkin Plus. Starting on February eighteenth. You'll
hear extended interviews with book club members, bookstore owners, and more.
And do you get to hear What's on my mind,
What's on my radar, and of course what's on my
reading list? Each week. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen
(26:51):
on iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
Pushkin Before we get started, let's talk about Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a subscription podcast program available on Apple Podcasts.
Members will get access to exclusive bonus content like my
weekly bookmarks, where I talk about how I got a
(00:39):
book agent and what I'm watching on TV that week.
You'll get uninterrupted listening to many of your favorite podcasts
like Revisionous History, Cautionary Tales, and The Happiness Lab. Sign
up for Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple
podcast or at pushkin dot Fm. I just want to
(01:03):
move through the world completely honest. I think when you
cling to the fake versions of yourself, you deny not
only you, you deny other people of getting to know
the real you and loving you for all the amazing
things that you actually are. Gabrielle Union is amazing. She
(01:26):
is a businesswoman and a best selling author who has
made her living in the public eye. She's an icon.
Gabrielle became a household name, which she starred in the
TV show Being Mary Jane, which is one of my favorites,
and with her star turn roles in cult films like
Bringing On and She's All That, she is unforgettable. But
(01:50):
as an author, she shows us a much more vulnerable
side than her on screen characters. Reading her work is
like having a conversation with a loving sister. Welcome to
(02:13):
well read Black Girl, the literary kickback you didn't even
know you needed. I'm your host Glory Adam. Today I'm
joined by Gabrielle Union. We chat about her lifelong love
of reading and how some of her most iconic roles
still bring her joy. In her latest memoir, You Got
(02:36):
Anything Stronger, we see how she embraced living in open
and honest life and how she's used her writing to
get closer to the person she has always wanted to be.
(03:01):
Thank you again for coming through coming on the podcast.
I'm so so happy to see you, and I really
want to talk to you about the joy of your
life and what you found brought you joy when you
were writing both of your books, the process of writing itself.
I find so much joy in a lot of joy
(03:23):
and a lot of peace. I'm finding that the older
I get, the things that softened my heart that don't
cause those jumps, you know, that roller coaster of emotion
that I used to think was fun and entertaining and
necessary in order to feel alive. I don't really require
that anymore. The parts of me that I don't post
(03:45):
on social media probably are the things that bring me
the kind of joy that people probably aren't aware of.
I know, you're always reading, you're always writing, you have
children's books, you have both of your memoirs. How are
you seeing present? Like? Well, books kind of still bring
you joy in peace. Well, the one I just finished
(04:06):
was called The Prophets. Yes, such a good book. We
got to get into the projects because over the years,
as I've been doing my own research for different projects,
I'm like, well, where where do the lgbtq I A
community magically disappear? To you know, during the Civil rights movement,
during slavery, during every major part of black history, where
(04:29):
does the lgbt QIA community go? We didn't disappear. So
to hear about the book, I was like, I gotta
get it, I gotta get it, I gotta get it.
And when it finally arrived, it was it was the
best gift I've I've ever been given. And it took
me six months to read it because I didn't want
it to end and confirmed what we all knew. Well,
(04:49):
that's the power of narrative too, because it's like it
corrects the record, right, It's like, this is why we're
so enthralled with the sixteen nineteen project and so many
other stories, because it's like, we need these stories to
correct the record and show that we had so many
more experiences that have been left out of history. So, yes,
it's fiction, but that was a reality for us that
wasn't covered, that wasn't appreciated, and now we had the
(05:10):
space to read about it and have dialogue and not
leave people out of the conversation. Now I'm yeah, one
thing that I'm really curious to hear about is your childhood.
What books kind of showed up or what stories did
you read that you still remember. My older sister had
an obscene collection of Nancy Drew mysteries, and they weren't
(05:32):
really my thing, but because I wanted to connect my
sister so badly, she was she was it for me.
I wanted to be her, so anything that she was into,
I was into. Perry Mason. Yes, me too, your sisters.
I mean, I mean as a child, it's a little odd,
but but yeah, and Nancy Drew. So I read all
(05:55):
of the Nancy Drew books. I read all anything Judy
Bloom has ever written in life. I have read My God,
I Love Judy. Yeah, those are the pages of my life,
of my childhood. That's where I felt most seen for
certain chunks of my childhood. I don't share this often,
and my mom is like rolling her eyes. I'm sure
they wanted me to skip third grade and my mom
(06:17):
was like, no, no, you know, we just moved from
Omaha to Northern California and we moved into the top,
you know, school district with the highest test scores, and
I'm sure they thought they were going to, you know,
send this new little black child into the slower track.
And I came in and they were like, she's at
a reading level that's kind of beyond. And my mom
(06:39):
was like, no, I think emotionally, she's probably not ready.
And then they asked again if I was able to
skip the fourth grade, and my mom was like, still no.
So I was just always kind of ahead and certainly
with like reading and reading comprehension and all of these things.
So my mom was like, maybe she's ready for, you know,
some more advanced subject. And it wasn't that she didn't
(07:00):
think I would understand it. I think her fear was
that I would and I would understand how are our
country treats black people and black children? And I think
she was worried about what does an eight nine year
old do with that? And then my mom took me
to a reading that Nikki Giovanni was reading poetry at
(07:21):
the Oakland Children's Museum, and she took me and I
was transfixed and transported, and then it sort of opened
up the world of black authors and people that look
like me. Who you know, who are writers? What I mean?
She was the first one I saw in, you know,
(07:41):
in the flesh. She made it it all feel possible
and real. And when you grow up in predominantly white spaces,
you think that some of the things that bring you
the most joy are really reserved for white people and
white kids, and you're like an interloper, you know, like
a voyeur, if you will. And so seeing Nikki Giovanni
(08:01):
and listening to her and listening to her cadence and
how she would turn a phrase, her syntax, I was like, yeah,
I found white people, and even just looking around and
seeing other kids in the audience that looked like me.
So it was these trips to Oakland and San Francisco
where I was able to just see other black people
(08:24):
and other black children who liked, you know, reading and
poetry and writing, and that kind of opened the door.
And then Anne Moody was the first author that blew
my world open, and Coming of Age in Mississippi was
the first kind of older kid book that I read
at I think I was in the fourth grade. It's
so wild because I'm a new mom and I'm trying
(08:44):
to figure out what to teach my son. But I
always remember I went to a conference or some kind
I can't even remember. I think it was a reading,
but Alice Walker was there, and Alice Walker said that
you need to treat young children like humans, like treat
them with enough consideration that they can understand complex things.
Did you ever write as a child too? Did you
like see Nikki Giovanni and tried to attempt to do
(09:06):
your own poems? Yes, the ones I remember are from
high school, and I found them not too long ago.
I wrote a lot of bad poetry. After Jason Kidd
NBA legend. He was one of my high school boyfriends,
and after he broke up with me three weeks before
junior prom in front of my dad and a gymnasium,
full of people. Um, it's okay, I'm a right not u.
(09:33):
But there was this poem and it was called like
You're my Crystal Sextant, and it was like you're my
Crystal sextant leading me to my fate. And then there
was one called little Boys. Little boys like to play
childish games from night to day. They think they're old,
but to their dismay their years from where her maturity
and manhood lay. What the bitterness is just dripping? Wait,
(09:57):
how old were you? He was the sixteen or seventeen? Yeah,
Oh my gosh, yeah, oh the artist and you started early.
I love that. I love that so much. Yeah, it
is a book of them. I mean I was clearly
just cranking about in my misery. The fact that you
remember it though, it left an impression, you know, it
(10:19):
left something on your heart, and I feel bad producing kids.
He should not have done that. Yeah, you've said in
your first book, We're going to need more wine, which
I loved. There were a lot of chapters that you
wrote that you weren't ready to share. Can you talk
about why it's important for you to tell the entire
story and why it's so important for folks to hear
the truth, whether your experience in Hollywood or your experience
(10:41):
with motherhood. Why is that significant for you to be
able to tell the whole story and not just pieces
of it. Yeah. I think as I evolve, and as
I get older, and as I triple down on therapy
some weeks, I just find it important for me to
be as honest as possible. If I am going to
be occupying a public space, I don't want to occupy
(11:04):
that space as a fraction of me. I don't like
to have to remember what lies I've told like, I
just want to move through the world completely honest. My
whole last self has always served me well. And I
think when you cling to the fake versions that you
have sent out of yourself, you deny not only you
(11:28):
of your own truth and peace that comes with living
your life out loud and transparently. You deny other people
of getting to know the real you and loving you
for all the amazing things that you actually are. In
both your books, you talk about like your childhood and
your experiences coming to this level of being so open.
(11:48):
How did their acting career influence your writing, Because when
you read your books, it really does feel like we
know you right was that learned somewhere or was that
something like that showed up Just because when you're acting
that has to come out on the screen didn't make
it easier to write the book. What made the book
easier to write was therapy. Unfortunately, for the good chunk
(12:10):
of my acting career, I didn't know how to access truth,
and truth didn't feel safe, and I think it reflected
in my work. And then as I embraced radical transparency,
I just got more comfortable what living out loud and
in truth feels like for me personally. So I'm like, okay,
(12:30):
if I can do it as me Gab, I can
find the truth with my character and not be afraid.
As artists, as individuals, you want people to like you.
You want your character to be likable. You have to
represent a whole race of people. You want your character
to be beyond reproach. But that kind of snatches the
(12:53):
truth of the character when you have to pander to
respectability politics. So if I couldn't find it in my
real life to feel safe enough to exist, I am
so firmly committed to assimilating to the white gaze and
white fears that I have completely lost myself. You know,
your humanity is stripped when you commit to assimilation. And
(13:13):
if I have lost myself, how the hell am I
going to find it? For a character? Right? So, the
more I have worked to free myself and unlearn, and
to stop centering white fear in all things that I
do and certainly my art, I can now truly become
an artist. As a lover of memoirs and biographies, I
(13:49):
have benefited from authors revealing themselves so that as readers,
we can see ourselves. The truth's collected in those pages,
typed out letter by letter as they were lived moment
to moment, build a community of kindred strangers. I owe
these writers a debt, and while I can never repay them,
(14:10):
and I can at least honor them by sharing my
own truths here with you, readers gather the courage to
become storytellers, and the lifeline is past person to person,
book by book. The message remains keep going. Hi, this
(14:34):
is Gabrielle Union. You are listening to well read Black Girl.
I'm Glory Adam and you're listening to well read black Girl.
That was Gabrielle Union reading from her recent memoir You
Got Anything Stronger. I'm joined by Gabrielle today. I'm really
(14:56):
curious to hear how your love of writing and just
like art pivoted over into acting. Like when did you
know what you wanted to become an actress and really
pursue that. I'm still waiting for that moment. It's just
it's because I didn't. I wasn't in drama club. It
was never a thing for me. So I got this
internship at a modeling agency, and eventually the man I
(15:17):
had been interning for he was like, well, let's just
make up a fake resume and send you in and
see how you do. So I was like, how hard
could this be? And I booked my first audition, but
it was still nothing that I thought I wanted to do.
I didn't want to give up my good job, you
know how we are, And my good job was making
six dollars and sixteen cents an hour as the book
buyback supervisor at UCLA bookstore. I thought that was going
(15:40):
to be the pathway to my career, whatever that was
going to be. But then the money the first year
I made more than my parents and they were like, listen,
I think this acting thing is going to work out.
I also need a new roof. So for a long time,
it was just something I did that was fun. I
got to work with cool people, but I didn't know
what I was doing. I mean for years and years
(16:01):
until I started taking acting glasses with a private acting coach,
and I felt like I started to understand the material
in a different kind of way. I challenged myself and
that's when when my love affair with acting really took hold.
You know, everyone knows your role and Bringing On? Did
you know it was going to be such this like
(16:22):
cultural moment where everyone would be like dressing up as
you've Ralloween and like copying your ponytail. So by the
time Bringing On came around, I had already done ten
things I had about you. She's all that love on basketball,
So they were just like, oh, she's the black of
the moment. But by that time, the movie was called
cheer Fever, and it was already set up at Universal
(16:43):
and they had arranged a table read. But from all
of those actors, the only person that ended up in
the movie was me. Cheer Fever wasn't actually the movie
I wanted. I wanted Sugar and Spice, the cheerleading robbery
movie that was positioned as the cheerleading movie to have,
and I think they were like twelve leads or something,
(17:06):
and turns out none of them could be black. So
I begrudgingly took cheer Fever. I'm like, oh, oh my gosh, Okay,
well at least it's a check. The check will clear
like whatever. So yeah, no, none of us took Bring
It On or cheer Fever because it was like, you know,
the movie that we all wanted and we could foresee
(17:26):
this legacy. And no, not at all. It was like
the movie we took because we didn't get the movies
we wanted. But then it was a big deal because
black folks came out because it looked like it was,
you know, us versus the Toros. And then people saw
it and it was like they're like in a third maybe,
and so it was a conversation and articles and whatnot,
(17:46):
and you know at the time, but then you know,
it's been twenty years. So when somebody tagged me with
it and was like, where were these scenes in the movie,
and I was like, ah, time for another story time
on TikTok, where I explained why after we finished the
movie they had cut it. They'd shown the footage to
test audiences, and the test audiences wanted more of the Clovers,
(18:09):
so they didn't want to, you know, do reshoots and
have to really truly change major plot points. But they
were like, well, we can shoot additional footage that only
lives in the trailer in the hopes that audiences would
think that the movie was more equal between the Clovers
and the Toros. But I think what the main takeaway
(18:31):
is and that you could see it easily in all
of the sequels that followed were the Hood teams were
always centered in the sequels, whereas we weren't centered in
the original because we wanted more Clovers. Hello, but clearly
everybody did. And you know it's holding to this day.
I mean from day one it was magic. Like I'm
(18:54):
still close to everyone associated with the movie. It's a
gift that keeps on giving, right right. I also love
just like the friendships you have. You've have homegirls that
you've known it's like the third grade and you know,
you guys have grown up together. Can you just talk
about the places where you found community and what those
spaces mean to you. Yeah. I've always been very lucky
(19:14):
from the beginning of my career that the black and
brown folks around me, whether they were in front of
the camera or behind the camera, We're like, oh girl, okay,
come here, come here, Okay, what you want to do
on this next take? And they just weren't interested in
watching me fail? And nowadays it seems crazy because so
many people are very interested in watching people fail. If
(19:38):
you fail, that's a space for me. If the light
goes out on you, that means it's shining brighter on me.
And that's just not what I faced. You know, Tisha
Campbell to Sheina Arnold, they have always pulled my coattails,
always put me on game. Regina King been day one,
og never been interested in watching me fail. But that's
(19:59):
what that is who my community has been. Oh I
love that. It's time for everyone's favorite segment, rapid Fire.
So rapid Fire is we just say the first thing
that comes to your mind. You should say it. Okay,
(20:21):
So the first one is a favorite children's book you'd
like to read with COFFEA Shady Baby of course, natural
um pilates or yoga pilates, Maya Moore or Cannie Parker.
Come on, I mean that's I gotta go with Cannas.
That's my girl, do you prefer red or white wine?
(20:41):
And why I prefer white Shannon Blanc It's my favorite.
D Wade Sellers has an amazing Shannon Blanc available. It's
legit actually now available everywhere. But um, yeah, I love
Shannon Blanc. Is my favorite favorite versus battle so far.
I'm gonna go with Miss Patty and miss um Miss Gladys.
(21:02):
Oh yeah, that was a good one. Um. Even though
I felt like it wasn't a bad a battle, I
just thought they were just like it's a kid. Yeah,
that was a love supiciite? Okay, So either best friend
or back to the streets. Oh yeah, my best friend. Yes,
of course, best friend. And that's our rapid fire. Boom
(21:22):
boom bah. Thank you, thank you, thank you, And I'm
glad that they gave me extra time because I could
literally talk about books all day long and I don't
get the opportunity to talk about books that often, So
thank you for allowing me to talk about books and
writing and reading. Gabriel Union has continued to have strong
(21:45):
friendships and fostered a community of fans that support her
whole self. Thinking back on Gabrielle's love of reading growing up,
I'm happy to see her work join the ranks of
her heroes, giving that same comfort to her readers. I'm
hoping that this is only the beginning of more stories
for Gabrielle to share. After the break, we'll get some
(22:10):
book recommendations from one of my favorite bookstores in Los Angeles.
Every few episodes, I'll check in with one of my
(22:30):
favorite bookstores to see what they're reading and what their
staff recommendations are. With Gabrielle Union on the West Coast,
I thought it'd be great for you to hear from
the LA based shop Reparations Club. My name is Jazzie
mcgilbert and I'm the founder and owner of Reparations Club
in Los Angeles. My mom worked a lot. She was
(22:52):
always at work, and she worked on the Third Street
promenade in Santa Monica, which had a big Barnes and Noble,
and so I would go there and while she finished
the work day after she'd picked me up from school,
the library bookstores. That's where we hung out. But we
never talked about opening a bookstore. I don't think I
had any moles of even business ownership in my life,
(23:13):
so not something I thought was an option for me.
In life, but she'd actually didn't know that I was
doing that or even had that idea at all. Sitting
on my bed right now is didn't we almost have
it all? Which I have been devouring. I am a
Whitney Houston stand and this is a biography written by
(23:35):
Garrett Kennedy about Whitney Houston's life and legacy. And it's
also in some ways a memoir of Garret's life too,
which I think is a really cool way to tell
that story. But how Whitney has impacted us all and
so I'm really obsessed with it. Hi, my name is Kayla.
In a new book i'd like to recommend is Dear
Sendern by a Quake a Messy because it is, hands down,
(23:57):
in my opinion, the most captivating and creative approach to
a memoir. I definitely urge everyone to read this memoir
if you're anything like me and I guess constantly exploring
the more heavier, darker narratives. Hi, my name is Temika
and the book I'd like to recommend is called Wild
(24:19):
Rain by Beverly Jenkins. It's a historical romance. It's so
historically accurate and write smack in the middle of it
is a beautiful love story and I am obsessed. So
she's a master. You heard it here first. Listen to
more of these conversations now on our bookmark series exclusively
on Pushkin Plus. We can all learn something from Gabrielle's journey.
(24:47):
I mean, Gabrielle Union moves through the world with such honesty.
She encourages her readers to take risks, make mistakes, and
most importantly, support each other. Be sure to get a
copy of You Got Anything Stronger if you haven't yet.
In the next episode, I'll be speaking with Brooklyn based
author and culture critic Zeeba Play Well Read. Black Girl
(25:23):
is a production of Pushkin Industries. It is written and
hosted by me Glory Dam and produced by Cher Vincent
and Brittany Brown. Our associate editor is Keishall Williams. Our
engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias.
Our executive producers are Miya Loebell and Leet Hall Molad.
(25:46):
At Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel,
Julia Barton, Jen Goerra, John Schnars, and Jacob Wiseberg. You
can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Well read
black Girl. You can find pushkin and all social media
platforms at pushkin Pods, and you can sign up for
(26:07):
our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm. If you love this
show and others from Pushkin industry, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
and uninterrupted listening for four ninety nine a month. Look
for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you're
(26:28):
already a subscriber, make sure to check out my exclusive
Bookmark series on Pushkin Plus. Starting on February eighteenth. You'll
hear extended interviews with book club members, bookstore owners, and more.
And do you get to hear What's on my mind,
What's on my radar, and of course what's on my
reading list? Each week. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen
(26:51):
on iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
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