Ahead of the UK debut of their new action series L.A.’s Finest, Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba tell Nicole Vassell about the triumphs of leading a programme as women of colour, as well as sharing the screen with a fellow top-name star
Hollywood loves nothing more than a combination of A-List stars, and the revamp of a familiar classic – and in this era of revisiting successful franchises, the cultural atmosphere feels ripe for a reminder of the much-loved Bad Boys vehicle.
So, in essence, it’s back – however, instead of being fronted by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as in the 1995 original and its 2003 sequel, 2019’s contribution to the Bad Boys universe is L.A.’s Finest. With the action transferred from Miami to the West Coast, it’s a ship steered by Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba, who play a detective duo intent on bringing the baddies of Los Angeles to justice. Union reprises her role as Detective Sydney Burnett from Bad Boys II, while Alba’s character, Detective Nancy McKenna, is a fresh invention for the series.
On the day of our interview, the teenager as well as the current day twenty-something in me is giddy – having grown up rewatching Honey, Alba’s 2003 dance-romance film, and countless numbers of Union’s films in the Black Hollywood canon and otherwise, the opportunity to speak with them is one that I’d looked forward to immensely for weeks prior.
And as they enter the London hotel room, where the interview is taking place, it is clear that every journalist present is enchanted by their true star power. In how they carry themselves, and the manner by which they introduce themselves, you can just tell that this is far from their first time at the press trip rodeo. For actors of this stature, it’d take a lot to not only give your time and energy over to a new project, but to be willing to share the spotlight with someone else – but for Union, the opportunity to delve back into the role of Sydney, and not only give her more to do, but bring in another woman of colour at her side, was too good to give up.
‘On paper, Syd sounded like the biggest badass, but she kinda got the short end of the stick,’ Union begins. ‘All we knew was that she was Marcus’ little sister, she’s Mike Lowrey’s lover – she’s somehow capable enough to get a job at the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration], but not that capable because her brother and her lover had to save her. At the end, she kisses Mike, and then poof. I thought she deserved more and better – so I wanted to create a mythology that is in the Bad Boys universe, but separate, and partner her with an equally badass, mysterious woman and allow them to save themselves. A lot of people were like, “Syd was such an iconic character,” and I was like, “I didn’t really get to do that much!” And I wanna do more.’
Union often plays gutsy characters with plenty of bark and bite: from 2013 up until its finale earlier this year, she played the title role in BET drama series Being Mary Jane, in which news anchor Mary Jane Paul had to balance a demanding career with a tumultuous love life and family commitments, often resulting in her having to make difficult choices. In this show, Union is firmly in a role that suits her: Sydney is tough and headstrong, making a cohesive balance with Alba’s Nancy McKenna, the more ‘by-the-book’ half of the duo.
With Union in an executive producing role, and Alba also having plenty of say over the form of the show, they’ve been able to put their own elements and ‘swag’ into the roles: Nancy is a stepmother to a teenage daughter, in a nod to Union’s own life: ‘It’s a wink to me being a stepmom to teenage boys, and what that dance looks like, and trying to wrestle back the narrative of how step-parenting can be,’ she explains. Her co-parenting of husband Dwyane Wade’s biological sons Zion, Zaire and Xavier, and Wade’s nephew Dahveon, has been a topic of pride of Union’s throughout their ten-year relationship. After welcoming their first child together, daughter (and new social media sensation) Kaavia in November 2018 via surrogate, Union has been sharing even more snippets of family life with fans online – and according to her, an added perk of working with someone who knows the entertainment business as deeply as she does is the mutual understanding of how important it is to make the most of your time on set.
‘It’s nice having a partner who has a full life,’ she explains. ‘Someone who’s been in the industry, who has had tremendous success, who has a family that she actually likes to see! Often times I’ll joke on set and say, “If anyone does not want to go home and see their family, please raise your hand, because you’re standing in the way of progress” – because a lot of people screw around; they don’t want to go home, they don’t have anything else. And a lot of productions approach talent like: “I own you. You have no time, your time is my time and I’ll use your time however I feel.” Having a partner that gets it, who is not competitive or jealous in a weird way; who likes to have fun and create dope, fun art in an efficient way… hell yeah!’
Alba, who has been smiling throughout her partner’s answer, agrees. A mother of three children (with husband Cash Warren), and an entrepreneur in her own right, she founded The Honest Company, an ethically-minded brand that was valued at $1.5billion in 2015, and has plans to launch its beauty products in Europe this year. With tangible success elsewhere in her life, it’s not as if Alba was yearning for a new acting project; in fact, she almost said no to L.A.’s Finest, out of habit.
‘I’d turned down a lot of TV and I just wasn’t ready to get back to acting in that way – and then I read [the script], and was like, “Damn, this is really good,”’ Alba admits. ‘And it’s fun, and nice to see women who are kicking ass, and cracking jokes, and having friendships and have complicated backgrounds that are not one note, and not perfect. I felt: “Oh my God, where was this my whole career? Finally!” And the cherry on top is that we’re both women of colour, who can just show the world – don’t be scared of us! We can be leading women, together!’
Despite both being established enough to head up a television show on their own, the combination of both works well – from the very first scene, their chemistry is strong, undoubtedly aided by their fondness of and respect for each other in real life. Having become friends through industry circles, as well as celebrity political engagements throughout the years, Union and Alba have history, and it really works in the show’s favour.
‘We wanted to show police work in a different kind of way, where we don’t shoot first, ask questions later.’ – Gabrielle Union
From even a surface level, it’s exciting to see two women of colour leading a major television show, with the ability to inspire multiple demographics; as a Latina woman of Mexican descent, Alba can be seen as a figure of mainstream Mexican representation at a time where their existence is vilified by certain pockets of the US government.
However, something that is hard to ignore is the climate in which a show like this comes to screens. Police brutality, though not necessarily dominating headlines as much as in other periods in this last decade, remains a pressing topic, while the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has helped bring to light the injustices often faced by Black people with law enforcement. As women of colour portraying police officers, while real-life tensions between the public and the police are high, was there active consideration about how this’d be seen while shooting?
‘Yes,’ they respond in near unison, ‘constantly.’
‘We’re truly trying to fight the actual bad guys, and we’re not trying to turn petty BS into increasing our prison population,’ Union explains. ‘We wanted to show police work in a different kind of way, where we don’t shoot first, ask questions later. We want to show police being accountable and acknowledging the BS as it happens, not being like: “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”’
After checking with network execs, also in the room, Union goes into describing a two-part episode in the season that best exemplifies their commitment to portraying stories regarding marginalised communities coming into contact with law enforcement, sensitively.
‘We literally had to stop work one day to make sure that [what we were portraying] was right. There was some disagreement, about “How can we get this faster?” And we were like, “Mm-mm. We need to get this right.” I’m not a real ally or a real advocate if I’m trying to get home so I can watch Scandal, and live-tweet, but I do a disservice to a whole-ass community that is largely ignored, or marginalised in art. So what we’re not gonna do is-’
‘-pretend like this isn’t a big deal,’ Alba finishes. Though they’re hesitant to go into specifics of the episode, both are eager to make it clear that this will be a consideration throughout the entire series:
‘We wanted to sprinkle in as much of that stuff as possible without over-dramatising it,’ says Alba. ‘If you over-dramatise it, you’re almost doing it a disservice, and you’re looking at it as if it’s this thing,’ she explains. ‘We wanted to normalise it as much as possible, and allow things to breathe and live and exist – and that’s what’s nice about TV. You can allow things to just be, and let the audience pick up what they want to pick up on.’
It’s clear that both actresses are immensely proud of the world they’ve created, as well as the characters they portray. With L.A.’s Finest recently getting renewed for a second season, Syd and Nancy’s mysteries have a lot of steam in them – and for Alba, the responsibility of telling the stories of strong women is important:
‘We don’t always agree, we’re confident, we got each other’s back, there’s a bigger picture in mind, and we keep it moving – and you don’t get to see women doing all of that. And we can cry, and you know what? We’re still strong, and we’re still good at our jobs. And we don’t need men to ever save us.’
Amen to that!
L.A.’s Finest premieres on Wednesday 10th July at 9pm on FOX
