Gabrielle Union Has a Powerful Non-Speaking Role as a Slave in Birth of a Nation
LatestThose who saw Birth of a Nation for the first time at this year’s Sundance Film Festival discovered that Gabrielle Union has a small but powerful role in Nate Parker’s not-yet-released but already historic movie.
For her cameo in the film about Nat Turner’s slave uprising in Virginia (it sold for a record $17.5 million after a bidding war), Union plays a slave who’s sexually assaulted on the plantation where the rebellion begins. After the Sundance screening—having seen the movie for the first time like everybody else—Union told New York Magazine’s Jada Yuan she was still in shock.
“Watching the film I had a lot of rage for my ancestors and for us today because so much has not changed. It’s still the same,” says Union. “But watching Nate come on—don’t tell my husband—I’ve never been more proud of anyone in my life. In my life. When it said ‘Nate Parker wrote, Nate Parker directed. Nate Parker produced!’ I just had so much pride. So much fucking pride, and it’s so important.”
Union’s character originally had a speaking role in the script, but after conversations with Parker, she says they decided on cutting the lines to let the silence speak for itself.