4. Dunst, who was 17 at the time, was always a top choice for the producers, though she had turned them down several times before finally taking the part after shooting “depressing, bad indie film,” she told MTV News. “I read it and was like, ‘Oh, this is a fun movie.'”
5. The inspiration for Gabrielle Union’s Isis, the captain of the East Compton Clovers, was Michael Jordan. NBD. And Reed revealed to Buzzfeed that Union was “instrumental” in finding the character’s voice. “We worked a lot on her character when we were doing revisions for the script,” he said.
6. There was a very pointed reason Union, who had previously appeared in teen hits 10 Things I Hate About You and She’s All That, signed on to the movie.
“The cheerleading movie I wanted about bank robbing [Sugar and Spice]—they didn’t want to go Black on any of the characters,” she revealed to MTV. “So it’s interesting, the group that didn’t want to commit to diversity didn’t seem to do well and the movie that was about righting the wrongs did well, and that included diversity.”
