Age: 53
female
Gabrielle Monique Union-Wade (born October 29, 1972) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in The Brothers (2001), Deliver Us from Eva (2003), Bad Boys II (2003), Daddy's Little Girls (2007), Think Like a Man (2012), Think Like a Man Too (2014), and the remake of Cheaper by the Dozen (2022). She also starred as the lead in the BET drama series Being Mary Jane (2013-2019), for which she has received an NAACP Image Award, and in the crime series L.A.'s Finest (2019-2020) - a spinoff series for her character Syd in Bad Boys II.. She also had starring roles in the CBS medical drama series City of Angels (2000) and in the films Cradle 2 the Grave (2003), Neo Ned (2005), Cadillac Records (2008), Top Five (2014), Breaking In (2018), and The Perfect Find (2023). She has also co-starred in the films The Birth of a Nation (2016), Almost Christmas (2016), and Sleepless (2017). In high school, Union was an all-star point guard in basketball and a year-round athlete, also playing in soccer and running track. She went on to the University of Nebraska before moving on to Cuesta College. She eventually transferred to UCLA and earned a degree in sociology. While studying there, she interned at the Judith Fontaine Modeling & Talent Agency to earn extra academic credits. Invited by the agency's owner, Judith Fontaine, she started working as a model to pay off college loans. Her career began in the 1990s, when she made dozens of appearances on TV sitcoms prior to landing supporting roles in 1999 teen films She's All That and 10 Things I Hate About You. She rose to greater prominence the following year, after she landed her breakthrough role in the teen film Bring It On. Bring It On helped push her into the mainstream and she began gaining more exposure. She was cast in her first leading role in the 2003 film Deliver Us from Eva with rapper L.L. Cool J. In 2003, she landed the role of Will Smith's girlfriend/Martin Lawrence's sister Sydney Burnett in the film Bad Boys II, and she starred with Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx in the film Breakin' All the Rules in 2004. She then starred in the short-lived 2005 ABC series Night Stalker. She has also starred in the independent drama films Neo Ned and Constellation, the latter of which was released to theaters. She won an award for Best Actress in Neo Ned at the Palm Beach International Film Festival, and the film received awards at several festivals. Outside of acting, she has written four books: two memoirs, titled We're Going to Need More Wine (2017) and You Got Anything Stronger? (2021), and two children's books, titled Welcome to the Party (2020), and Shady Baby (2021).
Gabrielle Union
Professor Devera
for Professor Devera in Fourth Wing
Suggested by sheylarorcy
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general - also known as her tough-as-talons mother - has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away... because dragons don't bond to 'fragile' humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter - like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She'll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Alliances will be forged. Lives will be lost. Traitors will become allies... or even lovers. But sleep with one eye open because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
