Sanaa Lathan says working on ‘Love & Basketball’ was a ‘miserable’ experience
The actress says her breakout role wasn't the greatest experience at first, but working with first-time director Gina Prince-Bythewood made it worth the challenge
Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps couldn’t have imagined nearly 20 years that they were making history by starring in the romcom ‘Love & Basketball,’ which is now considered a classic within the culture.
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the film, released in 2000, is considered a must-watch among sports movies. But two decades after its release, Lathan is spilling the tea about what really went down behind the scenes, and she said it wasn’t a pleasant experience for her.
READ MORE: Sanaa Lathan reveals ‘horrible’ treatment by famous Hollywood actresses
In a new interview with CBS Los Angeles, the veteran actress explains why she was “miserable” on the set.
“I was miserable,” she said. “I can laugh about it now. I got the job and I think Gina finally got to the point where she had to hire somebody. It’s almost like she hired me because she couldn’t find somebody else. There wasn’t a lot of joy and there wasn’t a lot of trust in me. It was her baby and it was her first time directing.
“It was a big deal for her and nobody knows me then, really,” Lathan continued. “She gets to the point where she makes this decision with me, but I felt like the default.”
Despite being made to feel like an underserving rookie, Lathan says she and Prince-Bythewood bonded throughout the shooting of the project and went on to work together again later in Lathan’s career.
One of the most challenges aspects of the shoot was learning how to play basketball.
“I had to go through so much to get the part and in all the basketball scenes, [they] surrounded me with real ballplayers,” Lathan revealed. “There was a lot of crying behind the scenes for me.”
Spike Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule company financed the film, and producers wanted a professional basketball player to play the lead.
“The hardest challenge was getting the job, which I think weirdly prepared me for Monica,” she added. “I had a dance background, but I had never picked up a basketball. Gina and the producers really wanted a basketball player that could act as opposed to an actress they could teach to play basketball. I was very lucky, she explained.
READ MORE: Gina Prince-Bythewood on directing ‘Cloak & Dagger’ pilot
‘Love & Basketball’ tells the story of a young Black couple navigating the competitive world of sports before eventually falling for each other. The film marked screenwriter Prince-Bythewood’s directorial debut.
“I did a staged reading of the script when she was still working on the script. She couldn’t get my stage reading out of her head. She wasn’t auditioning a lot of actresses. I would always get to the last step and then they would throw in another basketball player.”
Lathan also noted that the producers gave the basketball player acting coaches.
“They would always do a basketball audition for me, which was just the worst,” she said. “Finally I demanded that if you want me to continue, you’ll have to get me a basketball coach.”
Lathan was then teamed with an assistant coach for the LA Sparks and she had her “training five hours a day before I got the job.”
