Trivia / Bring It On

• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Peyton Reed had many discussions with Gabrielle Union about how best to approach Isis as a character.
  "We sat down and looked at that character and said that we want to make this character really watchable, but we don't want it to become knowingly militant. We want her to have a sense of humor and be a really strong character. I think she was able to find what was cool about that character that in a way I doubt other actresses could have."
  • According to Peyton Reed, Eliza Dushku didn't like any of the swimsuits the costume department had, so she drove home to get one of her own and came back with that barely-there powder blue bikini.
• Actor-Shared Background: Both Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union were cheerleaders in high school (although they both admitted they weren't athletic to the extent of the characters in the movie). And the cheer that Missy hears from the hotel window is one from Kristen's high school alma mater.
• Cast the Expert:
  • Any actors auditioning for the cheerleaders were required to do a cheer and cast based off their rhythm and athleticism.
  • The East Compton Clovers have three members played by the Girl Group Blaque, so of course they had experience singing and dancing. The rest of the team had more professional cheerleaders than in the Toros' squad.
• Colbert Bump: A new generation of people checked the movie out after Ariana Grande homaged it in her "Thank U, Next" video.
• Completely Different Title: Called "Cheers!" in Japanese, and even uses a title font almost identical◊ to the TV show.
• Creator Couple: Peyton Reed's wife Beth cameos as the magazine editor during the awards scene in the first film.
• Dawson Casting:
  • The first movie has some slight examples - Kirsten Dunst (18) and Eliza Dushku (19) - and some really heavy ones. Gabrielle Union and Clare Kramer were 27 and 25 respectively, while Nicole Bilderback was 25.
  • The sequels do however feature some teen actresses such as Hayden Panettiere (16) in the third movie and Ashley Benson (18) in the fourth.
• Dueling Works: Casting for the film coincided with the casting for Sugar & Spice. During a 2018 career retrospective, Gabrielle Union said she and several co-stars auditioned for both and that "Bring It On was the cheerleading movie that was the consolation prize because you didn't get the cheerleading movie that you wanted [Sugar & Spice]."
• Dyeing for Your Art: Most of the cast had to go to 'cheerleader bootcamp' to prepare.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Aaron's girlfriend who reacts with disgust when she finds out he was a cheerleader is played by Lakers cheerleader Carla Makauf.
• Method Acting: The cast were rehearsing their cheers, routines and gymnastics in their off hours when they weren't filming.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The trailers for the first film are a particularly egregious example of this. Star Gabrielle Union revealed that after test audiences wanted more of the Clovers, the Black cheer squad opposing the lead cast of white cheerleaders, the actresses playing the Clovers were brought in to film additional snippets solely for marketing in order to make audiences think the Clovers were in the film more than they actually were. Union's character even has a boyfriend in the trailers who is nowhere to be seen in the film. The additional footage was not included in the final film or available anywhere outside of the trailers.
• Money, Dear Boy: Warrant demanded $40,000 for the use of "Cherry Pie" during the audition scene.
• No Stunt Double: Thanks to some intensive practices and training, and plenty of professional cheerleaders in the cast, doubles were not used for routines. Gabrielle Union has said however that the more difficult parts of the routines were done by the professionals, and things were carefully choreographed to minimize the actors' weaknesses.
• Playing Against Type: Lindsay Sloane is more remembered for playing a bumbling insecure wannabe. In the first film she plays a straight up Alpha Bitch head cheerleader, the same character she was picked on by previously.
• Playing with Character Type:
  • Eliza Dushku frequently plays the tomboy Good Bad Girl, who's usually an Action Girl. Here, she's in a teen comedy, and the humor comes from her having to be more feminine.
  • At the time, Gabrielle Union showed up in teen comedies like She's All That and 10 Things I Hate About You as the Token Black Friend. Here, while she's in a reactive role to a white heroine, she's a Hero Antagonist with her own story and motivations.
• Reality Subtext: Eliza Dushku describes herself as being extremely similar to Missy - a tomboy and as far removed from a cheerleader as it was possible to be. Her audition for the film paralleled Missy's - she showed up all in black and responded to a question about whether she'd been a cheerleader with "no but I used to beat them up". Sparky telling Missy to smile, and her only grimacing reflects that Eliza had to have additional practices to work on her facial expressions - as she looked angry on camera all the time.
• Sleeper Hit: Kirsten Dunst describes the movie as being "a little Universal movie that no one cared about", and Peyton Reed remarks that there was very little Executive Meddling because it was a low budget comedy that wasn't expected to do great business. Needless to say, no one in the cast or crew expected it to be a Box Office smash that became one of the defining teen comedies of the 2000s.
• Those Two Actors: In addition to this and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Eliza Dushku and Clare Kramer also worked together on Tru Calling.
• Throw It In!: The famous bathroom scene between Cliff and Torrance wasn't in the script, but the filmmakers impulsively realized the two characters should have a cute bonding moment, and quickly added it in.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Although Kirsten Dunst was the first choice for Torrance, she was booked for another movie, and then-unknown Marley Shelton was being considered as her replacement. Then Marley ended up doing Sugar & Spice (see above), and Peyton Reed got on the phone with Kirsten to persuade her to take the role.
  • Gabrielle Union has said that the original title was 'Cheer Fever', and she personally asked for some of the dialogue to be changed as a condition of signing on; Isis was a more stereotypical Sassy Black Woman for one.
  "She was like a bad stereotype. There was a line in the original script that was like, “Meow! Me-gonna-ow you! My nails are long, sharp, and ready to slash!”…. Huh? And that girl ends up at U.C. Berkeley? How did girls from Compton talk in their minds? How about we make her a very clear leader where her path to cheer justice is done with more class and dignity but also justifiable anger. She doesn’t need to speak in made-up, Blaxploitation dialogue."
  • Screenwriter Jessica Bendinger recalls at one point a studio executive asking her if the Toros should win the finals to make for a feel good ending. She responded that "Rocky didn't win" and there were no more questions about it.
  • Test audiences apparently wanted more scenes with the Clovers, so the filmmakers shot a few snippets of a Clovers practice, a group Happy Dance, and a kiss between Isis and her apparent boyfriend—all of which only appear in the trailer.
• Working Title: The Dance Party Ending/Creative Closing Credits for Bring It On: All Or Nothing reveal that it was filmed as Bring It On Yet Again. Fortunately Universal changed the title or they might have had to call the other two movies Bring It On Again, Again and Bring It On One More Time.

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