Sanaa Lathan Says She Was ‘Miserable’ While Filming ‘Love & Basketball’

photo credit: Paras Griffin / Getty Images

Who would’ve thought? The 2000 classic love story was actually a bad experience for actress Sanaa Lathan. During an interview, Lathan opens up and admits she was in fact “miserable” while filming Love & Basketball.

The movie is a prominent love story in the Black community- as it follows Lathan’s character, Monica Wright and Omar Epps character, Quincy McCall. The two are neighborhoods in the film, and they fall in love as they both are following their basketball dreams.

During an interview with CBS Los Angeles, Lathan details her experience with working with screenwriter Gina Prince-Bythewood. Although Lathan expressed her and Prince-Bythewood are great friends now, she explained that this was the screenwriters first film and she wasn’t sure if Prince-Bythewood wanted her to star in it at all. “I was miserable,” she said. “I can laugh about it now.”

“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.  So there wasn’t a lot of joy, and there wasn’t a lot of trust in me.”

Despite the behind the scenes of the film, it did go on to become a classic move- and winning Lathan two awards for her role.

Watch the full interview below. Let us know your thoughts!