Gabrielle Union explains how 'Grease' changed her life

Gabrielle Union is known for films like Bring It On and Bad Boys II. But when it comes to the movie that changed her life, she has a surprising choice.

Grease is the word.

“This idea of music and hot girls … I was raised kind of sheltered, and nice girls did X, Y, Z, and I was like, ‘Nice girls don’t look like they’re having a lot of fun.’ And then the Pink Ladies….” The 45-year-old actress explained her love for the movie to Jamie Foxx on the latest installment of his new series, Off Script, appearing exclusively on Yahoo Entertainment. “I could literally say the whole movie verbatim. It changed my life,” she says, before breaking into “There Are Worse Things I Could Do.”

“I set out in my own life to find out what those ‘worse things’ were,” she adds with a chuckle.

Union, who just wrapped her run on BET’s Being Mary Jane and is currently headlining the new thriller Breaking In, in theaters now, also points to a particular actress that inspires her: “There are moments when I would say, ‘What would Angela Bassett do?'”

With a flourishing career, Union is proud to say, “I’m at an age where people told us that there would be nothing for us. And I kind of just categorically rejected that.”

Whether it’s performing a gender-swapped scene from Eddie Murphy’s 1992 hit Boomerang or talking about the online death threats that come from being a woman who’s not afraid to say what she thinks (“I just speak my truth,” she says), Union is both funny and formidable during her wide-ranging dialogue with Foxx. Watch the entire video above, and keep your eyes out for future installments of Off Script right here on Yahoo Entertainment.