Gabrielle Union-Wade on Expanding Her Creative Possibilities With ‘The Perfect Find’ and ‘My Journey to 50’

variety.com:

Angelique Jackson When Gabrielle Union-Wade turned 50 last October, the veteran actor and producer experienced a personal transformation, which has also filtered into her latest work.

This era of her career, she says, is about embracing the possibilities. “Whatever I thought that my dreams were, I was making them small,” Union-Wade told Variety at the American Black Film Festival (ABFF). “Turning 50 is about making things bigger by expanding the idea of what the possibilities could even be.” Union-Wade debuted two projects at ABFF: the Netflix rom-com “The Perfect Find” and the BET+ docuseries “My Journey to 50,” which chronicled her birthday pilgrimage to Africa.

She celebrated the BET+ series first, hosting a private bowling and ice-skating bash at the Miami Beach Edition on June 15, the same night the doc began streaming.

In a quick speech, Union-Wade thanked guests for joining her in her “second hometown” of Miami. “Wade County, baby!” she shouted out, referencing the nickname fans gave the area when her husband, three-time NBA champion Dwyane Wade played for the Miami Heat. “My Journey to 50” is about finding one’s self, an expedition she embarked on in an effort to more truly and freely live the next 50 to 60 years of her life. “If you find self, you find freedom,” she explained. “And what better way to find self and the source of all of our selves than Africa — the birthplace of all civilization, the birthplace of everything that’s good has happened in the world.” Thus, it was important for her to debut the series at ABFF, a venue where “we center Blackness.