LA’s Finest
Season 1 e.tv (*194) 22:00 Action
Cop action shows are normally in testosterone overdrive. But not two-season series LA’s Finest. It’s led by two butt-kicking strong women characters and is a spin-off from movie franchise Bad Boys. Special Agent Sydney “Syd” Burnett (Gabrielle Union) transfers to LA to partner with Detective Nancy McKenna (Jessica Alba) and solve crime on the West Coast. “It made sense to spin-off my character from the movies,” says Gabrielle, who executive produces the show with her co-star. “I think viewers want and need that non-male cop show. We have defied stereotypes about women in the show. They’re both kind of rogue detectives. We’re still giving you that big (Bad
Boys producer) Jerry Bruckheimer action comedy, but with two really strong women in control.”
1 Gabrielle used to play basketball in high school in Pleasanton, California and she was extremely competitive, says a former teammate. “She’d go onto the court with a ‘don’t mess with me’ scowl on her face.”
Acting fell in her lap – Gabrielle 2 graduated from the University Of California Los Angeles with an honours degree in sociology and took part-time acting to pay off her student loan.
She was attacked and raped while 3 working at a shoe store when she was 19, revealing, “He could have killed me. The only reason
I survived was because I’d seen an episode of The
Oprah Winfrey Show and they had self-defence and emergency escape tactics on it.”
Her favourite food is tacos and 4 she learnt Spanish to be able to “order meals authentically”.