RESEDA, Calif. — As she decorates the cupcakes made in her honor, Bianca Bethune is overcome with emotion, as she celebrates with family and friends. 

She’s a part of the new movie Bad Boys For Life starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. She reprises her role as Megan Burnett, a part she first got over 17 years ago for Bad Boys 2.

It was her mother, Doreen who guided her young career as her manager.

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“She put me in every type of class, workshop, director workshop, actor-director workshop, she had me in the ready and available so these casting directors could see my light,” Bethune said. 

It’s payed off for her almost two decades later. But as she was filming the sequel in Miami and Atlanta, her mom had just discovered she was in the early stages of cancer.

“She didn’t tell me actually. I didn’t know that she was sick as she was until after we filmed Bad Boys,” said Bethune.

When she returned from filming, she stayed by her mom’s side. But just one month before the release of the third Bad Boys movie, Doreen Bethune lost her battle with cancer, and passed away. 

Despite the loss, it’s a time of celebration for Bethune and her loved ones because this installment of Bad Boys is a culmination of everything she and her mom worked for.

“She sacrificed everything for me to just really hone my career and I mean any means necessary she did, so for me to book Bad Boys then full circle come back and book it again,” Bianca said. “She was there, on the phone while I was booking and shooting, to come full circle and say, 'Yes we’re here,' it’s only God sent. He only wrote this.”

Bethune stepped into a theater with her loved ones for a special family premiere, and when she popped up on screen the excitement overtook the room. It’s the support system carrying her along to the next chapter of a career her mother helped build with faith, and a dream.