Two decades on, 2000’s Charlie’s Angels still holds up today thanks to the trio of
iconic performers at its center.
Based on the classic television series of the same name from the 1970s, the film reboot
saw Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu play the intellectual property’s three
female superspies.
There are many infamous behind-the-scenes stories from the making of the film, though
a hitherto unknown secret was recently revealed when Lucy made an appearance on Drew’s talk
show.
Join Facts Verse as Drew Barrymore & Lucy Liu reveal naughty photos from the set.
Did Lucy Liu Photograph Drew Barrymore in the Nude?
Few could’ve predicted how well 2000’s Charlie’s Angels was going to hold up.
Released around the turn of the millennium, the movie has proved just as much of a time
capsule for the time of its making as the show that it was based on has for the 1970s.
At the time the film came out, the three women portraying the titular spies were already
big stars.
Two decades on, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu are still around, but their circumstances
have changed a bit.
Drew is now the host of her own talk show, and she recently had old co-star Lucy Liu
on as a guest.
When Lucy appeared on Drew’s talk show, they reminisced about their time filming Charlie’s
Angels.
There are plenty of well-known tales from the making of the hit movie, including the
one about how Lucy Liu and co-star Bill Murray may or may not have gotten into a physical
altercation on set.
However, Lucy revealed a brand new tidbit about the filming of the picture while on
Drew’s show, and it’s gotten fans clamoring for more details!
During the interview, it was revealed that Drew Barrymore allowed Lucy Liu to take nude
photographs of her in her dressing room.
When Drew asked Lucy if she knew whatever happened to those photos, Lucy said that she
was still hanging onto them after all those years.
Apparently, Lucy has made a habit over the course of her career or taking suggestive
photos of her co-stars.
Filming Charlie’s Angels was a bonding experience for its three female stars in multiple ways.
The three women had to undergo extensive training in order to meet the physical demands of their
roles.
They trained for five days a week over the course of three months, and their trainer
was a famous Hollywood fight choreographer by the name of Cheung-yan Yuen.
The name might not be familiar to average audience members, but this was the same man
that helped prep Keanu Reeves for his iconic fight scenes in The Matrix just a year before.
According to Drew herself, the trio of female performers was so sore after their initial
training session that they each had to go bathe in Epsom salt.
Shooting Charlie’s Angels Changed Cameron Diaz’s Life
The physical stress was particularly hard on Cameron Diaz, who wasn’t at the healthiest
point of her life when she was hired to portray one of the three female leads in the 2000’s
Charlie’s Angels.
According to the actress herself, who was 26 years old at the time, she had just quit
smoking and didn’t have the healthiest diet.
As far as strength was concerned, she had a lot of building up to do.
One might imagine that Cameron went through the motion of her training for the film and
then went right back into her unhealthy habits, but this wasn’t the case.
Holding herself up to the strict standards imposed on her by the film’s shoot changed
the actress’s life, and she has been a much healthier person ever since.
Charlie’s Angels proved a massive success at the box office, making $264 million on
a $93 million budget.
The film was so successful that it yielded a sequel a few years later, though the sequel
didn’t perform quite as well as hoped.
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle was released in 2003, and its poor reception put the franchise
on hold for over a decade before it was rebooted again in the form of 2019’s Charlie’s
Angels.
2019’s Charlie’s Angels saw a new trio of female performers take on the roles of
the titular superspies, but it was a bomb.
Two decades on, 2000’s Charlie’s Angels is still considered the best iteration of
intellectual property on the big screen.
In fact, many audience members consider the film to be the pinnacle of the IP in general.
Few people likely realize just how large of a role Drew Barrymore played in getting the
film off of the ground.
At the time when the film was first coming to fruition, Drew Barrymore was hard at work
filming 1999’s Never Been Kissed.
During this period, Drew Barrymore wasn’t quite the box office star that we think of
her as today.
After a troubled upbringing as a child star, Drew Barrymore spent much of the 1990s playing
supporting roles in films like Scream and Batman Forever.
Charlie’s Angels Solidified Drew Barrymore’s Star Status
Never Been Kissed was a huge hit, and it proved that Drew Barrymore had what it took to be
a star as an adult.
It also gave her quite a bit of leverage when it came to choosing her next project.
Drew’s producing partner at the time was a woman by the name of Nancy Juvoven, and
it was Nancy that first brought the Charlie’s Angels project to Drew’s attention.
When Drew heard about the potential Charlie’s Angels film, she took a significant personal
interest in it.
Drew and her producing partner asked for a meeting with Sony Pictures, which was the
production company trying to get the film off the ground.
Drew shared her personal vision for the film with the company, and it was impressed!
After the meeting with Sony Pictures, Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvovnen were brought
on to take charge of the Charlie’s Angels project.
Not only did Drew decide what the tone of the film was going to be like, but she was
also given the opportunity to handpick both the director and her two female co-stars.
According to Drew, she knew immediately that she wanted Cameron Diaz to be in the film
with her.
It was Drew herself who called Cameron up, and the actress didn’t take much convincing.
According to Cameron, Drew’s pitch focused on the “hot girls doing cool stuff” angle.
The director that Drew Barrymore chose for Charlie’s Angels was a music-video director
known by the singular moniker of McG.
The movie proved the director’s first feature film, and he imbued it with an MTV-esque style
that really helped it fit in with the times.
Another thing that helped the film appeal to the MTV crowd was its Destiny’s Child
theme song.
Named “Independent Women, Pt. 1”, the song is largely considered to be the band’s
most iconic, and it has arguably grown to eclipse the legacy of the film itself.
Some of the many videos that McG directed before Charlie’s Angels include the ones
for “All-Star” by Smash Mouth and “Santeria” by Sublime.
Lucy Liu Became an Angel… and Pissed Off Bill Murray!
When it came time to choose her second female co-star, Drew Barrymore wasn’t quite as
sure as she had been when it came to her decisions to hire both Cameron Diaz and McG.
Allegedly, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Lopez were all considered for the
part that would eventually go to Lucy Liu.
Lucy wasn’t nearly as big of a star at the time as she is today.
She was mostly known for her television work, with her having a supporting role on Ally
McBeal.
When Lucy showed up for her audition, both Drew and Cameron claimed that they felt an
instant connection.
With that, the trio of female performers was set in stone.
The original trio of female performers that portrayed the titular character on the 1970s
Charlie’s Angels consisted of Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith, and Kate Jackson.
All three of these performers were offered the chance to make appearances in the 2000
film, but none of them end up doing so.
The original Angels weren’t upset by the new films, the star simply didn’t align
for them to cameo.
Jaclyn Smith would end up appearing in the film’s 2003 sequel.
Besides the three female performers at the center of the film, 2000’s Charlie’s Angels
also had plenty of notable male presences.
The most iconic of these would have to be the villainous thin man, who was a silent
assassin portrayed by Back to the Future’s Crispin Glover.
According to the star himself, his character originally had dialogue in the script.
It was his choice to make the character silent, as he felt that would make him more memorable
and threatening.
Each of the Angels in the film also had a love interest, with the three love interests
being played by Tom Green, Luke Wilson, and Matt LeBlanc.
Tom Green played the love interest of Drew Barrymore’s character, and the two performers
were actual real-life item at the time.
They would go on to get married.
Finally, the biggest male star that lent his credence to 2000’s Charlie’s Angels was
Bill Murray, who played the role of Bosly.
Bill was brought back to appear in the 2003 sequel and was instead replaced by Bernie
Mac.
There have been numerous rumors over the years that the reason Bill wasn’t asked back was
that he got into altercations on the set of the film with both Lucy Liu and director McG.
The legends go that, on separate occasions, Lucy Liu beat up Bill Murray and then Bill
Murray tried to beat up McG.
Lucy had denied that she got physical with Bill, and Bill has denied that he got physical
with McG.
However, Bill said something means to Lucy that got under everyone’s skin.
Two decades on, 2000’s Charlie’s Angels is just as iconic and sexy as ever.
Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Lucy Liu took nude pictures of Drew
Barrymore during the filming of the 2000’s Charlie’s Angels and that she’s still
holding on to them to this day?
Comment down below!