Whether you love the original Charlie's Angels movie for its turn-of-the-century girl power vibe or love to dissect the ways in which Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, and Cameron Diaz's characters possibly reinforced some gender stereotypes in their quests to take down bad guys — the film, for better or worse, is a classic.
But, while the butt-kicking action-comedy ultimately turned out to be a fun watch, there was drama behind the scenes. An on-set conflict between Lucy and Bill Murray, who also costarred in Charlie's Angels, made headlines around the time of its 2000 release.
Lucy discussed the friction and explained what went down during a recent episode of the Los Angeles Times' Asian Enough podcast.
The actor said she and Bill are on good terms now, but recounted an incident where he insulted her using "inexcusable and unacceptable" language in the midst of filming a scene.
"As we're doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I won't get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on," she told the podcast's hosts, Jen Yamato, Johana Bhuiyan, Tracy Brown, and Suhauna Hussain.
"I was, like, 'Wow, he seems like he's looking straight at me,'" Lucy recalled. "I couldn't believe that [the comments] could be towards me, because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time?"
Lucy said that she recognized Bill's behavior was inappropriate and unnecessary in the moment, and advocated for herself accordingly.
"Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it," she continued. "So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don't regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there's no need to condescend or to put other people down."
"I would not stand down," Lucy added. "And nor should I have."
Bill previously addressed rumors about discord with Liu on the Charlie's Angels set during a Times of London interview in 2009.
It sounds like the two stars have made peace with their past contention, but honestly Bill suggesting that Lucy was acting "unprofessional" when she responded to his alleged workplace temper tantrum is not a good look. Let me know how you feel about all of this in the comments below.
