Lucy Liu has commented on her alleged clash with Bill Murray on the set of Charlie's Angels, calling Murray's behavior "inexcusable and unacceptable."
Liu told Los Angeles Times' Asian Enough podcast how the Charlie's Angels cast reworked a particular scene while Murray was unavailable because of a family gathering. "So it was everyone else, and we just made the scene more fluid. I wish I had more to do with it but I didn't, because I was the last one cast and I probably had the least amount of privilege in terms of creatively participating at that time."
She then began to discuss Murray's reported actions when he returned to the set. "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. I was, like, 'Wow, he seems like he's looking straight at me,'" she said. "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? I literally do the look around my shoulder thing, like, who is he talking to behind me? I say, 'I'm so sorry. Are you talking to me?' And clearly he was, because then it started to become a one-on-one communication."
The actor called Murray's language "inexcusable and unacceptable," which led to her standing up for herself. "So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don't regret it," Liu stated. "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. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have."
However, there does not appear to be bad blood between Liu and Murray. Liu recounted how she crossed paths with Murray years later during an SNL reunion, with Murray approaching her and "was perfectly nice."
The 2000 film was in the news back in July 2020, when Thandie Newton detailed how she passed on a Charlie's Angels role over stereotyped sexuality. "One of the biggest movies I didn't end up doing," Newton explained, "Was because the director said to me, 'I can't wait for this. The first shot is going to be … You're going to think it's like yellow lines down a road, and you pull back and you realize it's the stitching, because the denim is so tight on your ass it's going to look like tarmac.' I was like, 'Oh, I don't think we're going to go down this road together.'"
Other problems arose when Newton allegedly talked with studio executive Amy Pascal about her possible role. "I had a meeting with [the head of the studio]," Newton said, "And she said, 'Look, I don't mean to be politically incorrect, but the character as written and you playing the role, I just feel like we've got to make sure that it's believable.'"
After Pascal reportedly began "reeling off these stereotypes of how to be more convincing as a Black character," Newton decided to pass on Charlie's Angels.