Thandie Newton Turned Down 2000's 'Charlie's Angels' Movie After This Disturbing Interaction with Sony's Amy Pascal

Thandie Newton didn’t end up doing 2000′s Charlie’s Angels movie and is describing the disturbing interactions she had leading up to filming that caused her to turn it down.

Thandie told Vulture, “One of the biggest movies I didn’t end up doing 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.’”

She added about another upsetting interaction, “Then the head of the studio — I had a meeting with her, 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.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean? What changes would you have to make?’ She’s like, ‘Well, you know, the character, as written, she’s been to university and is educated.’ I’m like, ‘I’ve been to university. I went to Cambridge.’ She went, ‘Yeah, but you’re different.’ She’s like, ‘Maybe there could be a scene where you’re in a bar and she gets up on a table and starts shaking her booty.’ She’s basically reeling off these stereotypes of how to be more convincing as a Black character. Everything she said, I was like, ‘Nah, I wouldn’t do that.’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, but you’re different. You’re different.’ That was Amy Pascal. That’s not really a surprise, is it? Let’s face it: I didn’t do the movie as a result.”

Thandie confirmed the movie was Charlie’s Angels. “It was a big deal for me. Vogue had called to ask us to be on the cover, the three of us. But I just couldn’t do it. I felt scared. Did I feel scared? That’s not true. Look, no one was ever going to sexually abuse me again. But I didn’t want to be put in a position where I was objectified. That just didn’t feel good. This is a long time ago anyway, and all those girls are brilliant (Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu). But if that was me now, I’d want to disrupt rather than run away. I think that’s probably the change in me. That’s not the only thing that happened. There’s the disgusting thing that happened with the casting couch. Just this grossness. I’ve got my little black book, which will be published on my deathbed,” she added.

If you don’t know, Amy Pascal used to be an executive at Sony and her emails were hacked in 2014, revealing lots of information that she probably didn’t expect to become public.