Thandie Newton turned down ‘Charlie’s Angels’ due to racial profiling

Thandie Newton turned down a huge role in Charlie’s Angels because of Amy Pascal’s use of blatant racial “stereotypes of how to be more convincing as a Black character.”

Speaking to Vulture, she was quoted saying, “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.”

I was due to this racial stereotyping Pascal came out with a public apology where she claimed that the recollection of her meeting with Thandie “horrified” her and that “while I take her words seriously, I have no recollection of the events she describes nor do any of her representatives who were present at that casting session. I’ve long considered Thandie a friend; I’m thankful that I’ve had the chance to make movies with her, and I hope to work with her again in the future.”