2000’s Charlie’s Angels was a box office hit, earning more than $264 million at the box office and later spanning a sequel, Full Throttle, two years later. But what many fans don’t know is that the film, despite its success, had certain cast members earn more than others even though all three ladies shared the same amount of screen time.
Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu starred as Charlie’s Angels, but all three women were paid completely different salaries — and while it’s arguable to say that some had bigger credentials as far as their movie career was concerned, Liu’s salary seemed outright disrespectful.
How Much Was Lucy Liu Paid For Charlie’s Angels?
Granted, Lucy did not have the same resume as Cameron Diaz, who landed her big break in 1994’s The Mask, but there was no excuse that Sony was only going to pay her $1 million for her role as Alex in the action-packed flick.
In comparison to her co-stars, Barrymore was paid a whopping $9 million while Diaz received the highest fee worth a reported $12 million.
Again, the “Bad Teacher” star had already starred in a string of hit movies, so it’s fair to assume that her salary was based on the performance of her past work, but that shouldn’t rule out the fact that Liu had also done fairly well in Hollywood before being cast for her role.
The 52-year-old had starred in Shanghai Noon with Jackie Chan, she had a recurring role as Amy Li in the TV series Pearl and made a bunch of appearances on shows such as The X-Files, Hotel Malibu, Home Improvement, and Beverly Hills, 90210.
Whatever the case may be, Liu accepted the $1 million salary, but she probably knew that if the film was a success, she would renegotiate her deal if a sequel was to follow, which is exactly what she ended up doing.
In 2003, for Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the New York native received a pay rise of $3 million, bringing her salary for the second installment to $4 million — but those numbers still didn’t compare to what her cast members were now earning.
Barrymore, who was also credited as a producer on both films, had paid herself a salary of $14 million while Diaz’s earnings had skyrocketed to an impressive $20 million, which also made her one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood at the time.
This meant that from both films, the real breadwinner was Diaz while Liu took home $5 million… before taxes!
The trio reunited for the premiere episode of The Drew Barrymore Show in September 2020, where Liu opened up about the lifelong friendship she has shared with her co-stars while touching on what she has learned about the life changes she’s learned over the years.
During her appearance on Barrymore’s show, she gushed: “In my 20s, I felt very bulletproof and ... I didn’t really care if I lived or died. And I lost my father a few years ago, and I didn’t really recognize the levels that we have in our lives. He was a place in my life that was always a roof, and so suddenly you feel like the roof has been torn off.
“And then you recognize, ‘Oh, I am now the roof.’ And I happen to have a child, so I guess I’m the roof to that child. So now I really have to understand that I have to shelter him, and I have a responsibility, and it’s a very powerful thing. It’s also terrifying.”
The trio deemed each other sisters by the end of the episode, who showered each other with nothing but compliments and sentimental words, giving fans all the more reason to believe that their chemistry in front of the camera was genuine.
And while Liu may have made the least amount working alongside Barrymore and Diaz, thanks to her success with Charlie’s Angels, she landed a lucrative deal to play the role of O-Ren Ishii in 2003’s Kill Bill: Vol1 directed by Quentin Tarantino.
She was paid $5.5 million for the movie, which is more than twice the amount she made from both Charlie’s Angels movies, but things didn’t end there for Liu, who went on to star in a series of successful films and TV shows.
Her seven-year run on CBS’ Elementary, for example, earned her a whopping $125,000 per episode, which goes to show that while you may start off small, being consistent at something can bring much bigger rewards later down the line.
Liu is doing just fine these days.
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