Nia Long recently recalled Charlie’s Angels audition rejection on The Drew Barrymore Show on Friday.
During the latest episode of the talk show, Nia addressed the interview in which she revealed that she had audition to be a part of the Charlie’s Angels reboot and 2003 sequel but didn’t get the part mainly because “she looked too old next to Drew Barrymore”.
“The feedback was, ‘My eyebrows were too sophisticated and I looked too old next to Drew,’” Nia told Drew about the phone call she received after auditioning.
The You People star continued, “And I was like, ‘What?’ It just was an odd way of saying you didn't get the job.”
Drew, who not only starred in but also produced the movie in the 2000, confessed that she was “mortified” when she got to know about Nia’s experience with auditioning for the franchise.
“Nan (Drew’s co-producer) and I would never speak like that. And as far as age, that's the stupidest thing because you're actually the same exact number and age as Lucy Liu, so how is that possible?” stated the Never Been Kissed actress.
Drew further said, “It's bewildering to me that someone would say those things. Nan and I would never talk about eyebrows. That's not what women would do.”
Looking back, Nia now believed that the reason she received was “not true” and the “real reason was about diversity...or lack thereof”.
“Now that I'm older and wiser and we've been in this business for a long time, I think what was happening during that time is there were all these conversations about diversity, but people weren't really pulling the trigger,” explained Nia.
She noted, “I think this is just a result of the fear of really putting a Black woman into a film that never cast anyone Black.”
Nevertheless, Drew and Nia both stressed that it’s time for women from all backgrounds to have an “open dialogue to help further progress representation in the industry”.