Lucy Liu has opened up about her past clash with Bill Murray on the set of Charlie’s Angels.
The two actors shared the screen in the first Charlie’s Angels movie back in 2000, in which she played one of the titular heroes along with Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore.
It was reported at the time that Lucy and Bill had come to blows on set, with the former telling The Guardian that the Lost In Translation actor had used “inexcusable and unacceptable” language towards her that she made clear she wasn’t going to put up with.
“I really didn’t think about it. I would have done that in any situation. I think when I sense something is not right, I am going to protect myself,” she explained.
Lucy added: “It’s an innate thing to do if you feel there’s injustice, and I always feel that way.”
The Kill Bill star previously reflected on their on-set row during an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 2021.
While she declined to comment on specifically what Bill had said to her to upset her so much, Lucy recalled: “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.’ I couldn’t believe [what he was saying] could [be aimed] towards me, because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time?”
She continued: “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.
“Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it. So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it. 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.”
Lucy went on to say that she and Bill have since become on good terms.
“I have nothing against Bill Murray at all. I’ve seen him since then at a SNL reunion, and he came up to me and was perfectly nice,” she added. “But I’m not going to sit there and be attacked.”
Bill said in 2009: “I will dismiss you completely if you are unprofessional and working with me [...] when our relationship is professional, and you’re not getting that done, forget it.”
HuffPost UK has contacted Bill Murray’s team for additional comment in light of Lucy Liu’s latest remarks.
More recently, production on the film Being Mortal was suspended in 2022, due to Bill’s alleged “inappropriate behaviour” on set towards a female crew member.
“I did something I thought was funny and it wasn’t taken that way,” he said at the time.
“The movie studio wanted to do the right thing so they wanted to check it all out, investigate it and so they stopped the production.”
Bill added that he and the woman in question were “trying to make peace with each other”.