PRODUCTION NOTES

GETTING STARTED

When Charlie’s Angels was released in November 2000, its resounding success exceeded anything the filmmakers had anticipated. The film’s $40 million opening weekend still holds the record for the best debut by a first-time director.

Just as unanticipated was the breadth of the audience. As producer Leonard Goldberg acknowledges, “we were surprised because, even though we wanted to be respectful of the series for the generation of fans who grew up with it, we also wanted to take the Angels into a new millennium. So we were feeling our way, trying to blend the old with the new. Thanks to McG, we were able to bring in both the audience that remembered the series and an entire new generation.”

The decision to make a sequel was decided informally by McG and his three co-stars some time after the first film was completed. But, says ‘Angel’ Drew Barrymore, one of the films’ producers, “we also made a pact that we wouldn’t do it if it meant repeating ourselves. Now the question was how to balance that responsibility and still have a lot of fun.”

“It all starts with the writing, of course,” Barrymore continues. “In this film we learn more about the Angels, delving deeper into their backstory. We’ve also sharpened the comedy and notched up the action.”

Nancy Juvonen, Barrymore’s partner in Flower Films, and producer of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, explains that in the first film time was devoted to setting up the concept and the characters. “Even though it had been a popular TV show, there was an entire generation that wasn’t familiar with it,” says Juvonen, “which left us less time to develop the characters. So this was a great opportunity to have all three Angels come back and pick up where we left off.”

In the new film, the Angels’ histories are revealed through a series of vignettes. Barrymore’s character was “the scrappy little orphan,” says director McG, “all over the place, always falling for the wrong guy. We see her wrestling in a sort of backyard circuit as ‘Lady Insane.’ We also see her as a ‘monster’ trucker on the county fair circuit – not the classiest game in town – though she gives it her all.”

Since Lucy Liu’s character, Alex, has been raised in the finest schools, “we see her as a young gymnast being coached by Bela Karolyi. Later, we see her beating a Bobby Fischer-type chess genius in a world championship match in Switzerland,” says McG. “We allude to her being an astronaut in the first film and now we discover she’s also a neurosurgeon.”

As for Diaz’s character, “I always envisioned her coming from a happy, idealized Midwestern family with seven older brothers -- which is how she learned to be so wild. She has such a great sense of self and she’s so compassionate and caring and optimistic. She sees the world through the bright eyes of the bushy-tailed newborn fawn that she is. Then she proceeds to beat the living daylights out of everybody.”

In Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the Angels deal with personal problems while fighting crime. “They put themselves together with these incredible costumes, then go undercover and kick butt,” says Juvonen, “but their private lives are not exactly perfect.”

Producer Goldberg feels the trick to rekindling the concept was understanding what worked in the original and building on that. “At the same time, we needed to have a few tricks up our sleeve to surprise the audience. This is a movie that has glamour, that has sex appeal, that has dancing, that has really great action all mixed together in one big confection. The audience knows going in that they’re really going to be entertained.”

THE RINGLEADER

“For a whirlwind of creative energy, McG is an extremely articulate man,” declares Goldberg, “which is how he got the job of directing the first movie, even though he hadn’t directed a feature film before. When he came in and did a presentation, he went through the entire movie scene by scene, doing line readings, changing scenes that he didn’t think worked and coming up with new ones. He brought a new look to the material. And he captured the style, tone and kinetic feel, which was the whole trick.”

McG confesses that he was overwhelmed at landing the assignment, but also thrilled. “I was so excited to be there that I didn’t want to waste a second being nervous or uncertain. I remember showing up the first day of filming and there was a flotilla of trucks and gear and people. It was kind of like being a young tennis player who somehow manages to get into the finals at Wimbledon his first time out. You don’t fully appreciate what a big deal it is and how frightened you should have been until you look back on it.”

Having quelled his trepidations and made it through the first film fueled by sheer determination this time around the director exudes even greater ease and confidence, according to Goldberg. “And he’s helped by the fact that the drama is right there and the comedy is sharper, more finely honed. McG knows what he wants from the cast and how to get it. It’s our good fortune that he has the enviable ability to communicate to his actors the emotional content of a scene and get them to respond appropriately. That’s impressive and a talent some directors never acquire.”

“I’m just a huge fan of movies,” admits McG. “But I also have an MTV upbringing as well as my involvement in commercials and music videos. The films that have influenced me the most seem to have an architectural composition – everything from the movies of Hitchcock, who storyboarded every single frame, to Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, a portraiture-style film, to David Lean’s epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago. Those are my biggest influences.”

Like such other current directors as David Fincher, Mark Romanek and Spike Jonze, McG is proud to have emerged from an advertising and music video background. “It’s a great place to cut your teeth and find out what it’s like to shoot on the mountaintop, shoot at night, get caught in the rain. You learn what you need and figure out what it takes to get the day’s work done and evoke emotions from your actors. It’s a hands-on place to train and I’m delighted to be a part of that community.”

Virtually everyone on the Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle team was infected by McG’s infectious optimism and intensity. Among his most ardent fans are the three women who portray Charlie’s crack team of super sleuths. For Barrymore, it was crucial to have a high level of energy and enthusiasm from a director “because at six o’clock in the morning when you’re supposed to be kicking butt, it’s the director who has to put you into that insane place. McG not only feels that arousing everyone’s energy is his job, he really does want to make everyone happy and feel great.”

Barrymore was impressed by the breadth of McG’s knowledge about film, television and music. “At any given time he’s liable to reference The Matrix or West Side Story or Foul Play. And he knows how to marry all those influences and gracefully make them flow together.”

What amazes Lucy Liu is McG’s tenacity and drive. “From the beginning to the end of the first movie and through this one, he never once lost his energy or his spirit,” she says. “He’s always trying to elevate scenes, to make them more colorful, artful and energetic. Making something vibrant on film is not easy but he has that ability. McG wants to be inspired all the time and when you’re around that, you can’t help but get caught up and inspired. It’s like a hit of fresh oxygen.”

The director also has a knack for dramatic balance, Liu continues. “There’s a very fine line between comedy and drama. You can’t have one without the other -- that’s what makes it work. It’s a very difficult balance. But he knows that the audience is smart and he refuses to dumb things down.”

ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS (AGAIN)

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle was not a foregone conclusion, even after the enormous success of the first film, according to Cameron Diaz. “I never saw myself coming back to do a sequel. I like to work with different people, different directors, different stories. Then Drew called with a new twist on the storyline and said ‘let’s do it again!’ and Drew doesn’t stop until she gets what she wants. She is so enthusiastic and gives you so many good reasons to participate in her adventure that there’s no way to go against it.”

But what really convinced Diaz to sign on again, she confesses, was the camaraderie she experienced with Barrymore, Liu and director McG. “It’s a great partnership. Each day is an adventure. You’re never sure exactly what you’re going to be called on to do. In this film, among other things, I learned to weld, I surfed, I was in a roller derby, and performed a number with this amazing group of beautiful, sexy dancers called the Pussycat Dolls.”

Synchronicity was also an irresistible draw for Barrymore. “We are constantly looking out for one another. It’s rare to find that kind of consistent support and encouragement.”

Another reason her ardor never flagged was the kinship she feels with the character of Dylan, Barrymore adds. “She’s such a concrete character. I relate to her on so many levels: Her need for stability, for family, her need to go out there and protect the ones she loves and be the best that she can be. She’s so strong and fearless that I find my life dramatically changing when I’m playing her. Plus, I love what a court jester she can be.”

Liu’s motivation for returning was to demonstrate to the audience that, as much as they enjoyed the first film, “this time we’re really going to show them something new.”

With the three principals on board, producer Goldberg discovered that actors were actively clamoring to be part of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. “With the first movie, people were interested, but they were a little unsure,” he recalls. “They wanted to know if it was a spoof or just an extended episode of the TV series. When they saw it, the reaction was so positive that when we called them for the new film, they immediately signed up. In some cases we didn’t even have to ask. They called us.”

A welcome addition to the Angels team is Bernie Mac who plays Jimmy Bosley, the liaison between the Angels and their mysterious billionaire employer Charlie. Explains McG, “Bernie has an amazing energy, a unique voice and brand of comedy. He brings a fresh dimension to the movie.”

When he first received the script for Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Mac says he was a bit concerned about following in the footsteps of one of his comedic idols, Bill Murray, as a member of the Bosley family. “I knew that I was not going to succeed in this movie if I simply tried to fill Bill’s shoes,” Mac confesses. “No one could ever do that.” So he constructed a backstory for himself in which Murray’s character had related his adventures with the Angels and about his secret-agent experiences. “When I first get the opportunity to join the Angels, I’m a bit overwhelmed. It’s like when you get something you really want but aren’t prepared for what it’s really going to be like.”

Mac also decided to take the character of Bosley in a more paternalistic direction than his predecessor. “I wanted to show a warm side of Bosley, almost a father figure to the Angels. They take him under their wing and make him family. What I liked about the character was that he didn’t come off as a superhero. He started as someone who was in over his head, but worked hard and made real progress. You see him becoming part of the program and how he builds his relationship with the Angels and how it gets better day by day.”

In Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the Angels also meet one of their heroes -- the retired Angel they aspire to be. Madison Lee was the Angel in the 90’s. She could do everything and anything. And she still has surprises up her sleeve. “When we started thinking about a worthy adversary,” explains Juvonen, “we wondered about where had all the past Angels gone. What happened to them? And that also became one of the themes of the movie. The Angels wonder: ‘Should I stay on? What will happen if I leave?’”

The character of Madison Lee was written specifically with one actress in mind -- Demi Moore. “She just feels like an Angel,” says McG. “But she wasn’t in a big rush to return to movie-making so we brought out our secret weapon, Drew.”

Since Moore was the template for Madison, Barrymore was definitely not going to take “no” for an answer when she approached the actress. “If she had turned us down -- which I wasn’t going to let happen – I was going to camp out on her doorstep until she said ‘yes’,” laughs Barrymore.

McG suspected that when Moore read the part of Madison Lee, she would realize how well it suited her and how much fun she could have playing it. “Madison is not only beautiful, but physical as well. Happily, Demi took to that and we developed the character even further from there.”

Moore recalls that when McG first contacted her. “McG might call Drew his ‘secret weapon,’ but the truth is, they were a one-two punch. Their mutual enthusiasm and passion was very persuasive.”

RETURNING HEROES & A VILLAIN

Aficionados of Charlie’s Angels will be delighted to know that along with Luke Wilson and Matt LeBlanc, another major character reappears in the film, the ‘Thin Man.’ One of the first film’s more dastardly villains is back to do battle with the Angels. After the original movie was released, the filmmakers discovered that one of the more popular characters in the story was one who never spoke a word.

“But the public spoke,” says McG. “Everybody wanted the Thin Man back. He’s our Jaws. He takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin.’ I just love the balance Crispin Glover brings to the franchise.”

But the Thin Man didn’t start off as the strong silent type. Glover remembers when he read the script for the first film, his character had dialogue. “When they asked me to come in to talk about the role, I told McG I thought it would be better if the Thin Man didn’t say a word and he immediately responded to that idea.”

“I had never done a sequel before, but I really like this character,” Glover admits. “There’s this sense that the Thin Man is trapped in a different time. The fact that he doesn’t speak gives him a ‘silent movie era’ feel. I think audiences responded because they had to use their imagination more, and there’s nothing richer than a person’s imagination.”

With all the action in the film, McG was careful to not lose sight of the human side of the story. “Dylan is drawn to the family element of being an Angel. Natalie’s a truly joyful person and Alex is always trying to please her parents. We take time to breathe life into those areas of their personalities.”

McG also made sure that another prominent facet of the Angels -- their love lives -- be used to divulge different aspects of their personalities. For instance, “Jason’s not even sure what Alex does for a living,” says Matt LeBlanc who again plays Alex’s boyfriend Jason Gibbons. “And things are further complicated when she insists on a time-out in their relationship. What made it all so appealing was the continuing role-reversal aspect. Here’s this macho action hero who is not at all that way in real life. And he gets beaten down a few times by Alex, who is the real thing.”

Also returning is Luke Wilson as Natalie’s boyfriend Pete Komisky. The couple has finally made the commitment to live together. And there’s the suggestion that Pete wants to take the relationship even further. “I think the fact that Natalie, the basic all-American girl, is with a decent, hardworking guy like Pete, tells us a lot about them,” says Wilson. “She might be an Angel with all that entails, but at heart she’s just a normal woman who likes this stable guy.”

NEW TO THE ANGELS FAMILY

Joining the cast for the first time is Justin Theroux, whose character, Seamus O’Grady, played an important part in Dylan’s past. Her first meeting with him after many years is intense, according to McG, who told Barrymore, “Seamus is a part of your dark past that you thought had gone away. When you see him, the oxygen just goes out of the atmosphere.”

Barrymore first met Theroux on Duplex, a film she recently starred in with Ben Stiller, and was eager to work with him again. To prepare for the role, Theroux worked with a trainer to reshape his body and consulted with the film’s makeup artist Kimberly Greene on an elaborate series of tattoos, which were topped off with a Mohawk haircut. “Justin and I connected our teenage memories about the sort of punk-mod guys who wore oxblood Doc Marten boots with steel toes, super peg-tight pants, thin little suspenders and no shirt,” says McG. “They always had the traditional sailor tattoos. They were the kind of guys that I, being the suburban lightweight that I am, would see and think ‘wow, what a scary guy.’”

For Theroux, it was the first time he’d so fully committed to a complete physical makeover for a film role. “When I was told I would have my shirt off for many of my scenes, I decided to buff up and trim down,” he laughs. “I get to play the classic unstoppable, unkillable villain, and that’s a blast,” he adds. “It’s great to have those super-human moments where you should be dead, but you just keep on coming. It’s totally in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek comic opera tone of the movie.”

Though Theroux didn’t always relish fighting the “sweet and wonderful Drew,” he quickly discovered that she gave as good as she got. “The truth is, in the acting of these fights, Drew can really throw down,” Theroux recalls. “I had some injuries and so did she. The poor makeup people had to cover up some of the nastiest, most gorgeous purple-and-yellow heinous bruises.”

Another new arrival is Brazilian superstar Rodrigo Santoro, who plays the strikingly handsome – but deadly -- assassin Randy Emmers. “We wanted somebody for this role who was really sexy and fun,” says Juvonen. “We saw Rodrigo’s tape and met with him. He was so gorgeous, and there was something unique and original about him. The Brazilian accent added to his appeal. Also, he really knows how to surf and ride a motocross bike, which make him perfect for the role.”

Another reason for casting Santoro, according to McG, is that “heroes are only as good as the villains. When you have great villains, the film becomes even more engaging. Rodrigo has the toughest, most incredible screen presence. He’s like the male composite of all three Angels.”

Infusing the Angels family with another comedic layer is John Cleese, who plays Alex’s father. “We needed someone spectacular for that role,” says McG. “Since we never discuss Alex’s mother, we had to see this incredibly intelligent, sophisticated gentleman as her father. It makes perfect sense that Alex would be the fruit of his loins.”

According to Cleese, the role presented an interesting challenge. “It was explained to me that I was playing the part of a woman called ‘Mrs. Munday,’ who was a very high-powered Jewish socialite from New York. But they said the part was going to be rewritten -- which I thought was a frightfully good idea. I thought it was wonderfully eccentric casting to have me be Alex’s father,” Cleese adds. “And there is so much humor in the fact that he doesn’t really have any idea of what she does for a living. And every time she tries to explain it to him, he becomes more befuddled.”

JUST HOW HIGH IS HIGH?

“When the first film was released, audiences were enthralled by seeing three female movie stars in these huge action sequences,” producer Goldberg recalls. “Since that time, several movies have imitated that. So McG and I talked about elevating the action to a higher level. In this film, the Angels aren’t just flying across the room doing triple kicks. There are also some good old-fashioned punch-outs.”

Adds McG, “We all wanted to make this film decidedly more muscular and show that these girls can hang with the guys. We ramped it up to include wrestling, motocross, car crashes and leaps off tall buildings. The Angels hold their own in arenas normally reserved for idealized male action heroes. We wanted to put them in those environments and still have them be beautiful and comfortable in their own skin.”

While there is some of the spectacular wire work from the first film, says McG, the fight sequences in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle “are more grueling and the girls insisted on doing many of their own stunts so you would feel the impact of every blow and the real peril they’re facing.”

According to Barrymore, “McG and I like many different types of fighting styles from different films and time-periods and we brought all those elements together. This film used more than one genre, one flavor. There were some scenes where I thought, this is really intense, but it felt good.”

Who better to train the Angels than ‘The Master,’ Cheung-Yan Yuen, the Hong Kong fight choreographer who instructed the three actresses in martial arts and wire action for the first film. “Cheung-Yan brings a code of honor and a way of conducting yourself that is very angelic,” states McG. “He’s the ultimate example of ‘speaking softly and carrying a big stick.’ Months before we started principal photography, the girls were working out with him and his ‘team Hong Kong’. He brought out the best in the Angels and has been a huge inspiration to me.”

When asked to heighten the fight scenes, Yuen was confident he could deliver. "Cameron, Drew and Lucy trained so hard for the first film, they were in much better condition this time. They already had a foundation, which really paid off."

This time around, Yuen says the Angels' fighting abilities "reflect their personalities. Having confidence in yourself and your ability is as important as learning the correct moves. Each of them has an individual strength. Cameron has amazing explosive power and reflexes, and she is very focused. Lucy is strong and professional. Drew has very good flexibility and great willpower.”

In addition to the Angels, Yuen also trained Glover and Moore. Though Glover had previously worked with ‘The Master,’ his training was equally intense this time around. “We’d begin with stretches, then practice kicking, punching and various fight combinations. At the end of the day, we’d work with swords. The style of fighting is influenced by Wu-Shu, a derivative of Kung Fu. It’s the most dance-oriented martial art and has a lot to do with form. Cheung-Yan had a specific way of moving. He and his team were very clear about how you’re supposed to hold your poses. There is no difference in the fighting style between good and evil. What is interesting is that his choreography is psychologically based. There are different styles for the different characters.”

For Moore, who had never studied martial arts before, part of the fun of filmmaking is learning new skills. “There is a particular stylistic element to the way Cheung-Yan choreographs,” she reveals. “In some ways, it’s like a dance. Some of it is very challenging because it’s extremely intricate and has to be well timed. Learning the different sequences was very empowering and exciting. Still, you really count on getting ‘The Master’s’ approval because you want to do your best for him. Cheung-Yan looks for a certain commitment, so we were all working towards maintaining a level of integrity to what we were doing.”

Diaz explains that part of the training effort was to avoid repeating actions from the first film. Yuen moved her and Liu’s characters more toward kung-fu training and Barrymore’s towards street fighting stances. “We really get thrown around in this one, but I think Cheung-Yan and McG have married the two different styles of fighting very gracefully, so you have the best of both worlds,” says Diaz. “This time the bar was raised in a very organic way. It’s charged with even greater energy. The fight scenes are more exciting, more dynamic.”

And Diaz says she has the bruises to prove it. “There is just no way a human body can collide with another body over and over again, a hundred times a day and not get bruised,” she asserts. “It’s part of the job. Eventually the bruises go away. What remains is the great feeling you get when you know that, after all that rehearsal, you got it right and that the take is perfect.”

Of all the action sequences, the one that Theroux remembers best was also the most harrowing. It was filmed at night on the docks of the port city of San Pedro, south of Los Angeles, with Theroux’s character in a rage pursuing the Angels. On the run, Dylan trips and falls just as Alex and Natalie find a gas line and hose and turn the dockside alley into a wall of fire. “McG really likes to see what the actor is going to bring to the stunts,” says Theroux. “He usually has several cameras rolling and it’s very safe because he’s surrounded you with experts. Obviously, I didn’t really walk through that wall of flame. It was cheated, but I did come very close to the intense flames. It was so hot, it just sucked the oxygen out of the air and there was a kick to it. I come stalking through the fire without a shirt on so the stunt coordinator put this incredibly cold jelly on me that they use for fire stunts. By the time I got through the fire, it had evaporated because the temperature was so intense.”

Like Barrymore, Diaz and Liu, Theroux had the option of using a stunt double, but declined. “I wasn’t forced to do the stunt. But I felt that if the Angels can do their stunts, then I can too.”

The true joy of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, promises McG, “is that the Angels get blown up, they get shot at, they break their ribs and then just pick themselves up and go on. That’s why we root for them. It’s like Rocky Balboa. You don’t want to see him just win the fight from start to finish. You want to see him get beat up by Apollo Creed, and then you want to see him just barely pick himself up and make it happen in the final moments of the final round. That’s what makes the Angels so endearing. They’re so tough, so willing to go for it.”

Motocross Velocity

In addition to the mano-a-mano and martial arts fighting in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the action is accelerated with the use of some of the top motocross racers in the world. “Early on, McG discussed things that no one has ever seen three girls do in a film,” says Diaz. “He said motorcycles and surfing had never been shown in a way that was truly dynamic. So that became part of the movie and he made sure that we did it better than anyone.”

Of particular interest to McG was motocross because “when you go into a supercross stadium, you feel like you’re walking into a video game come to life,” he enthuses. “The things these guys manage to do while they’re flying a hundred feet out and 40 feet above the ground, separating themselves from their bikes and executing these fantastic maneuvers is so exciting and so ‘right in the wheel house’ of Charlie’s Angels. There aren’t many women in the world of motocross and I wanted to say, ‘women can do that too. So I knew we had to get it into the movie.”

When McG introduced her to the sport, Barrymore quickly caught the motocross bug. “He took us to a supercross in Anaheim to see what it was all about. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Of course, one wrong move, and I could be decapitated,” Barrymore laughs. “But watching them ride was mesmerizing. McG wanted to take that energy and honor it. Turns out he knew all these amazing, radical, champion motocross athletes and got them to be in the movie.”

Motocross is “basically taking danger and bottling it,” notes Liu. “In the film you see these competitors on their bikes flying up in the air doing these incredible jumps and leaps. Then they’re free-falling, letting go of the bikes with their legs and arms.”

The motocross scenes were coordinated by McG and veteran stunt coordinator/2nd unit director Mic Rodgers. “We were able to get professional riders who knew what they were doing,” recalls Rodgers, who also designed the track the riders were zooming around – and over – and under. The riders he used were a combination of those who ride free-style and those who compete for speed.

“Every jump is serious,” explains Rodgers, “because you have to attack it perfectly. Before I designed them, I talked with the guys and roughed out the way we wanted the jumps to be on the track. They went over the jumps and made adjustments. Every single shot was prepared months in advance. It's pretty failsafe, but we were sweating bullets anyway, because at any given time a bike could quit and you could have a major wreck.”

Melding the motocross action and the demands of the film’s storyline, was a challenge director of photography Russell Carpenter relished. “It wasn’t just a matter of taking several cameras out and shooting a group of riders,” Carpenter explains. “Every beat of the race had to be choreographed and thought out because there are quite a few visual effects shots tied in as well. And, because you’re telling a story, we had to weave the narrative in and out. What made it even more difficult was the fact that everyone’s wearing helmets, so it’s hard to tell who’s who or doing what.”

To the novice, the names of the maneuvers can be as exciting as the jumps themselves. Among the more well-known are the Superman, the Cliffhanger, Knack-Knack, Indian Air and Mike Metzger’s famed Back-Flip No-Footer, which means that at the apex of his jump, when he’s 50-feet in the air and both he and his bike are completely upside down he throws his feet off the “pegs” (pedals) in a “Flying W,” and then lands upright on his motorcycle as it roars on down the track.

In addition to the professional motocross riders who appear in the film’s competition, the production employed Richard C. Taylor, a well-known but retired competitor, to help figure out a way to mount a camera on a motorbike. Says Rodgers, “I don’t know of anyone who has put a 35mm camera on a motocross bike and actually jumped it 50-feet in the air across 75-foot gaps during a supercross. It was a weight and safety issue, so we had to boil it down to its nth degree.”

“Normally,” explains Rodgers, “if your bike quits in the middle of a jump, you can probably get away from it. But with a camera and mount on the front or back, the extra weight would mean you wouldn’t get clear of it, no matter what you did.”

One of the highlights in the motocross sequence is the 360-degree back flip performed by Mike Metzger. Considered to be the holy grail of freestyle motocross, there are probably only three events at which Metzger would execute this particular flip, so on the day that he performed the stunt, the Coal Bowl was filled with fans who had heard the news and had come out to watch. The atmosphere was more like a carnival than a movie set.

The motocross crowd also visited on two other occasions. The first was when seven-time world champion Jeremy McGrath and current world champion Ricky Carmichael, who was named the 2002 AMA Pro Athlete of the Year, made an appearance in the film. The second was the day popular rock star Pink and her boyfriend, motocross superstar Carey Hart, appeared in a scene with Cameron Diaz.

Among the other recognizable motocross and supercross stars who perform in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle are Ronnie Renner, the 2002 World Freeride Association Step-Up Champion, Nick Wey, a consistent top-ten finisher in supercross known for his “Smooth & Fluid” riding style; Johnny O’Mara, a champion from the 1980s who recently retired; Trevor Vines, who during the year 2000, performed in front of more than 10 million viewers in over 60 different cities; Ryan Hughes, who suffered a serious crash at the end of the 2001 season and is currently planning a return to racing, and Chris Gosselaar, who has been racing motocross since he was nine years old.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
THE SETS

It is a tribute to the director that the key production staff from Charlie’s Angels returned for the second installment, including production designer J. Michael Riva, director of photography Russell Carpenter, costume designer Joseph G. Aulisi and editor Wayne Wahrman, among others. “These people are an intimate part of the fabric of Charlie’s Angels,” says McG. “Each had a part in creating the voice of the first film and the new one as well.”

That’s not idle talk either, says Academy Award®-winning director of photography Carpenter (Titanic), “McG makes every person feel they have a contribution to make. He knows he can look in any direction and toss out a challenge – ‘how can we make this better?’ It’s that attitude that made me want to work with him again – that sense that everybody is included.”

According to Riva “we had all developed a shorthand that was even shorter than on the first film. In the chaos of pre-production, the creative enthusiasm managed to prevail on all levels. It’s an unusual group of people and McG is responsible for letting everybody expand quite a bit. His enthusiasm is palpable and it’s infectious. His sensibility is very much reflected in the people he hires. We’re all supreme optimists.”

As production designer, Riva’s job is basically to translate the written word into a fabricated set or a practical location. In Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, one of Riva’s main objectives was to animate the personal drama in the Angels’ lives. “In this story Natalie is about to commit herself to a serious relationship. Dylan is leaving because she doesn’t want to jeopardize her fellow Angels. And Alex is constantly lying to her parents and her boyfriend about what she does for a living. Then there is the appearance of Madison Lee, a past Angel.”

Riva’s job, he says, was to bring texture to the story beats. He envisioned Natalie’s home as a small, simple beach house – a modest first step at cohabitation. Alex’s residence is shown to be extremely neat and perhaps just a bit lonely – except that it sometimes gets messy despite Alex’s passion for order. Dylan lives in a hotel room and Riva attempts to give the sense that she has lived in this transient environment for years, which highlights her problems with commitment.

“You try to suggest character traits by where you put the actors, what props they use, the clothes they wear,” says Riva. “It’s something we all talk about and collaborate on.”
Getting the right take on Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle was a bit more challenging than the first film, Riva admits. “This film is a little bit more dangerous,” he says. “More than anything else, it’s about identity and individual personality. What is an Angel? Who are they really? What is going to happen to them in time?”

Though the original Charles Townsend Agency was blown up in the first film, Riva redesigned it for the sequel. He describes the location as “essentially a womb, the one place where the Angels share the same space. It’s where they receive their directives from Charlie, a man who’s never physically there but who is this benevolent father figure. I wanted it to be kind of Old World and clubby, with wood paneling, less contemporary and cozy than the first one, more august in a kind of ‘rumpled royalty’ way. McG and I both made a conscious decision that it should feel appropriate for Charlie, but the girls should look and feel slightly out of place there.”

The Charles Townsend Agency set was constructed to appear “disproportionately large so that you could get lost in it,” Riva continues, “because in the film there are constant questions of identity and it elaborates on that thematic thread.”

The film opens in a bar in Mongolia to which the Angels have been dispatched to rescue a kidnapped U.S. Marshal being held hostage. “The Mongolian Bar was a way to start out with a big surprise, to give the audience a caper that threatens to go bad,” says Riva. “When McG and I discussed this scene, I suggested it should take place somewhere very far away, a hostile environment filled with jeopardy, yet wild and eccentric. We created a fictitious place where these crazed brigands get together and have a good time – like land pirates. There were many extras and a great deal of noise and texture. And in the middle of it all are the Angels, working outrageously together. You immediately sense they’re going to come up with a cool solution.”

The set required extensive research for Riva and his crew. Mongolian textiles, giant gas lighting fixtures and heavy furniture were created for the bar as well as the addition of a mechanical bull that Natalie rides, which is covered in faux yak fur, giant horns and bells, to give it an exotic touch.

With his longtime passion for still photography, McG says he took great pride in composing each shot, working alongside Carpenter. “If every frame isn’t special, then why do it?” he asked Carpenter rhetorically. “So we’d reconfigure it and find a way to make it more special, more fun.”
Carpenter particularly enjoyed lighting the Mongolian bar “because it was so far from where we had gone in the first film and it set the tone for the new movie from the get go. We introduce Cameron in a snow-bunny costume atop the yak, Drew in a drinking contest in the background and Lucy downstairs in the basement rescuing Robert Patrick. Suddenly we realize we’re in this weird, comedic place. It’s now officially a Charlie’s Angels movie.”

One of the more lavish sets designed by Riva was for Madison Lee’s hideout, known affectionately as ‘Madison’s Lair.’ In order to find a space large enough for what he and McG envisioned, Riva and his art department went to downtown Los Angeles where they transformed Union Station’s former ticket area into the place from which Madison directs her evil empire. “Because it was Madison’s Lair, I thought it should be really big and grand,” recalls Riva. “The room has 50-foot ceilings. We put in a fireplace that was so big you could stand two people one on top of the other and walk them into it. It was very extreme. Lauri Gaffin, our set decorator, filled the place with telescopes and black forest oversized furniture, and naked statues everywhere…with Demi walking around half-dressed. It was very sexy. We had a giant bed built that was practically as big as the Titanic. It had a huge canopy and a headboard with a golden sunray radiating out of it. Very stylized. It was crazy! We all loved it.”

One of the largest sets to be completely constructed on a stage was of a Hollywood rooftop, for one of the film’s major fight sequences. The rooftop is supposed to overlook Mann’s Chinese Theatre where the premiere of a new film by Alex’s boyfriend, Jason, is taking place and Madison Lee is trying to wreak havoc on the Angels’ loved ones. Rather than take the chance of being exposed to the elements and noise, Riva decided to build the set on a soundstage. “It was a major undertaking,” he recalls. “It’s extremely difficult to make a huge set like that look real but Russell made it come alive. Without his interpretation, it would have been nothing.”

Carpenter is amused by Riva’s compliment. “One of the great things about being part of the Charlie’s Angels team is that everybody gets credit for what someone else did. Half the time, good cinematography is actually good production design and vice versa. The Hollywood rooftop set was one that required total collaboration. We had a 360-degree site that literally represented the entire Hollywood area at night. Our job was to light it in a way that made sense for the Angels’ world. Things have to be real, but also fantastic, somewhere between fun and reality. And it all had to be tied in with a sequence shot on the real Hollywood Blvd. You always hope that it’s a seamless transition from the real world to the world we create on stage.”

The Treasure Chest interior where the Angels have another adventure was also constructed on a soundstage at Sony Studios. “McG and I love old musicals,” acknowledges Riva. “I don’t think you can go wrong by putting at least one or two dance numbers in any movie. And he’s determined to do that any chance he gets. He wanted the appearance of a ‘knock-down, dirty, seaside bar’ for the Treasure Chest. But he wanted the interior to be a total surprise, so we came up with a sexy red strip joint kind-of-place with circular fish tanks mounted in the walls, and a sexy floorshow all enveloped in this red plastic patent leather.” (Diaz’s performance in a giant martini glass in this scene pays homage to and is inspired by Playboy beauty Dita Von Teese’s risqué and renowned burlesque act).

Over 500 yards of shiny red vinyl was used to quilt the walls and more than 3000 silver and gold coins were strung up to make curtains. Aquariums filled with dozens of exotic fish were set into the walls behind the bar.

Carpenter admires McG’s showmanship and his ability to “know just how far he can go before he hangs himself. He has a great and joyful appreciation of the old-style Hollywood filmmaking. When I first met him, I was amazed by how easily he referenced films from the Golden Age of MGM. He could talk about Ben Hur and Show Boat and ‘60’s films like Viva Las Vegas as effortlessly as last week’s best-selling music video.”

The Costumes

Joseph G. Aulisi’s costumes for the original Charlie’s Angels sparked a great deal of interest and praise and McG was eager to have him return for the sequel. “Joe makes the girls look so elegant and so lovely,” he says. “Then when it’s time to make them look tough, he does it in spades. As a person he’s very low-key. There’s nothing flamboyant about his personality, but when you witness what his imagination gives rise to, it’s really quite extraordinary.”

McG had some definite clothing ideas for some scenes, says Aulisi. For others, he placed his trust in his costume designer’s hands. “McG has this incredible vocabulary of every kind of possible pop-culture reference from the middle of the 20th century on. He draws on that, which inspires me to keep finding new places to go with it.”

The Technicolor musicals of the 1950s are an inspiration for the film, filtered and updated through McG’s sensibilities. Although the Angels’ costumes vary wildly, depending on the particular undercover assignment, Aulisi gave each of them a distinctive look. “The look has evolved since the first film,” he says. “Cameron’s character is still the ‘California, outdoorsy girl’ and, in general, totally into sportswear. Drew’s Dylan has lost some of her ‘flower child’ demeanor and has moved into a ‘rock star’ mode, while Lucy’s character remains the most international and cosmopolitan of the three girls. The challenge was to give the clothes a fresh look and still be faithful to what we call the ‘essence of Angels.’ To do this I switched the color palette slightly using a lot of red, white and black.”

One of Aulisi’s favorite segments is the Mongolian Bar scene because “it was so different from the rest of the film. We probably fit about a hundred-and-fifty Mongolian extras along with the three Angels.” Barrymore’s costume is probably the most correct Mongolian outfit. Liu’s costume evolved from research he did on Mongolian armor -- leather-coated plates of copper – that were transferred to a more practical all-leather outfit. In counterpoint, Diaz’s snow-bunny costume injected some humor into the Angels’ wardrobe.

As in Charlie’s Angels, the costumes in the new film are witty, playful and in some instances, ultra-sexy. “I tried to maintain an elegance,” Aulisi says, “using more texture in this film, with pleating and lacing and other things to give the wardrobe more dimension. Since fashion changes from moment to moment, I find it’s better to go with classic shapes. I look at the first film now and it still looks fresh, not dated.”

Motocross enthusiasts may notice that many of the racers are wearing Troy Lee Designs. Lee is the racing world’s premier designer and painter of custom helmets and riding gear. Lee designed and built the basic gear for the three Angels -- jerseys, pants and chest protectors. The boots were provided by Alpinestar, and Shoei provided the helmets onto which Lee painted the designs.

“Basically, we tried to heighten the reality of the sequence,” Aulisi explains. “For a road-luge sequence, I designed a jumpsuit in a camouflage pattern so that it looked like it was part of the road. Then I put a tire track down one side of it – to give it an edge.”

In addition to the three Angels, Aulisi designed the costumes for retired Angel, Madison Lee. In the beginning, her scenes are in shadows so the audience is not sure whether it’s a man or a woman. Later it is revealed that she is a ‘fallen’ Angel. “What I attempted with Madison was to give the impression that she’s enmeshed and slightly trapped, so I used layers of net on her costume. At a certain point, she jumps off a roof and her costume turns into a flight suit, which is something that actually exists, although it’s used for much higher altitudes. It gave a spidery tone to her character, which was a lot of fun.”

What viewers may not realize when they see the Angels in their form-fitting costumes is how many versions of the costumes have to be created. “Very often,” explains Aulisi, “we’re up to eight or twelve copies of each costume, not only for the actors but for their photo doubles and stunt doubles, which means the costumes have to be sized differently as well.”

The Locations

With the exception of the Charles Townsend Agency, the film rarely ventures to the same location twice. The Angels are in constant motion. Location manager Kenneth D. Lavet drove hundreds of miles throughout the Los Angeles area to find the 30 or so diverse locations McG envisioned for the film. “McG likes the idea of celebrating Los Angeles, so there are a lot of iconic landmark locations in the film,” explains Lavet. “He has an encyclopedic memory and knew of the best pop locations in the city.”

“One of our mantras,” says McG “is that Charlie’s Angels has been designed as a love letter to the city of Los Angeles. Every location had to matter. Everything had to be a landmark, to have historical significance. While there have been several films that were paeans to the legacy of New York City, Los Angeles is often seen as a more disposable city. But in our film you won’t see any mini-malls. You’ll see a more hidden L.A., amazing locales like the ornate Los Angeles Theatre, brilliant John Lautner-designed homes, extraordinary beaches that exist only on the west coast of North America, the docks of San Pedro and the Griffith Park Observatory, to name but a few.”

Timing played a big part in what locations were available. Sometimes, Lavet says, the production got lucky. “Normally you can only shoot at the Griffith Park Observatory one day a week when the facility is closed to the public. Because it was about to undergo a massive renovation, we were able to slip in there and shoot for over a week.”

McG had always wanted to use the landmark, but never before had it been available at the right time. “I’m very influenced by Rebel Without a Cause, which was shot up there. Plus, it has an architectural quality that allows you to look at it in a big, wide shot and it’s very bold. It also has an ‘angelic’ quality in that it looks over the City of Angels.”

The Observatory is also a dramatically significant icon and the location in which the character of Madison Lee is finally revealed. “When I learned that the top piece of the observatory telescope rotunda would rotate, I knew that I wanted to place her up there,” says McG. “We had to build a special rig to keep Demi from falling because as it goes around it jerks and could have bucked her out. I love the reveal when Natalie and Alex get a look at Madison and realize she’s betraying the Angels ethos. It’s a powerful scene.”

Another difficult location was the house in which Liu’s character resides, which is perched on a promontory overlooking Beverly Hills with views of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. The Sheets-Goldstein residence is a true architectural landmark and one of McG’s favorite L.A. houses. “It’s a perfect synthesis of the city’s indoor-outdoor living experience, sort of the crowning achievement of architect John Lautner’s career,” McG smiles.

For the motocross sequence, explains Lavet, “McG wanted the event to be more of an illicit motorcycle race than one held in a stadium. He wanted a covert event where riders pay a fee and winner takes all.”

“I wanted to create a stark, dangerous backdrop,” says McG. “We found an old coalfield in San Pedro and cleared out all the coal, creating a 360-degree stadium made of coal. All you get is the composition of blue sky, black coal and then these almost animatronic athletes a hundred feet in the air doing flips and pop wheelies. It was just the sort of emotion I wanted – to feel the speed, the danger, the sexiness and excitement that are embodied in the sport.”

Another San Pedro location was the nearby Southwest Marine dockside. “The largest harbor in the Los Angeles area is in San Pedro and we took advantage of the giant tanker ships and the idea that the O’Grady clan’s secret hideout was aboard one of these hollowed-out super-tankers,” says McG “It also gave me the opportunity to get the girls into some welding outfits and take advantage of that Flashdance imagery of beautiful girls ripping off welding masks.”

Another landmark used in the film was the Hansen Dam in the San Fernando Valley. The 62-year old structure, which operates under the auspices of the Army Corps of Engineers, is usually used for flood control. Through the digital magic of computer simulation and the sawdust hammer-and-nails work of scores of propmakers, the 10,475-foot long dam was transformed into an eerie Mongolian border crossing. Faux lookout towers and a disposable plaster-and-wood wall with a huge door added to the exotic aura. Set atop the dam was a 49-ton M60 A-1 (Patton) tank that was rented from the American Society of Military History and Museums.

“That scene was a real achievement for the art department,” recalls Riva, “because McG kept talking about the opening of the picture and how it had to be huge and overpowering. We designed and animated a sequence based on his pitch, and it was that sequence that got everyone at the studio excited. We eventually shot it on film. At first we thought we might have to build this giant dam that’s supposed to be in Mongolia. But working in conjunction with our visual effects supervisor Mark Stetson, we created something out of a Los Angeles location that, with a little effects magic, felt like Mongolia. We even had snow and sand on the ground and extras dressed up in giant yak parkas in the 95-degree heat. But it worked.”