Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu weren't the only women that made Charlie's Angels (2000) such an iconic film. Destiny's Child singing Independent Women, the official soundtrack of the movie, definitely made it so much cooler and hotter at the same time.
It's probably the only movie soundtrack to mention the names of the lead actresses without it sounding forced. To this day, Independent Women remains an anthem for many ladies across the globe. Not all soundtracks get to achieve such status.
So what's the real story behind Destiny's Child singing the official soundtrack of Charlie's Angels (2000)?
Everybody Was Excited About The Collaboration
Destiny's Child's Kelly Rowland made a virtual appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show to talk about her pregnancy with baby number 2. Drew and Kelly did a little catch-up, talking about motherhood and their friendship. "There's another meaningful connection that we have," Drew said about her friendship with Kelly.
"That is that you're also a producer, and I was lucky enough to get to produce the Charlie's Angels movie. And I will never forget McG, our director, walked into the trailer and he was like, 'I have really big news' and he told us about the single and how we were gonna get to collaborate with you guys [Destiny's Child]." Kelly was all smiles as Drew told the story of how she found out that Destiny's Child was singing the movie's official soundtrack.
Three Is The Magic Number For Women
"I will never forget when he [McG] brought in the video," Drew told Kelly. "We got to see you guys on your motorcycles. What was so amazing was the symmetry of the three women and the three women." Well, you can never go wrong with two iconic female trios working together. "I always think about it as corners. Like everybody has each other's backs in this weird, interesting way," Kelly said about the collaboration.
"Physically there's no blindspot and three—it was—is just the magic number I feel like with women." From The PowerPuff Girls to Regina George's little group of Mean Girls, it's true—female forces usually come in threes. Combine two of them and you get a box office hit grossing $264.1 million worldwide. Charlie's Angels was the 12th highest-grossing film of the year 2000.
It Was All About The Symmetry
"You guys also said our names in the song," Drew told Kelly. "That's just something that isn't done and you made that such a unique signature. And I do think it really grounded it. It wasn't our characters' names. It was our real names, and when music and film come together, they might have a similar title or a theme or say 'from the motion picture soundtrack' but you guys knew how to humanize it and put yourselves in it. And it became like this mirrored sisterhood that was just so cool."
Amazed at how the song turned out, Drew asked Kelly about Destiny's Child's process in creating Independent Women. "I just remember we wanted to have tags, you know, at the beginning of the record. As far as you guys' names were concerned and of course, being the stars of the movie, like we had, of course, respect and just wanted it all to feel just unified," Kelly explained.
"When that moment happened in the studio, it all clicked in the place. It was just about us having this, like you said, symmetry amongst the six of us, basically on the record. And it happened." Now, that's the magic of sisterhood.
