Kristen Stewart Admits She Detested Making Her Charlie's Angels Remake

A few years after its lackluster release, Kristen Stewart is finally admitting that she really didn't enjoy making the 2019 reboot of "Charlie's Angels."

The movie — directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, and Banks as Bosley — flopped critically and commercially upon its release, so Stewart's remarks don't exactly come as a surprise. She commented on the career low while participating in Variety's video series "Know Your Lines," which asks actors to identify standalone lines from their biggest projects. The line in question: "Did you know that it takes men an additional seven seconds to perceive a woman as a threat compared to a man?"

"This was a mouthful at the time," Stewart admitted. "I remember saying that. That was from a little film called 'Charlie's Angels.' We wanted a strong opener, you know? We wanted to really like broadcast what the movie was about. It was a good idea at the time. I hated making that movie. I don't know what else to say to you."

Stewart then invoked the 2000 "Charlie's Angels" reboot starring Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, and Drew Barrymore, saying hers never could have compared: "Honestly, the three...you can't touch [that]. Cameron, Lucy and Drew...I love that movie. I love that movie! If that says anything."

Kristen Stewart's comments aren't exactly unexpected, considering that the 2019 take on "Charlie's Angels" performed dismally with critics and ended up flopping at the box office. Unfortunately, many of the reviews noted issues with the pacing and overall vibe of the film, with editors pointing out the clumsy editing and the fact that it tried just a little too hard to put forward a "feminist" message.

Elizabeth Banks has also acknowledged the issues with her version of "Charlie's Angels," though she thinks most of it comes down to marketing. As she told Rolling Stone in July 2023, "So much of the story that the media wanted to tell about 'Charlie's Angels' was that it was some feminist manifesto. People kept saying, 'You're the first female director of 'Charlie's Angels!'" As Banks pointed out, she might be the first female director of a "Charlie's Angels" project, but the only things preceding her project were the earlier movies by McG and the original series (plus a short-lived reboot on ABC in 2011, but the less said about that effort, the better). 

The way Banks tells it, she just wanted to participate in a beloved, long-running franchise: "I just loved the franchise. There was not this gendered agenda from me. That was very much laid on top of the work, and it was a little bit of a bummer. It felt like it pigeonholed me and the audience for the movie."

No matter what happened with the "Charlie's Angels" reboot, Kristen Stewart's career is doing just fine. After rising to international fame thanks to the "Twilight" franchise, Stewart proved she was more than a teen star by teaming up with risky directors like French auteur Olivier Assayas, whose film "The Clouds of Sils Maria" helped Stewart become the first American actress to win the prestigious French César Award for her performance. 

Stewart worked with Assayas again on the eerie film "Personal Shopper," branched out into romantic comedies in 2020 with "Happiest Season," earned her first Academy Award nomination for playing Princess Diana in Pablo Larrain's trippy biopic "Spencer" in 2021, and got weird in David Cronenberg's 2022 body horror flick "Crimes of the Future." 

With a number of buzzy projects on her slate as of this writing, including a role in the dystopian romance "Love Me" with Steven Yeun and the thriller "Love Lies Bleeding" with Katy O'Brian, Stewart clearly isn't slowing down — especially now that "Charlie's Angels" is in her rearview mirror.