Lyons: Our casting director, Jeanne McCarthy, was very aware of her and, when Beyoncé came to L.A. We’re going to get Steven Spielberg to pretend like he’s directing Austin? We’re going to get Tom Cruise to play Austin, and we’re going to get Gwenyth Paltrow to play Dixie Normous? Much like every casting decision in Austin, it all seemed impossible.
This movie was really hard to put together. Roach: She was already a known person at the time, and we just wanted to go crazier with everything we did in that third film. I was originally a casting director and always loved looking at musicians for parts, and I remember Sharon Sheinwold Jackson, the agent, telling me that the lead singer for Destiny’s Child was really special. John Lyons, producer: We knew that we were searching for a young Black actress. Jay Roach, director: There were a lot of discussions about who the love interest and partner in crime would be in that third installment, and we’d had such incredible experiences with Elizabeth Hurley and Heather Graham. Borrowing its title from the James Bond classic Goldfinger, the cameo-filled story melded ’70s blaxploitation homage and daddy-issues melodrama, with Austin and Foxxy setting out to rescue his often absent father (Michael Caine) while the vile Dutchman known as Goldmember (Myers) prepares to launch a meteor into the earth. The budget for 1999’s The Spy Who Shagged Me nearly doubled, and Goldmember ’s budget doubled again to a reported $63 million. The first Austin Powers movie, International Man of Mystery, grossed a decent $53.9 million in 1997 but swelled in popularity when released on home video later that year. The fact that she is now the most respected pop star alive makes the story behind Goldmember’s goofiness, and Beyoncé’s decision to take part in it, all the more fascinating. “But the movie doesn’t quite know what to do with the character, once she has appeared.” Beyoncé went on to headline The Fighting Temptations, The Pink Panther, Dreamgirls, Cadillac Records, and Obsessed before ostensibly abandoning live-action acting - RIP to her version of A Star Is Born - and making her best music to date ( 4, Beyoncé, Lemonade, The Lion King: The Gift).
Knowles knows how to strut that strut,” Stephen Holden wrote for the New York Times. “Alas, the movie doesn’t do much with her except assign her to look extremely good while standing next to Austin.” “Plunking a Pam Grier–like blaxploitation diva into the mix is a nifty idea, and Ms. “One new character I did like was Foxxy Cleopatra,” Roger Ebert wrote. Upon release, critics were undoubtedly drawn to Beyoncé’s supporting character but remained mixed on the film’s treatment of her. For her callback, she “went back in wearing a Pam Grier–like catsuit, an Afro wig, and had memorized every blaxploitation film ever made.” Her fate was sealed. When I left, I was convinced I wasn’t going to get it,” she told Newsweek.
“I read with Mike and just tried to be the straight guy. As Beyoncé recounted in 2002, she auditioned twice. That’s where Goldmember producer John Lyons got the idea to enlist her to play Foxxy, a stylish FBI agent who used to shag Austin (Mike Myers) and moonlights as a nightclub singer at Studio 69. Just ask Mariah Carey.) Her only credit was Carmen: A Hip Hopera, MTV’s contemporary spin on the classic French opera. (Crossover fame remained very important in the early 2000s. With the movie came her first solo single (the underrated funk jam “ Work It Out“) and a bridge to the image-defining smash “Crazy in Love,” generally considered her true breakthrough.Īt the time, Beyoncé was anxious to prove herself as an actress. It’s when Beyoncé Knowles became simply Beyoncé, even if it feels nothing like the Beyoncé we know today. Destiny’s Child would release one final album in 2004, but Goldmember - the seventh-highest-grossing movie of 2002 - marks Beyoncé’s transition from girl-group captain to singular superstar. “a whole lotta woman.”Īustin Powers in Goldmember, the third installment in a franchise that launched to modest success and ballooned to an abiding cultural phenomenon, turns 20 this summer. Which Beyoncé souvenir am I most grateful for? I choose what now feels like an anomaly in her rarefied, holier-than-holy pop career: Foxxy Cleopatra, a.k.a. Beyoncé has given the world innumerable gifts: the lyric “tell MCI to cut the phone poles,” the Bob Fosse–inspired “Single Ladies” dance, the infamous Met Gala elevator drama, decadent pregnancy announcements, this GIF, Coachella.