SUBMITTED BY TheHouseDirector

July 21, 2002 — Zap2it Reports:

"When Beyonce Knowles first auditioned for the latest Austin Powers movie, she was terrified. She brought her mother and didn't even speak.

"Austin Powers in Goldmember" director Jay Roach says he wasn't very impressed with the Destiny's Child singer -- at first.

"I held out for a while and was reading a bunch of other actress for the role," Roach tells Zap2it. "I waited and then the casting director John Lyons, who actually spotted her, said 'Please just see her.' It was very late in the game, she was really shy, she was with her mom the first time I met with her and her mom got all the jokes and she kind of didn't at first but she came back two weeks later and auditioned and she blew us away."

The character of Foxxy Cleopatra was a combination of the brassy Blaxploitation roles that Pam Grier was known to play.

"One aspect of the Blaxploitation genre is the partner on a vendetta mission and Foxxy was a composite of women like that, a strong cool female lead," states Mike Myers. "When Austin shows up in 1975, eight years after, Foxxy is mad. Eight years and no phone call, nobody stands up Foxxy Cleopatra."

Thanks Zap2it for the info!

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