The New Charlie's Angels Earn Their Wings

With a sizzling Miami setting and some seriously amped-up action, this season's reboot of Aaron Spelling's campy jigglefest Charlie's Angels is a combo of flash, fashion and escapist fun. But this time, the staff of the Townsend Agency — disgraced cop Kate (General Hospital alum Annie Ilonzeh), ex-con Eve (Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly), reformed thief Abby (Rachael Taylor of Grey's Anatomy) and former hacker Bosley (The Wire's Ramón Rodriguez) — aren't just a sinfully sexy quartet out to save the day. They're also hoping to give the TV and film franchise one hell of a makeover!

TV Guide Magazine: Do you guys feel a lot pressure stepping into such an iconic franchise?
Kelly: Rachael has a good answer for that.
Ilonzeh: Yeah, she does! [Laughs] We always leave that one up to Rachael.
Taylor: Well, I don't think any of us really feel that much pressure because we're not trying to repeat anything that's been done before... Not the original series or the movies. You know, as much as we all love them and respect them — we appreciate the legacy of Charlie's Angels — we are doing something that's our own. So it's not really a matter of trying to live up to anything.
Rodriguez: The pressure's on the writers.
Kelly: It was just the same amount of pressure it would be taking on any job. I think any job you do is as serious as any other, right?

TV Guide Magazine: And now that you've been shooting for a bit, have you found your Angels groove?
Taylor: [Laughs] It took so long.
Ilonzeh: [Laughs] We're still working on it.
Kelly: It was instant, really.
Ilonzeh: We came together and there was definitely instant chemistry.
Taylor: Many years ago, Minka and I did a photo shoot in Venice for a very trendy [magazine] and we met very briefly.
Kelly: Oh, that's right!
Taylor: It was like, four years ago. [Laughs] It was awful.
Rodriguez: I'll tell you when I knew there was chemistry. At the table read [for the pilot]....
Kelly: Oh! Can we talk about the table read? This gentleman brought all the ladies a rose.
Rodriguez: It was Valentine's Day. The chemistry was immediate. And you know, that doesn't happen all the time. At the table read sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

TV Guide Magazine: Well, if you bring your leading ladies roses...
Rodriguez:[Laughs] Well, not always!

TV Guide Magazine: It's good you get along, what with all of these late-night Miami shoots.
Rodriguez: Actually, we don't do anything but work.
Kelly: Yeah, we do 5am to 9pm on regular days.

TV Guide Magazine: The producers told us that no one's in a bikini in the first seven episodes.
Kelly: [Laughs] Good! That's what people are expecting and I think we're trying to do a lot of the unexpected.
Taylor: It's a nice ideato think that viewers will tune in to a show because the people in it are pretty, but no one ever really does. It's gotta be about the story.

TV Guide Magazine: This time around, on top of the cases of the week, the Angels are also trying to figure out who their boss really is, right? There's a Charlie mythology.
Ilonzeh: True.
Taylor:[We'll find] Bosley has the inside scoop.

TV Guide Magazine: Still, like all good Angels, this one is packed with action sequences.
Kelly: Everything you see us do, we're doing. Like, my car is not on a dolly. That is not a trick. I'm doing it.
Rodriguez: The horseback riding! I was freaked out.
Kelly: He's a city boy. When is he going to ride a horse?
Taylor: Annie and I did that explosion [in the pilot], which was like a proper multimillion-dollar movie-style explosion.
Ilonzeh: It's so fun. It definitely adds 10 shades of excitement when you come to work.
Kelly: It's like a bucket list. And we're getting paid to do it!

For more on Charlie's Angels, pick up this week's issue of TV Guide Magazine, on newsstands Thursday, September 22!

Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!