Cameron Diaz says has returned to acting because she got control over different aspects of her life.
The 1980s and 1990s gave the movie industry a bevy of darlings that continued to grace our screens, including Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, and Meg Ryan; but one of the major forces to make her impact in Hollywood in the 90s and into the 2000s seemingly eclipsed all of them was the bombshell, Cameron Diaz.
After bursting onto the scene in 1994 opposite Jim Carrey in The Mask, Cameron Diaz appeared in nine projects, including She’s the One and My Best Friend’s Wedding, before she shot to stardom in 1998 with There’s Something About Mary. Surprisingly, after twenty years of success on the screen as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Cameron Diaz announced her retirement in 2014 following her turn in the remake of Annie. However, according to Movie Web, she has announced her return to the screen for the first time in eight years.
In an appearance on Kevin Hart‘s podcast, Hart to Heart, in 2021, Diaz explained that she felt the need to retire from acting to focus on gaining control of aspects of her life she felt were often handed off to other people. In her retirement, she was finally able to marry the lead guitarist of Good Charlotte, Benji Madden, and welcome their daughter Raddix in 2019, both things she never felt like she had the time to do while working.
Her absence from movies after Annie was more of a soft retirement as there was no formal announcement until four years later when she announced in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that she had retired.
Now, after eight years off, Cameron Diaz is returning to set alongside Jamie Foxx in the Netflix film, Back in Action, appropriately titled as it serves as Diaz’s return to action as well. While she didn’t have any plan to return to performing, Foxx enlisted the help of Tom Brady (who has his own experience with retiring and unretiring) to help convince the Charlie’s Angels actor to return to the fold.
In an interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Diaz said she was both nervous and excited to return to performing and that acting feels different now; still, her muscle memory kicked in, and she was able to perform like she used to.
Cameron Diaz hasn’t been focusing entirely on family while in retirement. She has published two books, invested in health and biotech startups, and launched an organic wine brand, Avaline, with Katherine Power. Both of her books focused on the health and longevity of the body, with the first one reaching number two on the New York Times Bestseller List.
Before her abrupt exit from Hollywood, Cameron Diaz seemed to be focused on returning to her roots in comedy. While her rise to stardom was primarily thanks to comedies like The Mask, the Shrek franchise, and There’s Something About Mary, she branched out to films like Gangs of New York and Vanilla Sky before her last few films took her back to the genre with Sex Tape and The Other Woman.
Back in Action is labeled as an action-comedy, and with the team of Diaz, Foxx, and Horrible Bosses director, Set Gordon, it is fair to assume her return will also be focused on making audiences laugh.
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