Why You Rarely Hear From Cameron Diaz Anymore
After spending a few years as a teenage model, Cameron Diaz didn't let her lack of acting experience stop her from auditioning for the female lead of a major Hollywood movie. At only 21, she scored the role, landing about as good a first film as any young actress could've hoped for in 1994 playing opposite Jim Carrey in the megahit fantasy comedy "The Mask." Not giving anyone the chance to question whether her movie career would be one-and-done, Diaz was already doing three movies per year from 1996 to 1998 — including a little movie called "There's Something About Mary," one of only five films from the decade to be included in AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs" list.
Going into the 2000s, Diaz added more dramatic work to her portfolio, even holding her own against acting titans like Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio in 2002's "Gangs of New York." She also helped to successfully reboot the cult hit TV series "Charlie's Angels" into a successful film franchise, and voiced Princess Fiona in the first-ever Oscar winner for best animated feature, "Shrek." But as the calendar rolled into the 2010s, Diaz's star power seemed to diminish, and the world started to see a lot less of her than it had in the two decades prior. How did one of the highest-paid actresses of all time seem to fall off Hollywood's radar?
She semi-retired from acting in the mid-2000s
Cameron Diaz wasted no time in becoming a prolific actor who was doing multiple movies per year. It was a pace she kept pretty consistently until 2003, when she "slowed down" to only one film a year until 2008. After that, she added another fifteen movie credits to her resume in the period between 2009 and 2014, and then ... nothing. Her acting career came to a grinding halt after that.
She initially didn't say much about why she wasn't starring in anything in the mid-2010s. There was a weird back and forth in spring 2018 where her "The Sweetest Thing" co-star Selma Blair said in an interview that Diaz had retired from acting, only for Blair to backtrack the next day on Twitter and say she was only kidding and that Diaz isn't retired. Later in the month, in an Entertainment Weekly interview with Diaz, Blair, and third "Sweetest Thing" lead Christina Applegate, Diaz finally spoke up on the status of her acting career — though, once again, odd contradictions came into play. Responding to Applegate saying that she was semi-retired, Diaz said, "I'm semi-retired, too, and I am actually retired." Whether it was a partial or a full retirement is a whole other issue.
The quality of her film output took a nosedive
Cameron Diaz eventually gave several reasons why she took a break from acting, which we'll dig into later on. However, it's hard not to draw a straight line between her hiatus and the way her last stretch of movies had been received just before then. The 2005 dramedy "In Her Shoes" is currently the most recent movie Diaz has appeared in beyond documentaries and cameos to earn a "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes — and given that she subsequently starred in over a dozen movies after that, that's a pretty significant string of critical disappointments.
Of course, some actors don't care what critics think so long as their films are connecting with audiences. She did have a few indisputable box office successes in that period, including the third and fourth "Shrek" movies as well as the raunchy comedy "Bad Teacher." But even then, it was several years before her last huge money-maker, and every modest hit was overshadowed by multiple absolute duds surrounding it. All this is to say that Diaz had long since been unable to have any measurable stretch of movies that were acclaimed or profitable, and the critical drubbings and box office flops were starting to pile up. It's tough not to assume that was at least part of her reason for stepping back to reassess her career.
She got tired of the constant travel required of actors
Though being a big-time Hollywood actor is a lot more fun — and certainly pays a lot more — than the career of the average person, it's a profession that isn't without its difficulties. One of them is that you are often asked to do a lot of traveling as an actor, having to spend significant chunks of time away from home. From taking meetings, going on location to film (to say nothing of potential reshoots), and then traveling the globe on promotional tours, an actor can expect to go several months at a time not getting to see the inside of their own bedroom any time they work on a film.
During a panel at the Goop Wellness Summit in 2017, Cameron noted how she had spent over 20 years traveling the world, going from set to set for her job. It eventually got to be too much for her, which is understandable — especially as someone enters their 40s and their priorities in life begin to change. Having a husband and a child will also play a key role in such a priority shift, which we'll dig into further down this list.
She wanted to rediscover herself
An actor builds their entire career out of playing other people, inhabiting other lives, pretending to be somebody and something that they're not. It can start to weigh on a person after a while, so much so that they might lose sight of who they actually are. Cameron Diaz confirmed as much, and gave that as another reason why her days of doing movie after movie — or movies at all — had reached an end.
At the 2017 Goop Wellness Summit, Diaz reflected on the moment she made that realization. "I just went, 'I can't really say who I am to myself.' Which is a hard thing to face up to. I felt the need to make myself whole." So she took a break from acting and spent more time reconnecting with herself as a person rather than just as an actor. As to what that process entailed, well ...
She became a best-selling author
In 2013, just before her final batch of films, Cameron Diaz added "author" to her multi-hyphenates when she published "The Body Book: Feed, Move, Understand and Love Your Amazing Body." The self-help guide, co-written with Sandra Bark, attempts to take a peer-reviewed, scientific approach to suggest ways for its readers to improve their physical and mental health. It hit the New York Times bestseller list shortly after its release.
Three years later, Diaz published a second book, titled "The Longevity Book: The Science of Aging, the Biology of Strength, and the Privilege of Time." Once again co-written with Bark, "The Longevity Book" follows similar themes and approaches to the duo's first book, only with more of a focus on getting older and attempting to change the societal stigmas attached to it. In an interview with Time, Diaz said, "To know you can actually affect your aging through just living — aging is living really. If you're aging, that means you're alive."
She started doing more entrepreneurial work
Beyond just taking lavish vacations, buying huge homes, and collecting sports cars, celebrities often do more than just spend their money. Many choose to invest their fortunes, either to make even more money or to enact positive change — typically, a combination of the two. When Cameron Diaz entered the entrepreneurial world, she seemed to have the latter goal in mind with the businesses, causes, and other ventures that she chose to support.
Having already established her passion for environmental activism by working with Al Gore on his Live Earth campaign in 2007, Diaz spent some of her first investment dollars on health-focused biotech startups. She joined fellow actor Jessica Biel as well as supermodel Karlie Kloss in supporting the probiotic supplemental company Seed, which focuses specifically on the needs of women in that sphere. Diaz also threw both her money and her celebrity clout behind a company called Modern Acupuncture as it set about opening a chain of locations in 2019. With that venture, she teamed with investment firm Strand Equity, who had previously helped to broker deals between 50 Cent and Vitamin Water, Reese Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine, and Madonna and Vita Coco.
She produced several TV shows
Apart from hosting "Saturday Night Live" four times and popping up on the show at various other points to do cameos, Cameron Diaz completely avoided the small screen for the first 11 years of her acting career. When you strike it big by co-starring with Jim Carrey at the height of his fame in your very first acting role, it's easy to feel like television is beneath you. But Diaz eventually ventured into the TV world in 2005 when she starred in and executive produced the MTV reality show "Trippin.'" True to her brand, the show was about addressing environmental issues, and also featured Drew Barrymore, Jessica Alba, Diaz's then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, and others.
After some appearances on "Sesame Street," "Top Gear," and the Halloween special "Scared Shrekless," Diaz helped to bring her hit movie "Bad Teacher" to television by producing — but not starring in — its 2014 TV adaptation. With Ari Graynor playing Diaz's role from the movie, the series co-starred Sara Gilbert, Ryan Hansen, Kristin Davis, and David Alan Grier. Reviews were mixed, while ratings were such that CBS pulled the plug after only five episodes. However, the network aired the remaining eight already-completed episodes the following summer. After that, Diaz's producing career seemingly went into hiatus as well.
She got married and became a mom
After high-profile relationships with Matt Dillon, Jared Leto, Justin Timberlake, and Alex Rodriguez over the years, Cameron Diaz finally seemed to find true love with Good Charlotte guitarist and occasional singer Benji Madden. Things moved quickly for the couple, who started dating in May 2015. They were engaged around the holidays of that year, and were married the following January. They were introduced by Nicole Richie, who is married to Benji's twin brother and Good Charlotte bandmate Joel Madden, making Diaz and Richie sisters-in-law.
Diaz taking on less acting work right around the time she became a newlywed might have been intentional, as she wanted to instead focus on her relationship rather than her career. In 2019, that focus also included being a mother, as Diaz and Madden welcomed daughter Raddix in December. Madden announced Raddix's arrival on Instagram in January 2020. Diaz told Kelly Clarkson that, especially as an older parent, she wants to focus on raising and spending time with Raddix — which would further explain why Diaz hasn't been in the public eye as much in recent years.
She launched an organic wine brand
Cameron Diaz may have spent a lot of money investing in other people's businesses, but she eventually got to the point where she wanted to start up something of her own. In 2020, she did exactly that when she and her business partner Katherine Power launched the organic wine brand Avaline after two years of work. Not having to be on location on film sets for months at a time or fly around the world doing press junkets went a long way in affording Diaz the time that was needed to put into the endeavor.
The company not only remains in business to this day, but Diaz is still very much involved and her face is all over the Avaline website. It's not something she just launched for the payday and left for others to run, seeming to remain passionate about the company, its products, and its mission. A September 2023 article about Avaline from the financial publication Barron's Magazine described it as a disruptor in the wine industry and called it one of the best-selling organic wine brands in the country.
Her big comeback film has been plagued with production problems
The final released film before Cameron Diaz's hiatus was "Annie," a modern reinterpretation of the classic musical. It was not only poorly received as a whole, but Diaz's performance as Miss Hannigan in particular earned some pretty harsh criticism. Rolling Stone, for instance, declared that "Diaz overacts the role to the point of hysteria." One positive was Diaz working with Jamie Foxx — two became good friends. So much so, in fact, that Foxx managed to talk Diaz to come out of retirement to do another movie with him.
Shortly after Foxx spilled the beans in 2022 that Diaz was returning to acting to star with him in a Netflix movie — fittingly titled, "Back in Action" – Diaz said that Foxx is the only person who she would've come out of retirement to work with. Unfortunately, production on the movie hasn't gone smoothly. In April 2023, Foxx suffered a medical issue, the details of which still haven't been disclosed, bringing "Back in Action" to a halt as he recovered. Rumors also abounded of Foxx having angry meltdowns on set, some of them directed at Diaz herself. In December 2023, Diaz shot down the rumors, saying Foxx is a professional and that filming "Back in Action" with him has been nothing but pleasant. Either way, no timeframe for the movie's release has been confirmed.
She's reportedly quitting acting for good after her next movie
Whether Cameron Diaz is telling the truth about Jamie Foxx being fun to work with on "Back in Action" and not the nightmare that some have suggested, it would seem that she is still set on the movie being her last. The fact that the production has dragged on for so long hasn't been easy on anyone involved — and whatever the reasons for it, the experience has seemed to only remind Diaz how miserable it can be to make movies and why she originally stopped doing them.
A source close to Diaz said that the actor doesn't like how much working on the movie has kept her away from her husband and Maddix. The source told Daily Mail, "'She hates drama and confrontation. This is why she retired from the business in the first place." Even without the delays caused by Foxx's health issues — and possibly his behavior on set — there is a lot about working on "Back in Action" that has made Diaz realize that she should've stayed retired, and according to the source, she truly does plan on being done with acting for good when she finally wraps filming on the troubled production.
Will she un-retire again for the Shrek reboot?
With all that being said about Cameron Diaz un-retiring for one last movie and then apparently doubling down on re-retiring after she finishes that movie, there is a wild card in the mix that complicates things. In 2014, Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks Animation began hinting at a return of the "Shrek" franchise. When Comcast acquired DreamWorks animation two years later, it was all but confirmed that one of the DreamWorks projects that would be revived under the new ownership was "Shrek."
There hasn't been much in the way of significant announcements or developments on the movie typically referred to as "Shrek 5" since then. What is known is that the original cast are all being courted to return — namely, Mike Myers as the titular character, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, and Diaz as Princess Fiona. Murphy has already said that he'd play Donkey again in a heartbeat, but Myers and Diaz have thus far been mum on the subject. In April 2023, DreamWorks creative partner Chris Meledandri told Variety, "We anticipate the cast coming back. Talks are starting now, and every indication that we've gotten is there's tremendous enthusiasm on behalf of the actors to return." If Diaz does decide to retire (again), would she make an exception to voice Princess Fiona? It definitely wouldn't require as much time away from her family, which would make it an enticing prospect.