The brief return of Cameron Díaz to the cinema

In the nearly ten years since filming wrapped on Annie, the last film she made before retiring, Cameron Diaz has probably missed some aspects of her superstar status and wondered if her decision had been The correct one.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
30 April 2023 Sunday 15:52
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The brief return of Cameron Díaz to the cinema

In the nearly ten years since filming wrapped on Annie, the last film she made before retiring, Cameron Diaz has probably missed some aspects of her superstar status and wondered if her decision had been The correct one. Or maybe it was the typical desperation of mothers in charge of young children that led her to listen to her great friend Jamie Foxx when he called her to invite her to join the cast of the Netflix blockbuster in which he was the protagonist and executive producer. , and which is appropriately titled Back in action (again in action).

On the surface, Foxx's proposition was simple and irresistible: "Come have fun with me," and since the two had already worked together on two films, Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday in 1999, and Annie, once considered the little Cuban from Hollywood he forgot all the reasons why he had put an end to his brilliant career.

When filming began in December in London, everything was joyful and Cameron, now 50, could be seen filming with Foxx, 55. On one of those occasions the two were on a boat on the River Thames and on another They were running through a snow-covered forest. However, things got complicated when the production moved to Atlanta. Although it was never officially confirmed, some rumors pointed out that there was no shortage of difficult moments on the set and that in March Foxx became enraged with four members of the crew, an executive producer, an assistant director, a unit director and his own driver, and he fired them. And in April, Foxx himself was hospitalized for a serious medical condition that was never given details, but that interrupted filming for 24 hours, until Díaz continued filming with a body double.

Finally, the Oscar winner for Ray left the hospital and completed the remaining eight scenes, but everything seems to indicate that the situation helped the actress, who knew how to be among the best paid in Hollywood, to decide to continue her retirement, less if what it is about is being in front of the camera.

A few months ago, the start of the very long development process for a fifth of Shrek was announced, in which Díaz would once again lend his voice to the original version, playing Princess Fiona, while Mike Myers will return as the green ogre and Eddie Murphy as the talking donkey. Shooting an entire movie in a dubbing booth doesn't take very long anyway, and surely Cameron will stick with the fee DreamWorks paid him when he made Shrek 2, charging exactly $1 million for each of the two hours he spent. was required for the job.

For now, Díaz has not said anything officially, but an article published in March in the not always reliable Daily Mail maintains that the actress did not tolerate very well the long hours of filming that kept her away from her 3-year-old daughter Raddix, to the one she had through surrogacy, and she was not very happy not being able to share her days with her husband, the musician Benji Madden, who took full-time care of the girl. The truth is that for now she has no plans to get back in front of a camera, and although a version circulated in December that she would participate in a second part of The Holiday, it was Kate Winslet herself who quickly denied it.

Owner of a personal fortune that exceeds 120 million euros, which includes a wine brand, Avaline, which stands out for coming from organic grapes, Díaz does not need Hollywood. In an interview with her friend Gwyneth Paltrow in 2020 for her podcast, the actress, who became famous thanks to The Mask, explained that leaving her successful career had given her peace of mind: "Working at that level and being publicly exposed it's very intense stuff,” he told Paltrow, adding, “You get a lot of energy all the time, particularly when you're promoting a project. And while you're filming a movie they own you. You are there for 12 hours a day for endless months. You don't have time for anything else. Suddenly I found out that she had given parts of my life to all these people, and they took it. I had to recover all that and take care of myself.

Since he shared the bill with Jim Carrey in that fun film, Cameron has developed an impressive career in which, in addition to earning 20 million dollars per film, he has obtained four Golden Globe nominations, for There's Something About Mary, Being John Malkovich, Vanilla Sky, and Gangs of New York.