Cameron Diaz Shrek 20th Anniversary: What happened to Cameron Diaz? | Films | Entertainment
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The first Shrek hit cinemas on May 18, 2001, and was an instant hit. As well as rewriting the way fairytales were portrayed in animation, it competed for the Palme ‘d’Or at Cannes and then won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Although Diaz dosen’t appear directly on screen (obviously) her role perfectly summed up her meteoric career, fusing irresistible charm with comedy and an instinctive drive to subvert the portrayal of beautiful women (and cartoon princesses) in Hollywood. So why did she suddenly disappear in 2014? It actually had nothing to do with her film career at all.
Raised in Long Beach, the California schoolgirl was spotted by scouts and signed to Elite Model Management in 1989 at age 16.
She didn’t take long to jump across to the big screen with a spectacular debut in 1994’s The Mask. While the film was a hugely successful vehicle for Jim Carey, Diaz also shone, holding her own against the OTT comedic antics of her leading man.
It was to set the pattern for a career which combined obvious physical beauty with a refusal to be typecast simply as a blockbuster eye candy.
READ MORE: Enya at 60: Singer who became Ireland’s biggest star – Where is Enya?
Diaz’s career hit new heights in 1997 with My Best Friend’s Wedding alongside Julia Roberts and then her infamous scenes in There’s Something About Mary.
The star’s willingness to embrace physical comedy and outrageous gags culminated in the moment her character accidentally used something shocking as hair gel – and gained the actress her first Golden Globe nomination.
Impressively, Diaz went on to mix in highly-regarded performances with dramatic roles in 1999’s Being John Malkovich (another Golden Globe and first BAFTA nomination) and 2001’s Vanilla Sky opposite Tom Cruise.
The same period saw even greater success with the first Charlie’s Angels reboot in 2000, alongside Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore.
It was followed by the start of the biggest films of Diaz’s career – the Shrek franchise.
In 2014, Diaz made her final three movies, all of which were panned by critics.
Revenge comedy The Other Woman was a worldwide hit. Outrageous comedy Sex Tape saw the star push her boundaries in terms of onscreen nudity but was a box office disappointment.
The hip hop remake of Annie with Jamie Foxx was an extremely high-profile flop and certainly would have contributed to Diaz’s subsequent desire to leave the “hard-knock life” of Hollywood.
However, major changes were also happeneing in her personal life.
In spring 2014, Diaz was reintroduced to Good Charlotte musician Benji Madden by Nicole Richie, who is married to his brother and bandmate Joel Madden.
The pair had actually met back in 2004 at a charity basketball game. Ten years later , they quickly fell in love and were marrried on January 5, 2015.
In August 2020, Diaz looked back at why she had decided to walk away from HOllywood at that time: “I stopped and really looked at my life. When you’re making a movie … they own you. You’re there for 12 hours a day for months on end, you have no time for anything else.”
“I realized I handed off parts of my life to all these other people,” the ‘Charlie’s Angels’ star added. “I had to basically take it back and take responsibility for my own life. I had been going so hard for so long, working, making films, such a grind. I didn’t make any space for my personal life.”
Diaz added: “I realized I handed off parts of my life to all these other people,. I had to basically take it back and take responsibility for my own life. I had been going so hard for so long, working, making films, such a grind. I didn’t make any space for my personal life.”
From 2015 her focus was her personal life. The couple welcomed a daughter Raddix in December 2019.
As well as being an ecoawareness campaigner, Diaz has also written two books, 2013’s The Body Book and 2016’s The Longevity Book, and invested in bioaware start-up companies.
Her Instagram feed is filled with home cooking videos, plus lifestyle, activism and wellness blogs. Her most recent project was the launch of an organic wine range, Avaline, last year.
As for movies, Diaz officially “retired” in 2018 but when asked again if she would ever return to the screen, simply said “I’m never going to say never.”
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