Cameron Diaz Says Acting “Feels a Bit Different” After Eight-Year Hiatus
Cameron Diaz isn’t masking the mixture of emotions she’s feeling as she makes her long-awaited return to performing.
The star was a guest on The Tonight Show on Friday, where host Jimmy Fallon asked about her role in director Seth Gordon’s upcoming action-comedy film Back in Action, in which she’s set to star opposite Jamie Foxx. Diaz has opted to step away from Hollywood in recent years and hasn’t appeared in a film since playing Miss Hannigan in 2014’s musical adaptation Annie.
When Fallon asked if she’s either nervous or excited to start working on the Netflix film, Diaz replied, “I’m both. It’s a little bit of muscle memory, you know what I mean? I did that for so long, it’s kind of like the process — I just fell back into it. But it feels a little bit different.”
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She continued, “And I’ve also made two movies with Jamie Foxx, which is amazing. The last movie I made was Annie with Jamie, and so the first movie back is this film with Jamie.” She said about her Back in Action co-star, who also appeared with her in 1999’s Any Given Sunday: “He’s so great, he’s so easy, he’s so professional, he’s so talented. And just being able to work with him, it’ll be so much fun.”
Diaz, known for films including The Mask, There’s Something About Mary and My Best Friend’s Wedding, pointed out that Foxx can be an energetic scene partner. “I’m nervous about that because I have to listen to Jamie, because he will go. He’s like a racehorse,” she admitted. “I just want to be able to support him along the way.”
In an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow that was posted online to Goop in 2020, Diaz, who shares 2-year-old daughter Raddix with husband Benji Madden, explained that she felt she wasn’t in control of her time when she was more regularly working on films. “You’re there for 12 hours a day,” she said back then about film sets. “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, and they took it.”