Shocking as it may seem, Cameron Diaz hasn't starred in a major motion picture release
since 2014, when she appeared in the reboot of Annie.
It's hard to believe that the woman who could pretty much act in anything -- from rom-coms
to sci-fi mindbenders to big-budget action vehicles and raunchy comedies -- has virtually
disappeared.
But there are lots of possible reasons why one of Hollywood's "It" girls has backed away
from the screen scene.
From typecasting to lifestyle changes, let's take a look at all the reasons why Cameron
Diaz has gone from being one of Hollywood's busiest actresses to barely there.
Critical downswing
Diaz's critical reception has been hit or miss over the years.
At the turn of the millennium she was wowing reviewers with her work in films like There's
Something About Mary, Being John Malkovich, and Vanilla Sky.
But her charms wore off somewhere around the middle of the decade because her films started
getting leveled by reviewers after her 2005 dramedy In Her Shoes.
Diaz's most recent flicks have been especially painful, garnering some of the worst marks
of her entire career.
These include Gambit, Annie, and 2013's The Counselor.
"You don't think that's a bit cold?"
"I think truth has no temperature."
To her credit, though, Diaz can still turn a mediocre movie into a box-office hit when
it counts.
Despite middling reviews, Bad Teacher surpassed the coveted $100 million mark in 2011, and
she found similar success with the 2014 release of The Other Woman.
The problem is, for every hit she's had, she's had just as many flops.
The same year The Other Woman came out, Diaz starred in the underwhelming Sex Tape, which
was ripped to shreds by critics and earned disappointing returns at the box office.
Even the movie-musical Annie failed to catch on with audiences or reviewers.
In other words: Diaz may no longer be bankable on just her star power alone.
Evolving interests
When Cameron Diaz made her feature film debut in 1994's The Mask, she was just 22 years
old.
And even then her role choices were often interesting.
She starred in a few dark comedies like The Last Supper and Head Above Water before becoming
a mainstream sensation in My Best Friend's Wedding.
Even as she fell into the cheesy romantic comedy trap of the '90s, she made sure to
mix in roles with some real meat in them when she could.
Nowadays, she seems to have even less patience for paper thin parts than before, even though
those are the ones that help to keep the lights on most often.
As she told Collider of her decision to star in The Other Woman:
"Usually, when it's a story about three women all being involved with the same man, it ends
in some eyeballs being scratched out and some weaves being snatched off.
We decided that wasn't the story we wanted to tell."
She said the film was more about how the women "empowered" one another by utilizing their
strengths and weaknesses to form a friendship, rather than turning on one another.
As she notes, though, parts like that are harder to come by, and instead what she's
become known for are roles that play to type.
In the last decade, Diaz has often played a variation of the same character: a career
gal inadvertently marries a party boy in What Happens in Vegas, a single gal inadvertently
gets tangled up in a fugitive relationship with a spy in Knight and Day, and a celebrity
fitness guru in a Hollywood relationship is caught off guard by the demands of pregnancy
in What to Expect When You're Expecting.
Even as Bad Teacher saw Diaz shift gears into a feistier mode, it was still just a derivative
rom-com with a bunch of f-bombs thrown in.
It's gotten to the point where her career has become the equivalent of writing a paper
the night before it's due, knowing you'll probably get a C on it but accepting that
will be good enough.
"Things are about to change around here."
Perhaps Diaz is holding out for something substantial before she signs on for another
feature film, or perhaps she's considering the peak TV scene as a next stop.
Of course, those close to her seem to think there's something else going on ...
Early retirement?
Actress and longtime friend of Diaz, Selma Blair, dropped an unintentional bombshell
about her The Sweetest Thing co-star's career during a chat with the Evening Standard when
she said:
"I had lunch with Cameron the other day, We were reminiscing about the film.
I would have liked to do a sequel but Cameron's retired from acting.
She's like 'I'm done.'"
Considering that wasn't exactly public information, the quote sent the entertainment world into
an immediate tailspin and made everyone realize that, yes, Diaz has been absent from the biz
for a long time.
Blair did add that she didn't know if it was a permanent decision, saying:
"I mean, she doesn't need to make any more films.
She has a pretty great life, I don't know what it would take to bring her back."
After the resulting commotion, Blair took to Twitter to clarify her comments, writing:
"BREAKING NEWS Guys please, I was making a joke in an interview.
CAMERON DIAZ is NOT retiring from ANYTHING.
And for more breaking news: I am NOW retiring from being Cameron Diaz's spokesperson."
But wait!
Diaz seemed to confirm her friend's comments during a March 2018 reunion with The Sweetest
Things co-stars.
While bantering about family lives with Blair and Christina Applegate, Diaz said that she's
"literally doing nothing" and "actually retired."
Was that an official announcement?
Considering the comedic chops of all three of these seasoned actresses, they could very
well have been toying with our emotions, knowing the tabloids would flip -- and they did.
Was Diaz being serious or sarcastic?
That tiny bit of talk left us craving more info (and movies) from all three of these
women.
Settled down
Diaz's previous high-profile relationships with stars like Matt Dillon, Justin Timberlake,
and Alex Rodriguez made her a regular feature of weekly tabloids, but all of that changed
when she and Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden became an item.
The two dated for just a few months before making it official, and Diaz has never sounded
happier.
She gushed on Instagram: "One of my favorite things about being married,
is how much pride I take in my husband.
He makes me proud everyday.
One day it might be how generous and giving, another how gentle and thoughtful.
Or when he is fiercely protective of the people he loves and cares about.
And every single day I am so incredibly proud of his integrity as a human being."
Considering it'd been just a few years since she said she didn't even believe in monogamy,
it sounds like this romance took her by surprise and swept her off her feet and the screen.
New path
Diaz's absence from the big screen may have been deliberate after all.
Over the last few years, she's been busy carving out a career for herself as a lifestyle author.
In 2013, she co-wrote The Body Book, which quickly became a best-seller.
On the heels of that success, she released The Longevity Book in 2016, which addresses
the science of aging and explores her own efforts to stay healthy as she gets older.
"As we get older there are phases of life that we enter into"
"What I learned is that aging is really about living."
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Diaz revealed something about her motivation
for writing that could be interpreted as an increasing disdain with the vanity of Hollywood.
Asked whether she thought her recommended "anti-aging techniques" would be viewed through
the lens of society's diminishing "superficial value on aging," Diaz replied:
"I hope people will start to embrace it more in that way, but I think we do live in a society
where everywhere you look, every billboard, every magazine, every advertisement that pops
up on our computer is telling you where you're at [in age] is scary and dangerous."
In other words: Diaz is more focused on personal wellness these days than she is on conforming
to a studio's idea of what her body should look like.
That's obviously a long overdue revelation because in 2017, Diaz admitted she'd started
to lose touch with herself.
The actress appeared on a panel discussion at Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop Wellness Summit
and revealed that being part of the entertainment business took a toll on her emotional wellbeing,
saying:
"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."
This fame fatigue may have prompted studios to award roles that might have ordinarily
gone her way to more eager actresses.
Or it could have been exactly what it sounds like: an extended mental health sabbatical
that she certainly earned after two decades spent maintaining a spot on the A-list.
In either case, Diaz's current Hollywood hiatus seems to be mostly on her own terms, so whether
or not she ever changes her mind, at least we'll know she's in charge of her own future
now.
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