Last weekend Selma Blair was quoted by Metro‘s Katie Bailey saying that Cameron Diaz, who hasn’t made a film since Will Gluck‘s Annie (’14) and whose last good film was Ridley Scott‘s The Counselor (’13), has more or less bailed on her film career.
“I had lunch with Cameron the other day,” Blair reportedly said. “We were reminiscing about [The Sweetest Thing]. I would have liked to do a sequel but Cameron’s retired from acting. She’s like ‘I’m done.'” Blair was presumedly screamed at that night by Diaz and her reps, and so she tweeted the following day (Monday, 3.12) that Diaz “is NOT retiring from ANYTHING.”
Today, or four days after Bailey’s Metro story, People‘s Mike Miller posted a story about how the 45 year-old Diaz “is loving her life outside the Hollywood spotlight.” Quoting “a source”, Miller writes that Diaz and her 39 year-old, tattoo-covered musician husband Beji Madden are “great” and “both very happy living the quiet life.”
Translation: Diaz’s career is in eclipse but she doesn’t want anyone thinking she’s not ready to return if the right part comes along.
Diaz’s career started to lose steam as she got older and her looks started to fade. You can’t say she didn’t appear in better films during the ’90s and early aughts. We all know that actresses often have a rougher time when they start to show mileage. Or something like that. I didn’t invent the system. I deplore it. But that’s how it goes in some cases.
The same thing happened with Brendan Fraser — career peak between ’92 and ’05, and then he began to age out.
If you ask me Diaz peaked from ’94 to ’05, or from age 22 to 33 — from her breakout debut in Chuck Russell‘s The Mask (’94) to Curtis Hanson‘s In Her Shoes, in which she gave her career-best performance. Others would say that Diaz’s finest performance — certainly her best known or most popular — was given in the Farrelly Brothers’ There’s Something About Mary (’98). I have a special weakness for her mousey, frizzy-haired character (i.e, Lotte Schwarz) in Spike Jonze‘s Being John Malkovich (’99), which may be the best film in which she appeared. I still maintain that her best performance, line-for-line and scene-for-scene, was in the Hanson.
Other noteworthies from the peak period: P.J. Hogan‘s My Best Friend’s Wedding (’97), Peter Berg‘s Very Bad Things, Oliver Stone‘s Any Given Sunday (’99), Cameron Crowe‘s Vanilla Sky (’01) and Martin Scorsese‘s Gangs of New York (’02).
Not so good or post peak period: The Sweetest Thing, Charlie’s Angels, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, What Happens in Vegas, My Sister’s Keeper, The Box, Knight and Day, The Green Hornet, Bad Teacher, Gambit, The Other Woman, Sex Tape.
