After a decade-long hiatus from acting to focus on her family, Cameron Diaz is making her highly anticipated return to Hollywood. In an exclusive interview with E! News, the 52-year-old actress, who took time off to marry Benji Madden and raise their children—5-year-old daughter Raddix and 10-month-old son Cardinal—revealed how motherhood has reshaped her approach to both her career and life in general.
“You’re a different person after you have children, after marriage, after building a life,” Diaz shared. “Everything changes, your whole perspective, your whole world, your understanding of it.” She explained that, before having a family, her career took priority, but now her family is her top concern, saying that “all of the boxes change that need to be checked off. That’s the most important, and then everything else has to line up to support that.”
After a decade of prioritising her family, Diaz admitted that returning to a movie set for the first time was initially a bit jarring. However, she gained a fresh perspective on storytelling and acting. “As an actor, it’s completely different having taken 10 years and lived a life that I wasn’t living when I was an actor,” she added. “There’s a lot more happening in my world that allows me a different perspective on life, period.”
While she had been content with staying home for years, it took a lot of persuasion from costar Jamie Foxx to convince Diaz to return for the Netflix action film Back in Action. “I hadn’t considered anything other than this,” Diaz confessed. “Benji and I talked about ‘maybe it would be cool to do something with the family,’ like switch it up a little bit.” She agreed to the project, in part, because she trusted Foxx’s talent and professionalism.
Diaz also expressed gratitude for still receiving offers after a long absence from the industry. “To be able to have the privilege to come back after 10 years and even have this as an option to me… I feel really lucky to do it,” she said. “It was really fun to be able to say yes to it.”
Foxx, who has worked with Diaz twice before, expressed how thankful he and the filmmakers were to have Diaz back on board. “We wanted to be very gracious,” he said. “I told her, ‘I don’t want your feet to touch the ground. I want this to be the easiest thing and I don’t want to mess it up either.'”
Back in Action is set to showcase the dynamic between Diaz and Foxx, with a script written by Seth Gordon, and promises to be a thrilling return to the big screen for Diaz.