Actress Cameron Diaz says the decade she spent in retirement was “the best 10 years” of her life.
The Holiday star returned to screens this month in a new spy thriller – Back in Action – with actor Jamie Foxx.
It’s unclear if this is a permanent return to acting, as she told BBC One’s Graham Norton Show “maybe it’s the beginning…I don’t know “.
When asked if she liked the anonymity of stepping back, she replied “oh my God, I loved it”, adding that she was “free” to be a mother and wife but was “really grateful” to be back.
Her last role was as Mrs. Hannigan in the 2014 remake of Annie – a film that Foxx was also in. However, Diaz only officially confirmed his retirement from acting in 2018.
Foxx, who has worked alongside Diaz twice previously, said he persuaded her to return to the industry by asking her “very humbly” if she would come back and “grace us with her incredible talent “.
She said she was back in the acting world “at least for that” after 10 years of not “even paying attention to it.”
When Diaz, 52, received the script for the new project, she and her musician husband Benji Madden said “maybe it’s time to change it up a little bit for the family because, you know, it’s Jamie.” .
It would take someone special to “leave my family for 10 hours a day,” she added.
In Back in Action, Diaz and Foxx, 57, play a married couple – with children – and former spies who are forced out of retirement when danger surprises them and puts their lives at risk.
Speaking about his hiatus, Diaz called it the “best” years of his life.
“I was free to say, ‘I’m a mom, I’m a woman, I’m living my life’ – it was so lovely.”
“Ten years later, it made sense to my family,” she said.
When she first left acting, Diaz said she was always asked to take on roles.
“Everyone would say, ‘Would you…’ No.
“’You know, there’s this thing-‘, I don’t care.
“’Would you like to join us -‘ No, and then people stopped asking.”
Now, 10 years later, she told Norton she feels like it’s a “privilege” to act.
“If I let that go, all of this goodwill that I’ve been able to build over so much time, the passion that I have for entertaining people and making films that people smile and laugh at and have a good time. .. if I don’t do it, If I don’t get involved in this again, give it a chance, participate in it and be grateful for it, then I’ll be an idiot,” a- she explained.
She added: “Maybe I’ll tiptoe in, maybe I’ll just go for it, I don’t know.”
