In the current rush of new talent in Young Hollywood, she's one of the most beautiful and least predictable. Here Cameron Diaz talks about liking Julia Roberts, loving Matt Dillon and learning "not to make a complete asshole" out of herself.
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Everything I'd read about Cameron Diaz indicated that punctuality wasn't high on her list of concerns. Trouble was, she was coming to my house to talk, which meant I was at her mercy. So at noon, our scheduled rendezvous, I sighed and stuck in a tape of She's the One, figuring I could at least look at her if not actually talk to her. At 12:15 her publicist called; Cameron was on her way, he said. She'd had a cat problem and had to go to the vet. At 12:40 I called her publicist--was she lost? Five minutes later, and only 45 minutes late, she drove her black Mercedes-Benz into my driveway and began her apologies. "My cat had ear mites, she was scratching herself like crazy, I had to do something." Then she explained how getting the cat actually made her be on time, because she had to get up early to feed the cat. Well, at least we were getting somewhere. I'd had a chance to re-watch some of her very good performance in She's the One, and now we'd established that she's a cat lover.
The 24-year-old Star of Tomorrow (according to the National Association of Theater Owners at ShoWest, who named her that for 1996) has a deserved reputation for liking food, any food. I had bagels and lox, homemade pumpkin soup, freshly baked banana nut bread and chocolate biscotti all ready for her. The lanky five-foot-nine, 120-pound actress seemed right at home, slicing a bagel, sticking it in the toaster, cutting some bread, pouring the soup. She ate everything and even washed her plate when we finished. In between, we managed to talk, and we kept on talking.
Here's what I knew about Cameron going in: she grew up in Long Beach, California, of mixed Cuban, Spanish, German, English and American Indian blood. Her father worked for UNOCAL Oil; her mother was an import-export agent. When she was 16, a photographer suggested she become a model, and soon after she signed with Elite Modeling Agency. She did magazine work, TV commercials, went to Paris to model. Somehow she landed an audition for the beautiful girl who would make Jim Carrey go slinky-eyed in The Mask, and after 12 callbacks she got the part and a new career.
After the film went through the roof, Diaz was in demand. She made four more pictures: the ensemble film The Last Supper, Feeling Minnesota _with Keanu Reeves, Ed Burns's _She's the One, and Head Above Water with Harvey Keitel--all quirky independent films, a kind that seems to particularly interest her. Her upcoming movie with Julia Roberts, My Best Friend's Wedding, is her first wide-appeal project since The Mask. After finishing it, she immediately filmed the smaller A Life Less Ordinary with Trainspotting director Danny Boyle and star Ewan McGregor.
Here's what I found out.
LAWRENCE GROBEL: So what do you make of all the media fuss over you since The Mask?
CAMERON DIAZ: It's not like Sandra Bullock, where there was, like, this wave. I'm very comfortable with the level of recognition that I've got. I don't feel like I've been blown out of proportion and I don't feel like I've been ignored.
Q: Do you feel you're on the verge of a wave?
A: No. I don't feel like I'm in that position really.
Q: How have your parents handled what's happened to you?
A: They love it. They see how hard I work and my success gives them a lot of pride. What appears to be glamour is kind of old for them already. My being on the cover of a magazine now, they understand that it's the least favorite thing for me to do.
Q: What's the most favorite?
A: I'm always really impressed when I get a job. [Laughs] The magazines and all, that's the Industry putting its will to work. For me, it's when I go in and read for a part and get it. That's when I say, "Maybe it's not all just luck. Maybe it is about how hard I work or what I have to offer."
Q: How much has luck had to do with it?
A: In my case, getting in to read for The Mask was luck. Earning it was work. I read over and over for it. And Jim Carrey's hard work in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective paid off, which made The Mask a guarantee. Then I got to ride his coattails and try to figure out what it was I was going to do for myself.
Q: Is it true you developed an ulcer auditioning for The Mask?
A: When I get upset, my stomach turns into a mess. I had really bad stomach pains, couldn't eat, swallowed tons of antacids during that time. Jim Carrey was coming from In Living Color, so they wanted a woman people could recognize who might draw in another audience. I was a nobody then. I had to read for it 12 times. I still have the dress I did all my auditions in.
Q: Why did it take you a year to do another film after The Mask?
A: From the time I finished it until it came out, nobody knew who I was. But I got the opportunity to meet a lot of people I would not have met had I just been a model-turned-actress. My managers knew how people were responding to Jim, and in this industry you jump on any opportunity you can. If I was part of something successful, what were people risking if they just gave me 10 minutes of their day?
Q: And what did you do for that 10 minutes?
A: Same shit I'm doing now--talking about Jim! [Laughs] I've got three years of experience talking about Jim Carrey.
Q: How was your experience on the upcoming My Best Friend's Wedding with Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney?
A: In the film, Julia comes to sabotage my wedding to Dermot because she's in love with him. I play sweet, nice Kimmy, who everybody loves. And she can't help but love me, too. We had so much fun making it. I was in awe of Julia. She does a lot of physical comedy in this movie. I spent a lot of time watching her act instead of acting [myself]. She was always there in the moment when you needed her.
Q: Once again, you play a second lead. Why don't you want to become a leading lady?
A: I don't ever want my name to be the first over the title.
Q: You've joked that you have yet to figure out your acting process. Do you take what you do seriously?
A: Absolutely. I made that comment during Feeling Minnesota, which was only the third film I'd done. I was terrified. Now I've found a more comfortable way of figuring out what it is I'm doing.
Q: You said you learned the most about yourself while acting in Feeling Minnesota. In what ways?
A: I beat up on myself on that film. I was totally self-destructive.
Q: Your director, Steven Baigelman, said you're completely willing to be a moron in front of anybody--is that the secret of your success?
A: Yeah, I pretty much lay myself out there to be spat upon.
Q: Did you get any insight into your costar Keanu Reeves?
A: When you spend three months with someone, 12 hours a day, you get an idea of what the person's about. Keanu's the oddest person I've ever met in my entire life. I love him and have only fond feelings for him, but I worry about him. He's like a little kid. You worry about him taking care of himself.
Q: Could I have a conversation like this one with him?
A: You wouldn't get anything out of him about himself. You'd be talking about philosophy. He's incredibly intelligent and well read. That's the biggest misconception about him, that he's stupid.
Q: Did he recite Hamlet on the set?
A: Yes. That is amazing to me, to be able to remember all those words. I can't remember anything.
Q: Courtney Love had a small part as a waitress--did you get to know her?
A: I was a big fan of her music...
Q: You were a big heavy metal fan as a teenager weren't you?
A: Yep. You had to bring it up! Meeting Courtney, I admired her musical ability and really liked her. She's fascinating. I thought she was great in The People vs. Larry Flynt. When I read that script I got to meet Milos Forman and Courtney was the first person I thought about.
Q: According to Allure magazine, you love housekeeping and Smashing Pumpkins, and you won't admit to dinners with George Clooney.
A: Yeah, I love housekeeping and Smashing Pumpkins. And Clooney is a friend of mine.
Q: Have you had dinners with him?
A: Oh yeah, sure.
Q: Do you follow what's going on in the world?
A: No, I cut myself off about a year ago. Everything causes me outrage, that's why I cut myself off. I grew up on TV, so if it's on, I can't get away from it. You could hit me over the head with a sledgehammer and I wouldn't notice if I'm watching television. When the Oklahoma bombing came on, I was in Minnesota and they put music to it, showing babies burned to death. I got so upset I decided I can't watch the news anymore. I literally cut myself off. I don't own a television, I don't subscribe to a newspaper. I just needed a break, to take time off from the world. My nerves were too frayed from this constant pounding--the riots in L.A., the O.J. Simpson trial, which just disgusted me--I would get sick to my stomach with that on television. I felt there's no hope in the world that we're ever going to be well in our minds. The whole world is sick. The way I view the world these days is that it's so far gone, there's nothing any of us can do. I hate having that outlook and feeling completely out of control. So I cut myself off and I've never felt better. I feel in control again, so maybe it's time to slowly bring in the things that I can handle.
Q: Do you trust many people?
A: I have a tendency to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, which always gets me in trouble because I find out later on that you really can't trust anybody. You'd think I would have learned. But I don't have a chip on my shoulder. It's what life's about, it's all a learning experience.
Q: You're dating Matt Dillon now, aren't you?
A: Yeah. He's amazing. We met in Minnesota where we were both doing a film. Then we hooked up later. We've grown so much together as people. I love him incredibly. He's a great actor because of his honesty. He's the most honest person I've ever met. He tells you exactly what he feels.
Q: Yet you live on different coasts.
A: Right, he's in New York, I'm in L.A.
Q: You and he have been seen kissing over breakfast at the Farmers Market and on a Manhattan street corner-- apparently you don't hide public displays of emotions.
A: No, because I'm in love. We're in love with each other.
Q: Would you like to marry him?
A: [Nervous laughter] Gosh, that's not even a question that I ask myself. Marriage means everything. My parents have been married for 28 years. I want to have a family, but it's not something I think about now.
Q: Apparently you're seen on the Internet in a state of semi-dress. Are those pictures from the topless shoot that appeared on the cover of Celebrity Sleuth?
A: I wasn't topless on the cover, only inside. I was devastated [when that came out]. My mom handled it really well. I thought it was a crummy thing for this photographer to do
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Q: The "fuckhead opportunist," as you once called him?
A: Exactly. He didn't have any right to sell or give those pictures to anybody. It's the lowest form of human behavior.
Q: Were you naive to allow a photographer to shoot you that way?
A: He was a guy I'd done pictures with several times. He was also a friend of my girlfriend. To me it wasn't a big deal when I did it. If they had been good pictures--which they weren't--I would have used them in my book at the time, [though not the] full-on breast [ones]. Actually, in most of them I was pretty much covered up. I realized after the fact that it was stupid to have done it. I didn't want them to get out. I'm not ashamed of what I've done--I was 16, for Christ's sake. It makes me sick that now that I'm recognizable somebody would go ahead and sell something I did seven years ago just to make a buck.
Q: When you first started modeling did you get much work?
A: I worked just one job before I went to Japan. And it wasn't until I got back from Japan that I actually started working.
Q: You were 16 years old at the time. How come your parents let you go there alone?
A: My parents and I always had a good line of communication. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance and they trusted me to say whether or not, once I was there, I could handle it.
Q: Did this early modeling interfere with high school?
A: I finished high school. That was my agreement with my parents: if I was going to model, I would graduate from Long Beach Polytechnic High. Japan was my summer vacation.
Q: Was it a good high school?
A: It's a big school, basically in the ghetto, next to the projects.
Q: Do you come from a middle-class family?
A: My parents have been working the same jobs for 20-odd years. They were able to afford what was needed to make our lives comfortable. When I look at it now I don't know how they were able to provide for my sister and me [the way they did]. I have a lot of respect for them.
Q: How in touch are you with your various ethnicities?
A: My father's Cuban and Spanish. My mother's German, English, American Indian. Growing up I felt my family was different from everybody else. I didn't know any other Cubans and there was a cultural difference from the Mexican families I grew up with. I thought we were freaks.
Q: Is there a sense of superiority that Cubans feel over Mexicans?
A: Yeah. I think the Cuban culture thinks they're better than everybody. [Laughs] Educated Cubans who came here are complete elitists. The Cuban people are generous and wonderful and warm, but when it comes down to pride in their heritage, they're incredibly proud.
Q: Did you ever piss off your parents?
A: Oh yeah, but we don't have to talk about it. [Laughs] It's the not coming home when I was supposed to, or coming home drunk one time.
Q: When did you take your first drink?
A: I don't know.
Q: Under 14?
A: I don't know. [Laughs] I used to sneak sips of my dad's friends' beers, that kind of stuff. I wasn't too out of control.
Q: You got alcohol poisoning in Australia while filming a Coca-Cola commercial when you were 18. How serious was it?
A: It was serious. I went out drinking in the Australian sun not paying attention to what I was consuming, and I consumed a lot. I woke up the next morning so sick I didn't think I was going to live and called my mother and said if I died she had to come get my body. I told her I had the flu--I didn't tell her until last year it was alcohol poisoning. That was a stupid thing--I lost seven pounds in five hours. I didn't function properly for a week.
Q: Did it cure you from drinking?
A: No. But it cured me from being that stupid.
Q: What about drugs? Marijuana? Coke? Acid?
A: I didn't try everything. Heroin scares me. Acid doesn't.
Q: Have you ever done acid?
A: [Nervous laughter]
Q: How many times?
A: My mom always told me there's no responsible way of doing drugs.
Q: What did your parents teach you about religion?
A: Where I grew up there were a lot of Catholics. We were surrounded by a Lutheran church, another Protestant church, and a Catholic church. We had friends who went to all of those with their parents, so my mom would drop my sister and me off at any of the churches we felt like attending. They decided whatever faith I wanted to follow as an adult would be my decision. I pretty much follow my parents' [beliefs]. Do to others what you want done to you. Don't hurt people. Be a decent person. I believe there's a higher being. I don't call my creator God or Buddha. I don't need to know where I came from--just existing right now is enough.
Q: How did you and your two-year-older sister get along?
A: I adore and love her like nobody ever. But we fought like crazy when we were kids. We were maniacal--everybody in the neighborhood knew that when we started fighting, step back. We were like two Tasmanian devils. I was a total terror to her, and she was patient with me. She took care of me, looked out for me, was the perfect big sister.
Q: Did she ever want to do what you're doing? Any jealousy there?
A: There was a time when she was younger that she might have wanted to. We look a lot the same. But we're built completely differently. We photograph differently. The camera helps me, likes my face. My sister is incredibly proud and supportive of me.
Q: When did you live in Paris?
A: I was 19 or 20. It was a huge difference from Japan. I rented my own apartment. French food is where I learned about cellulite [laughs]--that I too could be a victim.
Q: Is modeling, by its very nature, a superficial life?
A: No, I enjoyed it. I look at my modeling career as the apprenticeship to my acting career. It set me up to handle a lot of things, from getting your hair and makeup done to having people touching you all day long, to being able to keep your body and your mind in two different places while you have that happening so that you can do your job when everybody leaves you alone.
Q: Who are the most beautiful women in the world to you?
A: Kate Moss is incredibly beautiful. She's a great model who changes her look on every page. I've seen a lot of beautiful women. To me, my mom is one of the most incredible women I've ever seen. My sister. Two of my close girlfriends. Those are the people who are beautiful to me.
Q: Did your mom ever talk to you about sex? Dating?
A: My mom pretty much opened that up to us when we were young. My older sister, too, helped me to understand things like boyfriends. I was always a flirt and my mom knew that. I was boy-crazy since I was seven. They worried about me in that way and wouldn't allow me to date until a certain age--but I was always going out with boys! I didn't date until I was 15, 16. Usually with older guys.
Q: Did you talk to your parents after your first sexual experience?
A: I don't know.
Q: Yes you do, you just don't want to tell.
A: [Laughs] Yes, I did tell my mother. She said, "I hope you're carrying a very big stick in the corner of your room." I said, "It's very big and very heavy."
Q: So you didn't tell your father?
A: I don't think my dad wanted to know.
Q: You've spoken of having a plan--an idea of what you want for yourself. What is that?
A: To just not make a complete asshole out of myself every time I go up for a part. [Laughs] The one thing I hate most of all is being forced into something I don't want to do.
Q: Does money enter into your plans?
A: I'm comfortable with what I have and the money I've made. I don't buy toys. I don't have the spending habits most actors have.
Q: What was your greatest extravagance?
A: A meal I paid for in cash in Cannes. It was with 20 people and rather decadent.
Q: Have you ever been starstruck?
A: I made an ass of myself with Holly Hunter. She's one of my favorite actresses. The first time I met her was at ShoWest--she's short and I'm tall with heels on and I went up to her and kept saying how amazing I thought she was. And then I started doing dialogue from Raising Arizona, which is one of my all-time favorite movies.
Q: What other actresses do you admire?
A: Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Patricia Arquette.
Q: What are the best films you've seen lately?
A: I haven't seen many movies--I loved Trees Lounge, Swingers, Big Night and Fargo.
Q: Besides Raiders of the Lost Ark and your early infatuation with Harrison Ford, what movies made you appreciate the art form?
A: I loved The Color Purple. That story of the two sisters was just amazing. Nothing could tear them apart. I cry from the beginning to the end of that movie every time. Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover are so amazing in it.
Q: You've said you want to do roles that excite and scare you--why scare you?
A: When I say "scare," it's just challenge. To see whether or not I can do it-- and that's pretty much everything that I do. [In that respect] this last role I just did in Danny Boyle's film A Life Less Ordinary is very important to me.
Q: You've said the ensemble piece The Last Supper was like school for you. What attracted you to the material?
A: I was on a plane reading the script with my sister reading over my shoulder, and we were laughing through the entire thing. The material was witty, funny, intelligent and twisted.
Q: In the film, you and your liberal friends kill people who disagree with you. Think you're capable of killing anyone?
A: Yes, I do. Only because I was in the room with my sister when she was having her baby. When I saw her cut open and strapped down, I knew at that moment that I was capable of murder if something went wrong.
Q: In She's the One you play a manipulative woman, an ice queen. Was that a stretch?
A: I'm drawn to characters like that because I feel sorry for them. I like to find the humanity in them, to make some people like them a little bit.
Q: In the film you tell your boyfriend you fake orgasms with him. Have you ever faked an orgasm?
A: I'm not going to tell you that! Oh my God!
Q: The movie's about lying and cheating in relationships. Have you ever lied or cheated in a real relationship?
A: The lying is always a white lie. It's better that they just don't know about it. Just to save them the anger or whatever they're going to feel, because it's natural. But cheating? No.
Q: You were involved in a five-year relationship with a video producer, Carlos de La Torre. How'd you meet him? What caused the split?
A: I met him on a job he was coordinating when I was 17. I fell in love right away and moved in with him after I graduated. We were together five years. He's a great guy, we're still friends, I love him. He's an important person in my life, but I had to move out and learn who I was. I needed to know, at 22, what decisions I would make if I had to make them on my own. It's important for everyone to know what it is to live alone. I'm a totally different person now than I was then.
Q: You've credited him with helping you get where you are now. How did he help?
A: Because of his influence in my life, his constantly challenging me to be a better person. Keeping me out of the dark holes that you can fall into in L.A. He kept me from going off on the wrong track.
Q: For your first four films you took on bad girl roles. What attracts you to dicey material?
A: I always like to find something I like about those characters and bring that to the forefront, so the audience can see it and they won't hate that person completely.
Q: What's the story with Head Above Water, where you play Harvey Keitel's wife? Shouldn't it have been released already?
A: I don't know. It's opening in Europe, but I don't know if it's ever going to come out here or not. I saw it and enjoyed it. It's not for everybody.
Q: Who's more intense: Keitel or Keanu Reeves?
A: Totally different energies.
Q: Harvey may have more demons.
A: I don't know, man.
Q: Who came on to you more?
A: Neither one of them came on to me.
Q: Whose life would you like to portray on-screen?
A: Dan Aykroyd. I told him and Danny DeVito at separate times that if there's anybody's life I wanted to flash before my eyes it would be theirs. Those two guys. Danny DeVito has an incredible family, great marriage, beautiful home, successful in so many different areas from producing and directing to television and film, he's happy, has great friends, has a wealth of life and he's a good person. I admire that in this business. And Dan Aykroyd is the same way, he's incredibly intelligent and lived this wild life in the '70s, and he has a successful marriage to a wonderful woman. He could have easily ended up in one place but didn't, he took himself someplace else.
Q: Did you make New Year's resolutions?
A: I always have the same ones which last about a month and a half and then I go back to my old habits: no smoking, I'll wear a bra, and I'll stop shopping.
Q: Do you dream often?
A: Yeah, I dream a lot. My nightmares have been about people trying to hurt my cat. Other than that I enjoy my dreams.
Q: Do you like to gamble when you go to Las Vegas?
A: Yes I do. I play craps. I'm all over the table--I'll have five bets out at once. My fun is going with a certain amount of money, putting it down on the table and playing as long as I can with it. If it's two hours, fine; four hours, fantastic; 30 minutes, I suck.
Q: Can you really tell which showgirls have had breast implants?
A: Yeah. You can obviously see what's real and what's fake.
Q: Do you think you might ever consider cosmetic surgery when you're older?
A: No, I'm not into cutting myself up. I'm pretty happy with what I've got.
Q: What's the secret to having great legs?
A: Wear high heels. Your legs stay in shape.
Q: What kind of exercise do you do to stay in shape?
A: I don't exercise.
Q: Are you tired of being compared to Ellen Barkin?
A: I don't know. Is Ellen Barkin tired of being compared to me?
Q: What parts of your body do you like the most?
A: My arms.
Q: What's your favorite store?
A: Barneys. But I live in Rexall, I can spend hours there.
Q: What is your favorite journey?
A: Morocco. It's the most beautiful country, but it was the most frightening experience I ever had in my life. I was a young, blonde-haired girl, 19, by myself, not speaking the language, traveling down the entire northern part of the country with a man I couldn't communicate with. It was a situation I wasn't sure I would get out of.
Q: Did you ever get touched when you didn't want it?
A: In Morocco it was mostly the children who liked to pull my hair, but in Paris, I used to get grabbed all the time by the Arabic men--swung around, thrown on the ground, that kind of stuff. They're scum. You have to be constantly on guard against hands and men and obscenities in the subways of Paris. Those are the type of people I don't mind if they slip onto the tracks.
Q: How superstitious are you?
A: Completely, absolutely. I knock on wood all day long. I'm going to be knocking on wood after this interview.
Q: You said, "No one can say they've never done anything in their lives that made them feel like an asshole." How often have you felt that way?
A: I do things every day that I feel like an asshole for doing. This interview, for instance. [Laughs] Why do I put myself out like this? I always end up hating myself.
Q: Are you hating yourself right now?
A: I don't know. I think I'm just recovering from my low blood sugar.
Q: What kind of costumes did you wear on Halloween?
A: Kermit the Frog.
Q: If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
A: My cat, because she's got it so good.
Q: What's the most difficult question you could be asked?
A: What does e=mc2 mean?
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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Barbara Hershey for the November 1996 issue of Movieline.