SHE has just “un-retired” from acting after an eight-year break but Cameron Diaz admits she once had a very different kind of job . . . as a drug mule.
The star, who turns 50 next month, is estimated to be worth £120million after Hollywood hits including There’s Something About Mary, Charlie’s Angels, The Holiday and Shrek.
Cameron Diaz is back after taking a break from acting but reveals she once had a very different kind of job . . . as a drug mule[/caption]
Cameron has settled into family life with Benji Madden who she married in 2015[/caption]
Cameron will star with Jamie Foxx in a new Netflix comedy aptly called Back In Action[/caption]
But back in the Nineties she was a penniless model and struggling to make ends meet when she was duped into carrying a locked suitcase to Morocco for a “modelling assignment”.
It was only when she was stopped by a customs officer at a north African airport that she realised she had been tricked into unknowingly smuggling an illegal consignment.
Cameron said: “I started working as a catalogue model and I got enough money to move to Paris and get an apartment, which I shared with a girl who is still one of my best friends.
“But I was there a full year and didn’t work one day.
Read More on Cameron Diaz
“I couldn’t book a job to save my life. Then I got one job but, really, I think I was a mule carrying drugs to Morocco — I swear to God.
“This was the early Nineties and they gave me a locked suitcase that had my ‘costumes’ in it.”
Yet when she landed and was ordered to reveal what was in her case by officials, Cameron panicked.
She added: “I’m this blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in Morocco. I’m wearing torn jeans and platform boots, with my hair down — this is really unsafe. I told them, ‘I don’t know, it’s not mine, I’ve no idea whose it is’. That was the only job I got in Paris.”
Most read in Showbiz
Cameron abandoned the suitcase — leaving it with the airport official — and was able to return home to Paris.
There is no suggestion she had any idea of what was in the case, but on reflection realised she had likely been handling illegal substances.
Drug traffickers can be jailed for a decade in Morocco, but Cameron had a lucky escape — and just weeks later was cast in the film that would make her name, The Mask.
Producers had earmarked troubled model and actress Anna Nicole Smith, who died aged 39 in 2007, to play Tina Carlyle in the 1994 smash.
But once director Chuck Russell saw Cameron in front of the camera he insisted on casting her, arguing she was the perfect foil for comic Jim Carrey as Stanley Ipkiss, aka The Mask.
Cameron, speaking to the Second Life podcast hosted by former magazine editor Hillary Kerr, said: “I was still living in Paris when I got that job.
“I had an apartment in LA as well, and a boyfriend, so I came home and a casting agent said, ‘We are looking to cast a bombshell girl’.
“They really wanted Anna Nicole Smith, but the director was looking at other possibilities and my commercial agent said they had booked me.
Illegal substances
“I said, ‘Are you insane? I don’t act, that’s not what I do’.
“I had just started my period. There was no way I was putting on anything sexy that day. I was like, ‘Are you kidding?’.
“But Chuck was so great and said, ‘You’re my Tina Carlyle and I’m going to groom you for this part’.
“A week later they told me I had it.”
Today the actress is a household name, whose films have grossed around £2billion and earned her four Golden Globes nominations.
Yet despite becoming the highest-paid Hollywood actress over 40, she quit the job in 2014 after playing Miss Hannigan in a remake of Annie.
She was tired of having her schedule dictated to her and decided: “Becoming rich and famous sucks, it’s actually the downside of what you do as an actor.”
Cameron settled into family life with Good Charlotte musician Benji Madden, 43, who she married in 2015, and in December 2019 they had their daughter Raddix.
Becoming rich and famous sucks – it’s actually the downside of what you do as an actor . I was burnt out from doing back-to-back films.
Cameron Diaz
She said: “I was really burnt out. I had done back-to-back films.
“I was doing two films at once and my life was really unbalanced.
“So I decided that when I finished Annie I was going to take some time out. I wanted to slow down and take care of myself, so I just stopped.
“I met my husband and we found we needed a relationship that meant something bigger than, ‘I have a boyfriend’.
“It’s about finding someone that you can make big changes with. We went on that path and it’s not something I could have done if I was filming.
“After 20-odd years of working my ass off, I needed to level it out with other aspects of my life that had been completely ignored.”
And Cameron, who was pictured kissing Benji at Adele’s concert in London last weekend, has loved her temporary retirement.
The family live in a £15million Beverly Hills mansion and during her time off she ran the organic wine venture Avaline.
‘The best thing I’ve done’
She is now back to the film world after the announcement this week that she will star with Jamie Foxx in a new Netflix comedy, aptly called Back In Action.
But she still says the most important part of her life is motherhood.
She told the Kelly Clarkson Show: “I love it . . . it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I think because I am an older parent and worked hard to have a child, it’s a different thing. I’m fortunate to be able to take the time to do it, but it’s also challenging.
“It’s imperative to have time to repair, so if you do blow up, you repair and say, ‘Mummy lost her s**t. Mummy didn’t mean to say that so if I upset you, Mummy is human too’.”
Her time out allowed the star to slow down to the point she admits forgetting to even wash her face.
Cameron said: “I do nothing. I never wash my face. There are a billion products collecting dust on the shelf.
“I worked my ass off until I stopped making movies. Now I’m pretty lazy.
“I loved making movies, to be on set with everyone, telling stories and making people laugh and think.
“All the things films do and being that campfire people gather around, it’s made my life so incredible.”
Despite her success and dazzling looks, Cameron says she never had great confidence.
Read More on The Sun
She said: “I was always surprised when I got another job and I felt like I could be fired at any time.
“I was so excited to get to work. The process is such fun. There are 100 people on set and everyone has a job and they are just as important as me except I’m in front of the camera, so I’m a little harder to replace.”
Cameron is said to be worth £120m after starring in hits like There’s Something About Mary[/caption]
Cameron was cast as the perfect foil for comic Jim Carrey as Stanley Ipkiss in The Mask[/caption]
Cameron with Charlie’s Angels co-stars Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore[/caption]
