One of Hollywood's most beloved actresses talks to The Japan Times about tough times for female-focused movies, her ability to make millions of dollars here in minutes — and the awful truth about eating pork
LOS ANGELES — She is a former model who quickly and effortlessly became a movie star, and then a movie superstar — becoming only the second actress ever to earn $20 million for one film. She is also one of the most popular Hollywood names in Japan, where, following in the commercial footsteps of fellow American megastar Brad Pitt, her image has lately been spread far and wide on billboards and in television ads for Softbank cellphones. That 6-hour bit of filming reaped her an incredible $3 million. Cameron Diaz, however, is not the simple, seemingly two-dimensional character she sometimes appears to be on screen. "I love my contradictions," she recently told The Japan Times, and she has a number of them.
She's naturally blonde and blue-eyed, but her surname is Spanish in origin (her father is a second-generation Cuban-American). Yet, in the very ethnically conscious United States, she is considered "all-American," and it's hard to imagine that she could easily play a foreign character or one with an accent. It is her sense of humor and girl-next-door quality that make Diaz so popular, though of course she's sexier than most girls in the average neighborhood. And while drama hasn't been her forte to date and the actress would probably be the first to admit that she isn't likely to be Oscar-nominated in the near future, she says that she'd like to try her hand at some meatier roles.