Cameron Diaz’s 10-year retirement ‘best years’ of her life

Actress Cameron Diaz has said the decade she spent in retirement from acting were “the best 10 years” of her life.

The Holiday star returned to screens this month in new spy thriller – Back in Action – with actor Jamie Foxx.

It is unclear if this is a permanent return to acting though, as she told the Graham Norton Show “this is maybe the beginning… I don’t know”.

Asked if she liked the anonymity of taking a step back, she said “omg I loved it”, adding she was “free” to be a mom and a wife but that she was “really grateful” to be back.

Her last role was Ms Hannigan in the 2014 remake of Annie – a film which Foxx was also in. However, Diaz only formally confirmed her retirement from acting in 2018.

Foxx, who has worked alongside Diaz twice before, said they persuaded her to back to the industry by “very humbly” asking if she would return and “grace us with her incredible talent”.

She said she was back in the world of film “at least for this” after 10 years of “not even paying attention”.

But when Diaz received the script for this new project, she and husband Benji Madden said “maybe it’s time to switch it up for the family a little bit 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 Jamie Foxx play a married couple – with children – and former spies who are forced out of retirement when danger finds them and puts their lives at risk.

Talking about her hiatus, Diaz called it the “best” 10 years of her life.

“I was free to be [like] ‘I’m a mum, I’m a wife, I’m living my life’ – it was so lovely.”

“Ten years in, this made sense for my family,” she explained.

When she first stepped away from acting, Diaz said she was still asked to play roles.

“Everybody would be like: ‘Would you like to -‘ No.

“‘You know, there’s this thing -‘ I don’t care.

“‘Would you like to join us -‘ Nope, and then people stopped asking.”

Now, 10 years on, she told Norton she feels like it’s a “privilege” to act.

“If I just let this go away, all of this goodwill that I got to build over so much time, the passion I have for entertaining people and making movies that people smile and laugh [at] and have a good time… if I don’t engage that again, and give that a chance and participate in it and be grateful for it, then I would be a fool,” she explained.

She added: “Maybe I’ll tip toe in, maybe just go gung-ho, I don’t know.”