  Cameron Diaz plays the mother of a cancer-stricken child in the new film My Sister’s Keeper. The role has led to yet another round of questions as to when/if Diaz, 36, will become a mom. |
LOS ANGELES — If making a movie is like giving birth, are interviews the labour pains?
You have to wonder, sitting to chat with Cameron Diaz in a beachfront Santa Monica hotel room. Make no mistake: she’s engaging, buoyant, alert and good-humoured. But she’s also combat-fatigued after a day of being peppered with questions about why, at 36, she’s never married and remains, despite Hollywood’s unstoppable baby boom, childless.
That’s because the film she’s promoting — the drama My Sister’s Keeper, opening Friday — casts the Charlie’s Angels star as a mother of three teenagers, one of whom is terminally ill.
She’s no stranger to having her personal life speculated about — not after high-profile relationships with Justin Timberlake, John Mayer and Matt Dillon. But that doesn’t mean Diaz — who has clashed with the paparazzi in the past — is comfortable with it. Or not frustrated by it, as she tells Sun Media in a Canadian exclusive print interview:
Sun Media: You’re probably being asked a lot about playing a mother.
Cameron Diaz: Oh yeah.
SM: But as you pointed out earlier, you’re 36: You could have teenagers. So do you think about the path not taken?
CD: I’m not really a person who’s, ‘What if?’ I mean, gosh, I can’t complain about what I’ve got. I feel if you’re grateful for what you have then you’re in need of nothing. I can find many ways to satisfy my needs and desires. If I wanted to have a child, it would be here. At some point it might. I’m not saying I will or not … I’m very, very fortunate. I have a lot of amazing people in my life and a lot of love.
SM: But there’s that expectation: ‘When is she going to get married? When is she going to have kids?’
CD: I understand if that’s what somebody wants — if that’s what they feel they were born to do. I don’t judge them. And by the way, I’m not the only 36-year-old who doesn’t have a child. Most of my girlfriends who are my age don’t have children. Two of them do and the rest of them don’t. So I don’t feel like I’m this lone straggler. I’m perfectly happy with my life and I think it’s an interesting thing that people are so focused and obsessed on that. The world is so different these days.
SM: What do you take from watching your sister raise her children?
CD: I see how difficult it is. Having a child is a lot of work. My sister’s an amazing mother. She loves it. That’s what she’s here for. I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and I’m grateful to be able to be part of the lives of the children that I am — my nieces and nephew. (As well) other friends have children too.
SM: My Sister’s Keeper isn’t what people tend to associate you with — Charlie’s Angels and Shrek.
CD: Those are the bigger movies that have bigger audiences … But there’s a large audience that knows Robert De Niro from Meet the Parents. I get a lot of people who come up to me about Gangs of New York or Being John Malkovich or In Her Shoes. But for me, it’s no problem. I’m not like, ‘Oh, people don’t see me as a dramatic actress!’ I don’t have that at all. I really just feel fortunate to tell the stories that I do.
SM: This could be a hard sell, coming out in the middle of the summer. Should it have been released in the fall?
CD: No, I don’t think you’re going to make people see a movie no matter what time of year it is. They’re either going to see the movie or they’re not … The audience that sees Transformers — our movie isn’t their first choice. But it doesn’t mean they won’t see it in time. Nowadays, the movie comes out in the theatre and people see it then or on DVD or they watch it on a plane. There are many different ways to see films now.
SM: Including eventually online, which is where everything is migrating to. The flip side of the Internet for you, though, is the proliferation of celebrity websites and blogs following everything you do. Do you care anymore about what’s said?
CD: I don’t care about it, but I think it’s a sad thing that happened to our society … We’ve been programmed that if something is in print, it’s the truth. But things on the Internet are people’s opinion. Most of the content on blogs is people’s opinions. They’re not journalists. They’re not gaining information by vetting out their sources. They can look at me and I can be sneezing and they’ll say I was crying and whatever they write is all of a sudden is what was happening. And that’s just not fair to the public. It’s not fair to our society. It takes us down to the most shallow, superficial level; it’s the bottom.
SM: People keep waiting for the pendulum to swing back the other way.
CD: I hope it does. It’s a distraction. People make comments about everything these days — not just celebrities. It keeps people away from looking at themselves, by judging others. That’s part of the position I’m in. But now it’s not just me. Everyone’s life is content. On Twitter? People upload their lives as content for other people to read. Be careful what you wish for, people.
SM: Spoken as someone who knows what that’s like.
CD: Yeah, sure, definitely. Maybe the pendulum will swing back one day when the repercussion of that sort of interaction begins to show itself.
SM: Are you still traveling a lot? (Diaz produced the MTV travel show Trippin’.)
CD: I am, but not as much this year … Cities are great — I’ve been to all of them, at least the major ones — but I enjoy going to places where people live simply and they live off what the earth gives them … I always find those people to be the most happy and fulfilled and easiest to be around.
SM: You’re active in environmental causes. Has your “celebrity” has helped you draw attention to issues that are important to you — or does it drown out the message?
CD: I did this article for Marie Claire magazine where I actually did this small film and it was something I was passionate about — it was a film about the environment, asking people to consider where their food, water and air come from because those are the three things that keep us alive. We should know where our food is grown and whether or the air and water are clean. The writer was a wonderful journalist who wrote a really nice article that went along with the cover and the film. And in it, there’s one comment, which I think was meant to appease her readers, it being a women’s magazine, that, ‘Hey, she’s like everyone else — she wishes she had a bigger butt than she does.’ And now that’s all that’s on the Internet now. These bloggers taking that little thing that’s deep inside the interview and making the article about that.
SM: Is that frustrating?
CD: People always tell me, ‘You know, you should use your voice so you can make a difference.’ And I go, ‘Really?’ Because I did a movie, I did the cover of a magazine, spoke with a journalist for four days and still what makes it on all of the Internet are these bloggers talking about this one superficial comment that was made off-handedly and doesn’t mean anything at all. Really, am I making a difference? Should I use my voice?
SM: So what do you do?
CD: You just go behind the scenes and make other things happen. You don’t have to let people know you’re doing it. There are other ways of helping that are more effective.
Diaz faces real-life loss
Cameron Diaz, who plays a lawyer whose daughter is dying of cancer in My Sister’s Keeper, suffered her own tragic loss during filming.
Her father, Emilio, 58, died suddenly of pneumonia last April, forcing the production to shut down while its star grieved.
“It was very unexpected. Even when we were on set, we thought it was a fluke thing, that Cameron had to visit her sick dad,” remembers director Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook).
“We were all stunned to find out he had died. Apparently he was a helluva guy and had a gigantic influence on Cameron.”
Filming was initially halted and then resumed with scenes that didn’t involve Diaz. Two weeks later, she returned to work.
“She was like the rest of us — a ragdoll, unsure, and wasn’t fully able to comprehend what happened to her,” Cassavetes says. “But being the consummate professional that she is, we would point her in the right direction … and she got through it.”
The movie co-stars Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Sofia Vassilieva (TV’s Medium) as her daughters.
Says Diaz, “I think if anyone knows what it’s like to lose a parent — and it happened very suddenly and unexpectedly — you’re in shock. The first year is a very transformative year … (But) going back to have this group of people waiting for me was a blessing … These girls helped me and Nick was amazing. That’s the only way I was able to do it.”
kevin.williamson@sunmedia.ca
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