As seems to be indicated by her appearance on a cover of Rolling Stone magazine last month, Cameron Diaz is about to become a movie star–maybe even a really big movie star.
The line that separates stardom from mere “working actress,” as Diaz, 24, prefers to call herself, can be elusive, almost invisible.
Julia Roberts crossed it simply by going from the gawky, toothy, big-haired waitress in the low-budget film “Mystic Pizza” to the gawky, toothy, big-haired prostitute in the big-budget “Pretty Woman.” Go, as they say, figure.
For others, the line between mere mortal and stardom can prove an insurmountable wall. Hollywood threw in everything but its Rolls-Royces trying to make British import Julia Ormond a star–casting her in such big-budget films as “Legends of the Fall” and “Sabrina,” and opposite such powerhouse leading men as Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford. Ormond’s supposed star power was hyped at every turn with a promotional and publicity effort worthy of Madonna.
But Ormond tanked, never making it across the divide.
Diaz, before our very eyes, seems to be making the leap effortlessly–with the same ease with which she went from fashion model to “working actress,” and with which she has been able to turn heads in countless “Who’s that blond?” sightings and encounters this summer in Chicago.
She’s been in the city on a 14-week shoot of a very big league movie called “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” Scheduled for release next year, it stars Roberts as a young woman whose old boyfriend is about to marry a rich girl played by Diaz. The plot kicks off with Diaz inviting Julia to be a bridesmaid at the nuptials.
“We’ve been shooting all over the city,” said Diaz. “My character–her father owns the White Sox.”
You might not have noticed Roberts on Chicago’s streets, as she has become quite adept at staying unrecognizable after some disastrous experiences with New York paparazzi.
But it was hard not to take note of Diaz, even if one wasn’t sure who she was.
For those who might not have spotted Diaz on Oak Street or the Gold Coast (where she’s been staying in a rented apartment–“I like making my own bed, doing my own dishes and cooking my own meals”), there will be other places to look for her soon besides the cover of Rolling Stone or the pages of Entertainment Weekly and Premiere.
She’s also starring as a captivating and cunning sexpot in the recently released “She’s the One,” an otherwise flat sex and brotherly love comedy by Ed Burns of “The Brothers McMullen” fame.
And you can find her as the female lead in “Feeling Minnesota” (which opened Friday), a dark comedy where Diaz portrays a tough, hard-luck girl whose big love scene with male star Keanu Reeves is on a bathroom floor.
And she’ll also be starring with Harvey Keitel in the forthcoming and quirky “A Head Above Water.”
“Harvey and I play a husband and wife,” she said. “He’s a superior court judge and he’s a little uptight, and I’m a–hmmm–I’m a little girl in need of guidance. We go on our summer vacation and, while he’s away fishing, my ex-lover shows up and dies, and I get freaked and decide to try to dispose of the body, and get caught.”
And, floating around somewhere in video stores is the low budget “The Last Supper,” another dark comedy she found herself in, with Bill Paxton and Annabeth Gish, that was released last February.
The National Association of Theater Owners, please note, this year voted her the “ShoWest Star of Tomorrow.”
Models do not often movie stars make. Though we live in an age when any mannequin with a recognizable name is declared a “supermodel” and can underwrite the success of a tourist trap like New York’s Fashion Cafe with her celebrity, it’s not the kind of celebrity that necessarily translates into popularity–let alone competence–on the screen.
Supermodel Cindy Crawford is known in every corner of the planet, but just completed the briefest movie star career on record with her dismal performance in the truly ridiculous action thriller “Fair Game.”
But then there are actresses who first go to work as models–Grace Kelly, Geena Davis, Sharon Stone, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rene Russo, Diaz’s friend Liv Tyler–and that’s quite another category. It’s the one from which Diaz entered the movie business.
“I had a very normal upbringing in a California beach town,” she said. “I was blessed with an incredible family with whom I’m very close. I was raised healthy and loved.”
The beach town was Long Beach. Her father is an oil company foreman and her mother a property broker. “I have an older sister that I beat up most of my life and now think she’s the most incredible thing ever.”
At age 16, recruited by a photographer she met at a party, she signed with the Elite modeling agency and within a short time was shooting Coca-Cola commercials in Australia and skin cream ads in Europe. While still a teen, she lived and worked as a model in Japan before returning to California and finishing high school.
It’s not hard to imagine her something of a teen terror, even now. She does chew gum. She indulges in the “L” word–like, “Like.” She uses saltier words as well. According to Rolling Stone, she made the acquaintance of hard liquor at an early age, and had a very interesting morning after a day of margaritas, champagne, vodka and sake.
She has a very exuberant, very wicked laugh.
But it’s not hard to imagine her a poised, worldly, sophisticated woman, as she appears in “She’s the One,” or as a cool, sure of herself post-deb, as in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
“I get that from modeling,” she said. “I get that from traveling around the world by myself, having to live in foreign countries, making new friends, dealing with people, being put into situations where you have to think on your feet, having to handle any situation.”
The leap from modeling to acting was the transcendent experience of her adulthood, occurring when she chanced to see a movie script on the desk of her modeling agent. It was for “The Mask,” which was to star a then little-known television comic actor, Jim Carrey. Cameron thought she’d try out for the small part of a reporter, and found herself cast as the female lead instead.
Before “The Mask’s” release, Carrey was transformed into a megawatt superstar with “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” and “The Mask” itself was a smash hit.
“My circumstance was exceptional,” she said, referring to her luck, “but I felt I won the part in `The Mask’ fair and square. In so doing, it built a lot of confidence in me for the future. I think that because of the success of `The Mask,’ doors were opened to me that wouldn’t have been had I just decided to become an actress, but it was very frightening to stop modeling and start acting because I didn’t know where I was going to end up.
“I knew I wanted to act once I started reading the script. I never had experienced such a rush, a thrill, or had such a fulfilling experience as I did when I was reading for the part. So I just kept on with it. I decided that it was something I didn’t want to live without, so I went for it.”
After “The Mask,” she turned down some obvious bummer scripts, but went full throttle after the bad girl part in “She’s the One,” which also stars Jennifer Aniston of TV’s “Friends” and John Mahoney of “Frasier.”
“She’s the One” has been slammed by some critics, but Diaz has come out looking good. Deciding her amoral vixen role was too one-dimensional and unlikable, she set about altering the script and direction to add complexity and appeal.
“I can’t thank her enough,” Burns said. “The character is much more complex than I had initially scripted. It’s a funnier, more honest part and a lot of that is because of Cameron’s input.”
“I’m so proud of her,” said Tyler, herself stardom bound with this summer’s “Stealing Beauty” and this fall’s Tom Hanks rock ‘n’ roll opus, “That Thing You Do!”
“I take what I do really seriously,” Diaz said. “I love what I do. It brings me great pleasure, but at the same time it’s a huge responsibility–a lot of people putting a lot of money on the line, a lot of effort out. It’s unfair if one person, especially a person in my position, which is a performer who is on the screen representing everybody’s efforts, not to give it a good go.
“As a model, I enjoyed selling. That’s what my job was. I sold clothes. I sold an image. I sold a product. Of course I had to sell my product to the people who wanted to sell their product. My product was myself. That was my first sell.
“I don’t know how people are going to receive me. I don’t know what they’re going to accept me as. I don’t know if they’re going to reject me. So I just sort of, like, go straight ahead. I guess in a way that’s good for me because, if people haven’t got an idea of me yet, then I’m open and free to keep pursuing different things.
“Everybody’s story is different,” she said. “I don’t know what mine is yet.”
