Cameron Diaz Says Temporary Hiatus Was The ‘Best 10 Years’ Of Her Life

Cameron Diaz is grateful for her 10-year break from acting – but she’s just as grateful to be back.

“Oh my God, I loved it. It was the best 10 years of my life,” Diaz, 52, said on the Friday, January 17, episode of The Graham Norton Show about her retirement from filmmaking. “I was free to say, ‘I’m a mother, I’m a wife, I’m living my life.'”

Diaz’s last project before her 10-year hiatus was 2014’s Annie, in which she starred alongside Jamie Foxx. She and Foxx, 57, both star in Netflix’s Back to Workwhich premiered on the streaming platform on Friday.

Diaz went on to say that stepping away from acting “made sense for the family” at the time, as she and her husband Benji Maddenwhom she married in 2015, sharing two children: daughter Raddix, born in 2019, and son Cardinal, born in 2024. Diaz added that “people stopped asking” her to take on new roles after a while. “It was so lovely,” she said.

Related: Inside Cameron Diaz’s Breakthrough Comeback

Cameron Diaz had reached her breaking point. When Annie hit theaters in 2014, it marked her 38th film in 20 years. “It’s so intense to work at that level and be so public and put yourself out there,” she told her friend Gwyneth Paltrow during a Goop interview in 2020. “There’s a lot of energy that becomes (…)

Diaz has offered several reasons why he ultimately chose to do another film – Foxx is his costar in Back to Work among them. However, he further explained why he ultimately made the choice to step back on the silver screen.

“It’s an honor to do this,” he told the host Graham Norton for acting. “I said to myself, if I let this go, all this goodwill, all this I have to build over so much time, the passion I have to entertain people and make films that’ n (make) people smile and laugh and have a good time, and they sit in the theater or they sit at home and it moves them — if I don’t engage with that again and give that a chance and participate in it and be grateful for it, we will a fool.”

Despite her return, she has not decided if this will be a permanent career move for the actress. “Maybe this is the start, maybe I’ll tip in, maybe I’ll go gung-ho, we’ll see,” he said. “It’s here and I’m very grateful for it.”

Earlier this month, a source reported Us Weekly that Diaz’s decision to act again “evolved over time,” adding, “It wasn’t sudden.”

In an interview in December 2024 with EmpireDiaz shared that it’s “hard to say” if she’ll do another movie after that Back to Worksaying, “I reserve the right to say no to making a movie ever again, and I reserve the right to say yes if I decide to.”

Back to Work now streaming on Netflix.