Cameron Diaz makes broad comedy feel unforced, often by doing less than the people around her. We rate her warmth and physical confidence, though There's Something About Mary also shows the limits of asking her simply to be desirable.
Fi1m perspective
In There's Something About Mary (1998), Cameron Diaz stays easy and unhurried while Ben Stiller works through the discomfort. As Mary Jensen, she makes the attention paid to her understandable without trying to match the comic exertions around her. That is a considerable skill in a film so dependent on physical embarrassment: she makes the attraction credible even when the courtship is less convincing. We like that ease, and wish the screenplay gave her more opportunities to be awkward herself.
Her screen debut came opposite Jim Carrey in The Mask (1994). There's Something About Mary made her a star, but Being John Malkovich (1999) quickly offered a different use for her. As the dowdy Lotte Schwartz in Spike Jonze's film, she took an unglamorous character part rather than another role organised around her attractiveness. That early change matters when considering an actor whose charm can make the work look simpler than it is.
The Farrelly brothers' treatment of Mary shows both the value of that charm and the limits imposed on it. Diaz supplies warmth and humour, but the screenplay reserves most of the foolishness and difficulty for the men. We felt frustrated watching her make Mary so appealing while being given so little of the messiness that makes the other characters funny. She helps earn the laughs; she cannot correct the imbalance in whom the film finds interesting.
Voicing Princess Fiona in Shrek (2001) and playing Jenny Everdeane in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002) broadened the work beyond romantic comedy. Bad Teacher (2011), with its unlikeable Elizabeth Halsey, is a more direct answer to the restriction we felt in Mary. Diaz's willingness to look unappealing and her control of physical comedy give writers more to use than some of her roles suggest. We would rather see those qualities tested than have another screenplay settle for her being pleasant company.
Back in Action (2025), opposite Jamie Foxx, marked her return after a decade-long break from films. A return by itself tells us little about what an actor will be given to do. The useful question is whether the scripts will allow her to be as troublesome as her co-stars. Start with There's Something About Mary for the comic ease, with fair warning that the men are given more to play.
Biography
Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress. Born on 30 August 1972 in San Diego, California, she was raised in Long Beach and began modelling in her teens before making her film debut in The Mask (1994).
Diaz gained prominence with her starring role as Mary Jensen in the Farrelly brothers' comedy There's Something About Mary (1998). She has appeared in numerous films including My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Charlie's Angels (2000) and its sequel, Gangs of New York (2002), and voiced Princess Fiona in the Shrek series (2001–2010). She received Golden Globe nominations for her performances in There's Something About Mary and Being John Malkovich (1999).
