Diaz, Winslet share top billing
December 5, 2006
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON — Calgary Sun
HOLLYWOOD — Bubbly, buoyant blonds may be in high demand everywhere else, but in La-La Land, they’re as bountiful as Botox.
For someone like Cameron Diaz, then, who has made millions displaying considerable comedic skills and looking good doing so, it’s not so hard to imagine she might feel unappreciated — and even a little ordinary — compared to the likes of, say, her latest co-star Kate Winslet.
Don’t think it’s a common phenomenon — the fair-haired super-starlet overcome with brunette envy? How else do you explain Meg Ryan’s career?
However, Diaz — who dallied with the dark side in 2005’s classy but underachieving In Her Shoes — doesn’t sound concerned if neither the industry nor critics ever take her seriously.
“I’m not ashamed for being a happy, bubbly, funny person,” says the 34-year-old Charlie’s Angel and Something About Mary actress.
“I think that’s just as valuable as being the dark, brooding, tortured Oscar-nominated one — not that that’s what Kate is, at all. But if you want to start putting people in boxes, I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t think I’m undervalued … I’m just honoured to be in the position I’m in.”
This topic of switching lives and swapping environments is a natural one considering the premise of The Holiday, the romantic comedy which stars Diaz and Winslet as women who exchange houses at Christmas.
Both characters — Diaz’s workaholic Hollywood power player, Amanda, and Winslet’s put-upon British journalist, Iris — are desperate to mend their broken, battered hearts after being cheated on.
Of course, because this is a romantic comedy from Hollywood fluffmeister Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give, What Women Want), both Amanda and Iris fall headlong in love for the first two men they meet. For Diaz, Mr. Right is Jude Law. For Winslet, it’s Jack Black. (Yes, THAT Jack Black.)
Although the two share top billing, the plot dictates Diaz and Winslet are in separate countries for all but the final moments of the film.
As Winslet jokes, “I am looking forward to working with Cameron Diaz one day.”
That she is in The Holiday at all may surprise some. After all, it is the 31-year-old British beauty who, at first glance, seems out of place in the middle of the sort of frothy female fantasy you expect to see Diaz in.
Winslet explains the project appealed to her — she all but agreed to star before Meyers was finished the screenplay — because it gave her the chance to get some distance between herself and the usual roster of basketcases and tormented heroines she inhabits.
“(Iris) is such a good person. She’s a very decent, honest, English girl with traditional values … (It was a chance) to play someone I genuinely adore.”
As for whether The Holiday represents any kind of career risk, Winslet notes, “Everything’s a risk, regardless of the genre.”
Case in point: this fall’s disturbing drama Little Children. Although hailed by critics — and, early on, thought to be an Oscar candidate — the movie, in which Winslet plays an adulterous suburbanite, has drawn flies at the box office.
That lack of public support is now thought to have killed its chances during awards seasons.
About Little Children’s failure to register in the popular consciousness, Winslet is philosophical.
“As an actor you can only hope the work speaks for itself. I really try not to follow the politics of the box office or what is the best-reviewed movie. I’ve always paid less attention to that because my job is to act and, if my perception of that is warped by (that) information, it’s not healthy. You just have to have faith in the product. Little Children, I think, is a wonderful film.”
Winslet — who is married to American Beauty director Sam Mendes and has two children (a daughter by first husband Jim Threapleton and a son by Mendes) — became a global star in the wake of James Cameron’s Titanic (still the highest grossing film in history).
Before that, though, she’d blossomed as a promising ingenue in such films as Sense and Sensibility and Heavenly Creatures. Like her character Iris, who is awestruck by Hollywood’s glamour, Winslet recalls being overwhelmed by her first brushes with the A-list.
“When you’re 19 and you’re standing on the red carpet with your parents, you’re basically going to be star-struck by every single person there. My dad and I were blatantly pointing out people …”
Despite being so prolific an actress, Winslet explains, “I don’t feel like I’m in the industry. My life is about my family. I’m in the middle of a year off right now.”
Why take a break?
“Just because,” she smiles.
Diaz can relate. The actress, who has been dating pop music superstar Justin Timberlake for two years, explains she recently took time off because she wanted an escape from the intense media scrutiny surrounding her personal life.
“I thought if I didn’t do as many films, they would have to leave me alone. This is my job. I’m talking to you because this is my job … I thought, ‘If I don’t do movies, they won’t have any right to my life.’ But, of course, that’s not the mentality of that media. So I realized, ‘You know, if I’m not making a movie, they’re still going to be there, so I might as well do what I love.’ ”
Was she worried she’d lose out on plum parts by going on hiatus? “I’m not really in any race with anyone. I’m not in competition with anyone. I don’t think my career or my life is a competition,” Diaz says.
When she launched her career — in the Jim Carrey comedy The Mask — “I was learning about filmmaking and acting and I wanted to keep the ball in motion. I did film after film after film after film, which was an amazing experience.”
But she found herself with no house, no friends and family she rarely saw.
“I was so much like Amanda,” Diaz says, about her character’s career success but personal emptiness.
Diaz’s next gig sees her return to familiar fairytale turf — voicing green ogre Fiona in Shrek The Third, the second sequel in DreamWorks’ animated franchise. “I don’t know a lot about (the movie). I only know my part of it. I know the storyline and it’s a lot of fun.”
And Shrek The Third — in which Timberlake voices a prince — may very well be the closest fans come to seeing her work with her off-screen beau.
Asked if the couple would ever share more screen time than that, she says, “Probably not.”
Then again, as she’d be the first to acknowledge, that could change.
“My life is no different than anyone else’s. Somedays I have it all figured out and other days, I’m like ‘What is going on?’ That’s the human experience.”
Source: CANOE - JAM!
Posed in: News > Interviews > The Holiday
