Film Debut
In 1994, Diaz won her first film role in the blockbuster action-comedy The Mask, starring rubber-faced comic Jim Carrey. With no previous acting experience, she had originally auditioned for a supporting character in the film. Twelve callbacks later, however, she was hired to play torch-singing mob moll Tina Carlyle, the female lead. After the success of The Mask, Diaz was touted as the next big thing in Hollywood and wooed by a number of prominent filmmakers to appear in their projects.
While training to star in the live-action movie version of the popular martial-arts video game Mortal Kombat, Diaz sustained a wrist injury, which caused her to back out of the film. Instead she made a string of smaller, independent films, including The Last Supper (1995); Feeling Minnesota (1996), costarring Keanu Reeves; She's the One (1996), co-starring Ed Burns and Jennifer Aniston; and Head Above Water (1996), costarring Harvey Keitel. She made a successful return to mainstream movies in 1997, winning raves for her portrayal of a sweet bride-to-be opposite Julia Roberts in the playful comedy hit My Best Friend's Wedding.
'There's Something About Mary'
After starring opposite Ewan McGregor in the uneven romantic comedy A Life Less Ordinary (1997), Diaz made the leap to A-list Hollywood stardom with her savvy comic turn in the unapologetically crude surprise summer blockbuster There's Something About Mary, costarring Ben Stiller and Matt Dillon and written and directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly.
In 1999, audiences saw two very different sides of Diaz. First, she camouflaged her blond beauty to play a dowdy pet-shop worker and puppeteer's wife in the much talked-about existential comedy Being John Malkovich, directed by Spike Jonze and costarring John Cusack, Catherine Keener and Malkovich. Later that year, she turned in a brazen performance as the glamorous, hard-nosed new owner of a professional football team in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday, co-starring Al Pacino and Dennis Quaid.
Big Screen Star
Despite her undeniable box office appeal, Diaz continued to appear in relatively low-budget independent film—including the black comedy Very Bad Things (1998), Malkovich, and the ensemble film Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000), which aired on Showtime cable television in 2001 and co-starred Glenn Close, Holly Hunter and Calista Flockhart—as well as more mainstream projects. In the fall of 2000, she starred alongside Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu as one of the three female detectives at the heart of the hit big-screen remake of Aaron Spelling's campy 1970s television show,Charlie's Angels.
In early 2001, Diaz appeared as a free-spirited older sister in The Invisible Circus. She also provided the voice for the spirited Princess Fiona in that summer's animated hit Shrek, also featuring the voices of Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy. The trio revived their roles for three sequels over the next decade.
That same year she starred in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, co-starring Tom Cruise. Then in 2002, she was featured in the romantic comedy The Sweetest Thing as well as Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The following year she joined Liu and Barrymore for the sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. And in 2005, she starred in the film In Her Shoes with Toni Colette, with the story based on the 2002 Jennifer Wiener novel of the same name.
After rom-com The Holiday (2006) and the raunchy What Happens in Vegas(2008), Diaz showed her more serious side in the 2009 family drama My Sister's Keeper. She played a mother of three who finds herself at odds with her youngest child Anna (Abigail Breslin) over her middle child's medical needs. The film is based on the best-selling novel by Jodi Picoult.
Additional Films, From 'Bad Teacher' to 'Annie'
Diaz next two film projects were action oriented—the comedic Knight and Day(2010), again co-starring Tom Cruise, and the comic book adaptation The Green Hornet (2011), in which she plays the resourceful secretary of the masked hero (Seth Rogen). More comedies followed, with Diaz having the lead role in 2011's Bad Teacher and being featured as part of the cast of 2012's What To Expect When You're Expecting and Gambit.
Diaz returned to serious fare in the foreboding drama/thriller
The Counselor, directed by
Ridley Scott, before heading back to humor in 2014: She co-starred in the box office hit
The Other Woman as well as
Sex Tape, with the latter co-starring
Jason Segel. The holiday season saw the actress starring as Ms. Hannigan in a remake of the musical
Annie, with
Quvenzhané Wallis in the lead role.
