Take Five Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cameron Michelle Diaz

Cameron Michelle Diaz was born on August 30, 1972, in San Diego. She has a sister, Chimene, who is two years older. Her father Emilio's family is from Cuba and his family came originally from Spain. Her mother Billie (nee Early) was born in Los Angeles and has English and German ancestry.

The name Cameron is considered to be a unisex name, and has origins in Scotland, where it means crooked nose. It is a very popular boy's name there.

Answer: Model

Cameron and her sister were raised in Long Beach, California, where they attended elementary and high school. Cameron is proud of her frugal but happy childhood, frequently espousing on how great her parents were to the two girls.

When she was sixteen, Cameron signed a contract with Elite Model Management. Whilst still at high school she appeared in advertisements for Levi Jeans and Calvin Klein. A year later she was the face on the cover of the July 1990 edition of "Seventeen". In the same year, she modeled in Australia for ten weeks as part of her modelling contract. As part of that tour, she shot a commercial for Coca-Cola.

Answer: No, but she took lessons after she was cast

Cameron Diaz landed the lead female role in "The Mask" after an Elite Model Management representative tipped off the movie's producers. She took acting lessons after she was cast. The movie was one of the top ten-grossing films in 1994, and launched Ms. Diaz's career, albeit as a sex symbol.

A host of roles followed, including "The Last Supper" (1995), "She's The One" (1996), "Feeling Minnesota" (1996), and "Head Above Water" (1996), but it was in 1997's "Best Friend's Wedding" that she cemented her reputation as a bona fide thespian. With the luminous Julia Roberts as the lead actress, Ms. Diaz held her own in the movie, winning several awards for her performance.

Answer: There's Something About Mary

"Something About Mary" was a story about many male suitors vying for the title character's attention. Perhaps it wasn't too far removed from Ms. Diaz's own personal life. If the entertainment world had not heard about Cameron Diaz before this movie, then they sat up and took notice afterwards, because in this one she carried the movie with charm and great acting. It grossed a massive $US370 million. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her role (Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy) in 1999.

She received three more Golden Globe nominations in the next three years. She received a British Academy Award for "Being John Malkovich" in 2000 and three Screen Actors Guild Awards - two in 2000 and one in 2002. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2009. In 2016, "IndieWire" named her as one of the "greatest actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination".

Answer: "Vanilla Sky" and "Knight and Day"

"Vanilla Sky" was a 2001 American science fiction movie starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, and Penelope Cruz. It was a remake of 1997's "Open Your Eyes" also starring Ms. Cruz. The movie grossed over $US200 million in comparison to the $US68 million it cost to produce. However, the critics were not too kind to the movie overall, though Ms. Diaz's contribution was praised, earning her a third Screen Actors Guild and a third Golden Globe Award nomination.

If Mr. Cruise and Ms. Diaz didn't share much air time in "Vanilla Sky", that all changed in 2010's "Knight and Day", a spoof of the spy genre and indeed a spoof of most Tom Cruise action movies. The implausible (but funny) plot involved Ms Diaz's naive car restorer character, June Havers, inadvertently getting mixed up with Mr Cruise's desperate bid to clear his name as a CIA operative. It was clear there was chemistry between the two leads, and, despite a poor script, they were praised for their action sequences (of which there were many) where Ms. Diaz could more than match her male counterpart's skill with both the speed and fight scenes. The movie recovered $US262 million at the box office.

Answer: Mary Jensen - "Gangs of New York" (1999)

Mary Jensen was the character played by Cameron Diaz in "Something About Mary".

The character she played in "Gangs of New York" was Jenny Everdeane. With a resume as brilliant as Martin Scorsese's, this movie was not one of his best. Nevertheless, Cameron Diaz handed in an exemplary performance which earned her a fourth Golden Globe nomination.

The "Shrek" franchise has been a top money-spinner. The first four movies grossed $US2.9 billion. It was clear that the leads of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy had a ball voicing their characters in this series of "anti-nursery rhymes".

Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu won plenty of fans in a remake of the TV series "Charlie's Angels". The movie grossed $US262 million. The three leads reprised their roles in 2003's "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle", which was just as successful, earning $US259 million. Cameron Diaz played Natalie Cook in both movies.

"The Other Woman" was a remake of "The First Wives Club" (1996), but aimed at younger audiences. The script was poor, the direction was not great, but it still grossed $US170 million based on the (only) star power of Cameron Diaz.

Answer: True

Cameron Diaz wrote two books between 2013-2016. Her first, co-written with Sandra Bark, was titled "The Body Book: Feed, Move, Understand and Love Your Amazing Body" (2013). It was a health book that cited articles from peer-reviewed academic journals. It was not a diet or workout piece of work, but offered scientific and common sense advice on how to obtain and maintain a healthy body. The book reached number two on "The New York Times" Bestseller List in March 2014. She followed this up with another collaboration with Sandra Bark called "The Longevity Book: The Science of Aging, the Biology of Strength, and the Privilege of Time" in June 2016.

In 2020 she launched her own wine brand with Katherine Power. Called Avaline, it produces rose and dry white wines. They are made from organic grapes with no additives or added sugar, and are branded as "vegan-friendly and non-GMO".

Answer: Benji Madden

Between 1990 and 1994, Cameron Diaz and Carlos de la Torre, a video producer, shared a West Hollywood apartment after they met filming an ad for L.A. Gear. Their romance fizzled soon after she started filming "The Mask". She dated her "Something About Mary" co-star Matt Dillon, but they had been dating for two years before they filmed that movie together in 1998.

She was unofficially engaged to Oscar-winning singer and actor Jared Leto between 1999 and 2003. Then she dated Justin Timberlake between 2003 and 2006, and New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez in 2010 and 2011.

Ms. Diaz' close friend Nicole Richie married Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden in 2010. Ms Richie introduced Cameron to Joel's twin brother Benji in 2014. Cameron and Benji were married ten months later. They have two children, a daughter born in December 2019, and a son born in March 2024.

Answer: Annie

Before her retirement, Cameron Diaz's last movie was "Annie" (2014). She did not announce her retirement until 2017 during a sit-down with Christina Applegate and Selma Blair, who were her co-stars in the 2002 comedy "The Sweetest Thing".

She told "Yahoo Finance Presents" in 2021 that after giving "100 per cent [to her acting career]... it's just a different time in my life now...Now I'm here and this is the most fulfilling thing that I've ever done in my life. [To] have a family and be married and have our little nucleus of a family. It's just completely the best thing. I don't have what it takes to give making a movie what it needs to be made. All of my energy is here...You're there (on a movie set) 12 hours a day for months on end. You have no time for anything else. I realised that I'd handed off parts of my life to all these other people... and I had to take it back."

Ms. Diaz explained at "Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit" in October 2024: "It felt like something I had to do to reclaim my own life. And I just really didn't care about anything else...Nobody's opinion, nobody's success, no one's offer, no one's anything could change my mind about my decision of taking care of myself and building the life that I really wanted to have...It really comes to: What are you passionate about? For me, it was to build my family."

Cameron Diaz was the lead actress in all the listed movies - "Being John Malkovich" (1999), "My Sister's Keeper" (2009), and "What to Expect When You're Expecting" (2012). Playing Lottie in "Being John Malkovich", a role in which she was virtually unrecognisable, was perhaps Ms. Diaz's most critically acclaimed role.

Answer: Jamie Foxx

Jamie Fox and Cameron Diaz collaborated on two previous movies: "On Any Sunday (1999) and "Annie" (2014), which happened to be her last movie before "retirement". He was cast in the spy-action thriller, "Back In Action (2024), and convinced Ms. Diaz to be his co-star.

"I couldn't say no to Jamie," Ms. Diaz said. "He said, 'Come with me.' And I was like, 'OK, let's do it.'"

Ms. Diaz went on to say how her husband Benjy supported her decision to return to be in front of the cameras. "So, I had to push myself. My husband, he's just the best. He was just like, 'You've been supporting us and building the family.' And supporting him in his businesses. He's like, 'It's time for us to support you and let mummy ascend and do her do her thing.'"

Whilst Ms. Diaz has vowed never to do grueling back-to-back movie schedules again, in 2024, she announced she would film "Shrek 5" with Mike Myers and she accepted a lead role in "Outcast" with Keanu Reeves. She previously worked with Mr Reeves in "Feeling Minnesota" in 1996. Al Pacino was her co-star in "Any Given Sunday" (1999) and Jude Law was her co-star in "The Holiday" (2006).

Whatever the reasons that caused Cameron Diaz to retire from the silver screen, the collective worldwide audience was pleased to see her return in front of the cameras and that her 'retirement' was merely a "take five".