Cameron Diaz Steps Forward
In Her Shoes

Just to let you know, In Her Shoes is not a chick flick. I say this to start off because the cast and crew I spoke to was adamant about that fact. That is except Cameron Diaz, most likely because we never asked her about it. Cameron plays Maggie Feller, a 20-something girl who has always depended on her father and sister, Rose (Toni Collette), to support her. When a riff between Maggie and Rose break the two apart, Maggie travels down to Florida to visit her long-lost grandmother, played by Shirley Maclaine.

When it was time for our interviews, Shirley came in and made her place known. Cameron was definitely a nice change of pace from Shirley; not to say it wasn’t amazing being in the same room as her, but Shirley is a legend and she knows it. In my opinion, Cameron will become a legend, but she’s grounded and she was definitely sympathetic to us as she walked in.

Shirley was quick to say Cameron didn’t ask her about her career; Cameron defended herself to us:

Cameron Diaz: “That's such bullsh*t; you don't have to ask her. We talked about all that stuff constantly. That was what we talked about, about everything; you can talk about anything with her. She'll tell you exactly - she'll tell you the truth, she'll tell you straightforward; that's the great thing about Shirley. It's what you expect, what you hope for and I think that's why probably we've been watching her for so long make films because her characters have always been so honest. She's awesome! I love Shirley Maclaine, love that woman.”

Did Cameron learn anything about acting by being around her:

Cameron Diaz: “She's like a great athlete, like Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan; they make it look effortless, they make it look like ‘Oh, it's so easy, I'm going to sink this 60-foot putt, I'm going to take my six-iron and I'm going to hit it 320 yards.’ It's effortless, but really it's just who they are. It's their abilities, their focus. With Shirley, the truth comes out of her. That's what I've learned - when you're just as honest as you can be that the truth comes out. It's like having a conversation with her. Everyone has a different process, and it was awesome to witness hers.”

As I said earlier, it’s not a chick flick, but it’s certainly not a comedy. And it’s been a while since Cameron has starred in a drama. She talked about what attracted her to the script:

Cameron Diaz: “I look at scripts oftentimes; it's funny because the first time I really articulated it was in the next room. Somebody said ‘Was it Maggie that brought you in?’ I realized I don't pick films based on characters per se; I look at a script as a whole, I look at the full content, and oftentimes that gets me in trouble. Like how many times have I done a film where I've gotten tied up or I've had to get into cold water or I'm in a wedding dress. Those things are like ‘Oh, right, I'm going to have to spend all that time tied up.’ I didn't really realize that because I was looking at the whole script. Do you know what I mean? So I do that often times. I wasn't looking at Maggie going ‘Oh, she's dyslexic, she's a whore. Yes; I want to play her.’ I looked at the whole picture and the whole arch of all the characters in the story that they were telling, and I knew my place would be Maggie. I knew that I would be playing Maggie, but in this incredible story about these three women telling a universal story. You got to witness life, human experience and it wasn't like glorified. It was just honest and so that's what drew me to it, the whole story and the story that was being told and the fact that those stories don't get told so often on the screen.”

There was a lot of discussion with people who saw the film about whether they're a Maggie or a Rose; Toni Collette said she was actually more of a Maggie. Who does Cameron relate to more:

Cameron Diaz: “I think that I'm a mixture of the both of them certainly. I can get things done if I need to, but I can really be completely irresponsible and procrastinate until the very, very, very bitter end. In fact sometimes I work better under pressure - the deadline. So yeah, I think that I'm kind of both; I can be the very nurturing one or I can be the one that doesn't really help. Well, that's not true; I like to figure things out; I like to help find the solution. I don't really like being the problem, in fact I hate being the problem. I hate causing trouble. I think that it's because I spent so much time as a child causing trouble (laughter) that now I don’t want to.”

Cameron is type cast in a lot of hokey comedies; In Her Shoes is not a hokey comedy. What does she think of people who do cast her in those roles:

Cameron Diaz: “Honestly, I really just do not pay attention to it, I don't, I'm sure that there are. You can talk about actors all day and go ‘She's too this or she's too that.’ I'm sure that people do, but I wouldn't know what they are as I really do not pay attention to them. I wouldn't know what they are. It's really hard to see yourself as other people see you. So it's probably really hard for me to guess what it would be because I would probably not guess those things about how people see me. So I don't really worry about it and it's kind of a waste of energy. I'm not really worried about whether I'm going to be able to go and get that part. I feel, and I've always felt this way even before I started acting, when I was modeling, because there was a lot of competition so to speak in modeling. There were hundreds of girls in one job so I always felt like if it was my job I'll get the job and if it's not my job then I won't get that job. That's not like a lack of ambition because I've auditioned for things that people probably wouldn't consider me for and I've gotten some of those parts and I didn't get other parts. Either way that it turns out I figure that's the way it's meant to be because of course really in life you can't do that. It's not like you can go ‘If I get this job it's going to lead to this and I'm going to achieve this in this place;’ it's so random.”

She says it’s what keeps her grounded:

Cameron Diaz: “Yeah, I think so, I don't have any expectations. If you just want to be really laid back and not be stressed out and just cruise through life, just have no expectations whatsoever. When you don't have expectations you're not worried about whether or not you're going to reach them or if you fall short of them or if something is better than it could or worse than it could be. You just kind of have what it is and for me that works best.”

She got a lot of practice before this film even started shooting; Cameron’s got a younger sister of her own:

Cameron Diaz: “I'm really lucky; my sister is sent from heaven, she is an angel. If our partnership was any different, if I had someone else and she had someone else to go through this life with as siblings I'm sure that we'd be totally different people, but having her as a sister made me a stronger person and gave me the ability to be who I am with her support. She's just awesome, she's hilarious, hilarious; she's just an awesome, awesome person. So I got really lucky because I think that not
everyone is so fortunate. I have girlfriends who's family members are just complete nut jobs. It's sad if you get partnered up with those people in your experience in this life, but I figure that we probably did something really good in our past lives that we have each other now.”

Cameron’s got a few things she’s working on. One of those is Shrek 3! So how’s Fiona doing:

Cameron Diaz: “Fiona is awesome. I've done like half of the film and I'm looking to do the second half in the next four or five years.”

What’s happening with the third film is there’s no real script; they’re writing as the actors do the voices. What does Cameron think about that:

Cameron Diaz: “That's the sort of challenge of that film, of doing something like that because it's the only kind of film that I've done that's like that. So the challenge for me is that there is no script. You don't get a script that you can look at and read. You kind of get the script on the day and you're oftentimes there reading it for the first time out loud as they are recording it. It's the first time it's coming out of my mouth. Actually though sometimes they use that much to my chagrin. I'm like ‘What are you talking about? I don't know what I'm doing. I have no idea what I'm saying. I just said it.’ So that's kind of the challenge, to kind of know what you're doing last minute. I think that my schedule is probably a little bit easier to coordinate with. That sounds like a necessity to - and there were a lot of people in that film too. So it sounds like that's trying to get people's schedules working when they could.”

In Her Shoes is rated PG-13; it walks into theaters October 7th