BEVERLY HILLS, California — As soon as Cameron Diaz sat for the round-table interview in a suite at Four Seasons, she noticed that the microphone of a tape recorder owned by one of the (international) journalists was placed on top of what looked like a can of energy drink.
Asked by the recorder’s owner if she ever drunk energy drink, Cameron grimaced and said, “No, I don’t. Even if I as much as smell it, I vomit.”
The junket was for Lionsgate’s What To Expect When You’re Expecting (now showing nationwide, released locally by Pioneer Films), inspired by Heidi Murkoff’s best-selling self-help book for pregnant women, in which Cameron plays a TV fitness guru and one of the five expectant mothers (with Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Anna Kendrick of the Twilight Saga and Sports Illustrated cover girl Brooklyn Decker).
It’s ironic because at 40, Cameron has never experienced motherhood but she was realistic in the maternity-ward scene showing her bathed in profuse sweat as she pushes and pushes, inhaling and exhaling as if her life depends on it (well, it does!) until she breaks into a tired smile when she hears the baby’s first cry.
Where did she draw an inspiration?
“Well,” revealed Cameron, “I’ve been in a room when my sister gave birth three times, so I know what it’s like to be in that moment when everyone who loves a child wants so much to have that child be a part of the family.”
She still didn’t need it but Cameron admitted that she had read Murkoff’s book.
“I think it’s very, very clever conceptualizing this movie based on the book,” she said. “I’ve always heard the title being talked about. It’s one of those books that have been around and a part of almost everyone’s life. When you read it, it feels like you’re getting advice from your best friend who’s been through it all.”
So how was she able to relate to the role? Didn’t she find it distracting wearing prosthetic belly?
“You know,” related Cameron, “I have a lot of experience with children and pregnant women, so that’s it. It wasn’t that hard for me to relate to Jules, my character. I welcome the opportunity to have my own family. Meanwhile, I’m part of many tribes and villages where I get to be a part of my various families…those of my relatives and my friends. I have nieces who are three years old, 12 and 15. So I have a lot of experience and I love children!”
At 40, isn’t she past the child-bearing stage?
“If I can’t have my own child, I can always adopt one,” she said, “or have a partner who has a child.”
The movie opens with Cameron and Matthew Morrison (see related story somewhere in this feature), as her professional-dancer husband, doing a high-octane dance on Celebrity Dance Factor. Very sexy, far sexier in fact than any of the real-life championship bets in Dancing With The Stars.
In What To Expect, Cameron is funnier than she was in There’s Something About Mary, which won her a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in 1998, and one scene of which showed her wondering what was the “sticky something” that landed on her hair.
Oh yes, the hair.
At the round-table interview, she was asked about her hair and how it becomes an “issue” when she grows it long or cuts it short.
“The thing that bothers me is anything negative,” frowned Cameron. “I just don’t like negativity. For instance, the haircut. I don’t have any issue with getting my haircut short, shorter than I thought, and people making a fuss about it. And here the tabloids asking if I needed a new hairdresser. I found it a most ridiculous thing.”
Then, she asked, “How do you find my hairdo now?”
Well, she looked marvelous, so beautiful with whatever hairstyle.
Asked how she kept that fresh look after the rounds of interviews today and the day before, Cameron said, “All I did was out on lipstick.”
When Joey Santos, big boss of House of Obagi, learned that I was going to interview Cameron, he reminded me to ask Cameron if she uses Obagi. (Sorry, Joey, I forgot to ask Cameron.)
Any beauty secrets?
Without giving any specifics, Cameron exclaimed, “I just gave you one!,” adding, “just take care of yourself consistently. Take lots of water. Take care of your body.”
In the movie, there’s a part where the characters of Cameron and Matthew briefly discuss whether or not to have their baby circumcised.
Asked by a lady journalist what was his take on circumcision, Matthew was rendered speechless, blushing to death, prompting Cameron to come to his rescue.
“You know,” said Cameron, “I find it strange that in America there’s more men wanting to be snipped off. You would think guys would just be like, ‘Don’t touch it. I don’t want anything snipped off at the tip of my penis!’ But men in America, it’s ‘Of course, I would have my son circumcised.’ I guess American mothers feel the same way, too.”
The interview was fun and free-wheeling but when somebody asked Cameron about her house, she begged off.
“You know,” she explained, “there’s not a lot of things that I can keep to myself and my house is one of them.”
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