Diaz gets nasty for family drama

By Ian Youngs
BBC News entertainment reporter

Cameron Diaz talks to the BBC News website about the challenge posed by her latest role as a nasty sibling in female-focused family drama In Her Shoes.

Director Curtis Hanson accompanied Diaz and Collette to the premiere

Morally repugnant, thieving, selfish, promiscuous, determined to trade on her looks to get by in life - none of these terms could be applied to Cameron Diaz.

But they are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Diaz's character in this adaptation of Jennifer Weiner's best-selling novel, In Her Shoes.

Diaz plays the wild child engaged in a love-hate struggle with her plain, sensible sister, played by Collette.

The Charlie's Angels star says she was not afraid to step into such a nasty role - and could sympathise with some of what her character, Maggie, was going through.

She could relate to a young woman "trying to find her way through the world and not being so sure as to how to find her place, not always being completely sure with yourself", she says.

Who better than Cameron than to play this character who has been allowed to cruise by in life because of what she looks like? Curtis Hanson Director

"Maggie's issues were really much more intense and convoluted and more dire than mine, but I think it's something we all go through in life - that journey of finding yourself."

Curtis Hanson, whose credits include LA Confidential, 8 Mile and Wonder Boys, says he always looks for interesting characters when choosing films to direct.

"Who better than Cameron to play this character, who has been allowed to cruise by in life because of what she looks like and because of the way men react to her?" he asks.

This, however, is slightly further than Diaz intended to go herself, and she butts in, half-joking: "What are you saying?"

Diaz and Collette play sisters who are close yet polar opposites

"The question in my mind was," Hanson continues, "was she prepared to go the distance with this character and go to the dark side of the character?

"Not only play the fear and insecurity and self-loathing but also the horrible behaviour that's so reprehensible at the beginning of the movie?"

He plainly thinks she was, and many critics have praised the performances from Diaz, Collette and their screen grandmother, film legend Shirley MacLaine.

In fact, MacLaine, 71, who has been nominated for six Oscars and won once, has even been touted as a possible contender for this year's Academy Awards.

Screen legend Shirley MacLaine plays Diaz's grandmother

Hanson says she wasted no time reminding the young stars who she was, telling them their rehearsal rooms were used as dressing rooms for her 1960 classic The Apartment.

But she was careful not to intimidate Diaz and Collette, the director says.

"She started talking about craft and very quickly they were talking about love and very quickly after that they were talking about sex."

MacLaine plays a woman trying to escape her past in a Florida retirement village alongside other actors of advancing age with real-life elderly residents as extras.

Our elderly are meant to be those who share the secrets of wisdom and knowledge and life with our youth Cameron Diaz

"They are our storytellers - our elderly are meant to be those who share the secrets of wisdom and knowledge and life with our youth," Diaz says.

"As our youth generation, we receive all our information from a box - we turn it on and flip the channels and receive all of our information from there.

"It's wonderful to be around a community of people who know themselves so well, understand themselves so well and are able to be generous with themselves."

'Hurt'

Such sentiments sound good, but in an interview with the New York Times, MacLaine said she was "hurt" that Diaz and Collette never asked her to share the secrets of her wisdom and knowledge.

In fact, Diaz "used to spend the first hour of the rehearsal period talking about the problems she had getting out of her house and avoiding the photographers", MacLaine told the paper.

That does not fit in quite so well with the heartwarming moral of the story.

But Hollywood is not like real life, after all - and in movieland at least, even the biggest problems can be overcome if you respect your family and elders.

In Her Shoes is released in the UK on Friday.