Cameron Diaz Said She’d Rather Watch Her Own Face Age Than Wear One That Doesn’t Belong to Her
Cameron Diaz tried Botox exactly once, in a tiny amount, and hated what it did to her face. She told Entertainment Tonight in 2014 that it changed her expressions in a way that felt foreign, and she walked away from it for good.
“Guess what this means, I’ve smiled my whole life,” she said of her laugh lines. “I love life. I’m happy I don’t have a problem with that.”
The quote wasn’t a one-off. She’d already laid out the philosophy in her 2013 release The Body Book: wrinkles are proof of a life lived, and the Hollywood pressure to freeze a face is a trap she’s openly called out, describing herself as a “victim of all of the societal objectifications and exploitations that women are subjected to.”
It matters more when you remember the face she was protecting. Diaz never planned to act. A photographer handed her a card at a party when she was 16, she signed with Elite, and she was modeling Calvin Klein and Levi’s campaigns and living in Paris and Japan before she ever saw a script. At 21 she auditioned on a whim for a small part in a Jim Carrey comedy, went through 12 auditions for the lead instead, and was cast 7 days before cameras rolled on The Mask. Director Chuck Russell later said her photo alone told him everything: “Something came through of her personality, even in that picture.”
What followed was one of the fastest rises of the era: My Best Friend’s Wedding, There’s Something About Mary, Charlie’s Angels, Shrek, Vanilla Sky. Then in 2014, the same year as the Botox interview, she stepped back from major acting to build a family. She had her first child at 47 and her third this year.
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