Cameron Diaz captured hearts instantly with her wide smile and infectious laugh. She transitioned effortlessly from a modeling career to becoming Hollywood's highest-paid actress. However, she famously walked away from fame for years to focus on family and business. Furthermore, she recently returned to the screen, proving her star power never actually faded. Dive into these fascinating details about the woman behind some of cinema's biggest hits.
Cameron Diaz
Surprisingly, Cameron Diaz attended the same high school as rapper Snoop Dogg in Long Beach. She remembers him clearly as a tall, skinny kid with ponytails walking through the hallways.
She had absolutely no acting experience when she auditioned for the movie The Mask. Consequently, she had to return for callbacks twelve times before finally landing the breakout role.
She famously broke her nose four different times throughout her life. Most of these injuries happened because of her intense passion for surfing waves.
For the movie Bad Teacher, she took a massive pay cut in exchange for a percentage of profits. This smart business move eventually earned her over 40 million dollars when the film succeeded.
She originally retired from acting in 2014 because she felt exhausted by the travel. Therefore, she stepped away from the spotlight completely to find peace and start a family.
She launched her own “clean” wine brand called Avaline with a close friend. They created it because they wanted organic wine without the hidden additives found in other bottles.
Interestingly, she was not the first choice to voice Princess Fiona in the Shrek movies. The studio originally cast Janeane Garofalo, but they later replaced her with Cameron Diaz.
She performed many of her own dangerous driving stunts in the action movie Knight and Day. The stunt coordinator praised her skills, calling her one of the best drivers he ever met.
She wrote two very successful books about health, aging, and the human body. Her goal was to teach women to embrace getting older rather than fighting it with surgery.
Her father appeared briefly in her hit comedy There’s Something About Mary. You can spot him playing a prisoner in the background during one of the scenes.
She famously admitted to a very eco-friendly, though controversial, bathroom habit. specifically, she follows the “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” rule to save water at home.
Before acting, she moved to Japan at age 16 to work as a model. However, she struggled there and returned to America with very little money to show for it.
She hates the pressure Hollywood puts on women to use anti-aging products. Consequently, she stated recently that she rarely washes her face and owns a billion unused creams.
During the filming of Gangs of New York, she had to learn how to pickpockets properly. A professional magician taught her the sleight of hand needed for her thief character.
Finally, Jamie Foxx personally convinced her to un-retire for a new movie called Back in Action. Thus, he brought her back to the screen after an eight-year hiatus.
Margot Robbie conquered Hollywood with a mix of incredible talent and fearless risk-taking. You likely know her as the living doll Barbie or the chaotic Harley Quinn. However, she is also a heavy metal fan who plays ice hockey. She once worked at Subway and keeps a stuffed bunny in her bed. Furthermore, she produced some of the biggest movies of the decade. Let’s explore the life of the Aussie icon.
Margot Robbie
Margot Robbie secured her breakout role in The Wolf of Wall Street by slapping Leonardo DiCaprio in the face. During her audition, she improvised the assault instead of kissing him as the script demanded. The risky move stunned the director, Martin Scorsese, and immediately won her the part.
She attended circus school as a child and earned a certificate in trapeze skills at age eight. This early acrobatic training proved useful years later when she performed her own stunts as Harley Quinn. Consequently, she looked completely natural swinging from bars in Suicide Squad.
She worked as a “sandwich artist” at Subway before she found fame in Hollywood. She claims she makes the ultimate sandwich because she perfected the ratios of meat and cheese during her shifts. Even today, she rarely eats at Subway because she critiques the assembly process too harshly.
She drank three shots of high-quality tequila right before filming her first nude scene. She felt incredibly nervous about appearing naked in the doorway for The Wolf of Wall Street. The liquid courage helped her step onto the set with the confidence of her character, Naomi.
Jared Leto sent her a live rat as a twisted gift during the filming of Suicide Squad. While most people would scream, she kept the rodent and named it Rat Rat. She fed it organic berries and treated it like a beloved pet to show she wasn’t afraid of her co-star.
She learned to hold her breath for five full minutes for a scene in Suicide Squad. Although a stunt double could have filmed the underwater car crash, she insisted on doing it herself. She trained with a free diver to lower her heart rate and master her oxygen use.
Margot Robbie is a massive fan of heavy metal music and bands like Slipknot. She attended their concert and realized that metal fans recognized her from the soap opera Neighbours more than any other demographic. Thus, the Hollywood starlet fits right in the middle of a mosh pit.
Margot Robbie bought a tattoo gun on eBay and started inking her friends and co-stars. She famously gave “SKWAD” tattoos to the cast and crew of Suicide Squad in her trailer. However, she retired from tattooing after she accidentally botched a tattoo on a friend’s back during a bachelorette party.
She lied to her optometrist to get glasses just so she could look like Harry Potter. Although she had perfect vision, she wanted to resemble the boy wizard so badly that she faked bad eyesight. She walked around with unnecessary prescription lenses just to live out her fandom.
She refused to lose weight for her role as Jane in The Legend of Tarzan. The producers suggested she diet to look slim, but she argued that a woman living in the 19th-century jungle would not look like a gym rat. Instead, she convinced them to let her eat pub food throughout the production.
She plays right wing in an amateur ice hockey league in Los Angeles. Despite growing up in tropical Australia, she always wanted to play the winter sport famously featured in The Mighty Ducks. She eventually got to showcase her skating skills professionally in the movie I, Tonya.
She founded her own production company, LuckyChap Entertainment, to champion female stories. She produced massive hits like Barbie and Promising Young Woman herself. Therefore, she controls her own career path rather than waiting for directors to call her.
She performed the viral “arched foot” scene in the Barbie movie without any CGI. She held onto a bar above the camera to keep her balance while slipping out of her heels. It took eight takes to get the perfect shot of her feet maintaining the doll-like arch.
Margot Robbie called the casting office of the soap opera Neighbours every single day until they hired her. She believed she deserved a chance despite having no agent and no real experience. Her persistence paid off when they finally invited her for an audition just to stop the phone calls.
She sleeps with a ragged stuffed bunny she has owned since birth. She calls the toy “Bunny” and refuses to sleep without it when she travels for work. Her husband, Tom Ackerley, accepts that he must share the bed with the tattered childhood toy.
The Back to the Future trilogy defined 1980s cinema with its clever writing and memorable characters. It turned a quirky car into a global icon for time travel. Furthermore, the film's production faced massive challenges that almost cancelled the project entirely. Consequently, these movies remain beloved classics decades later. Explore these fascinating details about Marty McFly and Doc Brown.
Back to the Future
The time machine was originally a refrigerator. In early scripts, Doc Brown attached the device to a household fridge. However, the writers changed it because they feared children would lock themselves inside refrigerators to copy the movie.
Eric Stoltz originally played Marty McFly. He filmed for six weeks before the director fired him. Unfortunately, his performance was too serious for the comedic tone the filmmakers wanted.
The script was rejected over 40 times. every major studio passed on the project. Disney refused it because they thought the mother falling in love with her son was too inappropriate for a family movie.
A studio executive wanted to change the title. Sid Sheinberg hated the name Back to the Future. Instead, he suggested Spaceman form Pluto, but Steven Spielberg thankfully convinced him to keep the original title.
Michael J. Fox worked two jobs simultaneously. He filmed the TV show Family Ties during the day. Then, he rushed to the movie set at night and slept only three hours a day for months.
The DeLorean engine sound is fake. The real car had a weak V6 engine. Therefore, the sound designers dubbed over it with the roar of a powerful V8 engine to make it sound faster.
They chose 88 miles per hour for a simple reason. It had no scientific basis. The production designers simply thought the digital numbers looked cool and easy to remember on the speedometer.
Doc Brown’s pet was originally a chimpanzee. The early drafts featured a chimp named Shemp. Later, the studio head demanded they change the animal to a dog named Einstein.
Elijah Wood made his film debut in Part II. He plays one of the young boys playing the Wild Gunman arcade game. Unimpressed, he mocks Marty for using his hands to play a “baby’s toy.”
Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers appears in the sequels. He plays the character Needles. He challenges Marty to a street race that changes his future in the second and third films.
Huey Lewis cameos as a judge. The singer of “The Power of Love” appears early in the first film. Ironically, he tells Marty that his band is “just too darn loud” during the audition.
Part II and Part III were filmed back-to-back. This was a revolutionary strategy at the time. It saved the studio millions of dollars and allowed them to release the sequels only six months apart.
Robert Zemeckis lied about hoverboards. He joked in an interview that hoverboards were real but banned for safety. consequently, thousands of parents called toy stores demanding to buy the non-existent product.
Thomas F. Wilson carried cards to answer fan questions. The actor who played Biff got tired of answering the same questions. So, he handed out cards that confirmed the manure was fake and Michael J. Fox was nice.
Finally, the DeLorean is now a registered historic vehicle. The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry. Thus, the car remains one of the most famous automobiles in cinema history.
