Cameron Diaz may have been involved in illegal activities before getting her breakthrough acting role alongside Jim Carrey in “The Mask.”
On the Second Life podcast, the 49-year-old actress — who had saved enough money to live in Paris in the early 1990s in hopes of starting her modeling career — revealed that she struggled to book gigs during her time abroad.
“I have been there for a whole year and have not worked for a day. I couldn’t get a job to save my life,” she told podcast host Hillary Kerr. “Then I got one job, but I really think I was a mule transporting drugs to Morocco — I swear to God.”
Diaz claimed she was given a locked suitcase containing her modeling costumes, but started guessing its contents as soon as she arrived at the airport, causing her to panic.
‘I am this blond-haired girl with blue eyes in Morocco. I’m wearing ripped jeans and platform boots, with my hair down – this is really unsafe. I said to them, ‘I don’t know, it’s not mine, I have no idea who it is.’”
She left the luggage — and the potential for a 10-year prison term for drug trafficking — with authorities when she returned to France.
“That was the only job I got in Paris,” Diaz said.
But her life would change forever when she was found by a Los Angeles catering agent looking for a “bomb” starting in 1994’s “The Mask.”
The then-upcoming model said she told the talent agent she was skeptical about the job because she didn’t act.
“I had just started my period. It was impossible for me to wear anything sexy that day. I was like, “Are you kidding?” she remembered Diaz.
But the “great” director of the film, Chuck Russell, told her, “You’re my Tina Carlyle and I’m going to get you ready for this part.” Diaz was offered the part a week later.
After that, she had a successful acting career in such films as ‘Being John Malkovich’, ‘There’s Something About Mary’, ‘The Holiday’, ‘What Happens in Vegas’ and ‘Charlie’s Angels’.
But in 2014, the actress retired from acting to spend time with her rocker husband, Benji Maddox, of Good Charlotte, and their daughter, Raddix.
However, Diaz will not be retiring to star with Jamie Foxx in the upcoming Netflix comedy “Back In Action.”