“The ultimate dream”: Cameron Diaz on working with Martin Scorsese
Cameron Diaz may be most well-known for her work in the realm of classic rom-coms and Charlie’s Angels, but her filmography does contain some slightly more unexpected offerings. There’s Spike Jonze’s surrealist collaboration with Charlie Kaufman, Being John Malkovich, for example, which doesn’t quite fit in with her penchant for cookie-cutter comedy. There’s Ridley Scott’s strange crime flick The Counselor. And there’s even a collaboration with Martin Scorsese.
At the beginning of the 2000s, Diaz had cemented her place as one of Charlie’s Angels, she had given Princess Fiona her first outing in Shrek, and starred in a string of box office-friendly comedies. It was time to switch things up a little. Enter: Gangs of New York. Like most of Scorsese’s films, it was full of violence and vengeance, a far cry from Diaz’s usual roles.
Though it wasn’t the kind of project Diaz was used to working on, she declared it “the ultimate dream” during a chat with the BBC. “To get the opportunity to work with Martin Scorsese,” she gushed, “It doesn’t matter where you’re going or how long you’re going to be there. It’s about going and having the greatest experience of working with him.”
Diaz’s excitement about working with Scorsese was certainly warranted. After helming a number of future classics in the 1970s, including Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, the director has continued to prove his place as one of the most entertaining filmmakers in the business. Countless actors dream of working with him, of joining the ranks of his long-standing collaborators like Leonardo Dicaprio and Robert De Niro, but few are afforded the opportunity to fulfil that dream.
Diaz seemed well aware of this fact, relishing the opportunity to work with Scorsese, as well as with Dicaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis. “I loved being there,” she admitted, “Working with Marty, Daniel, and Leo and all the other actors on this film. It was like a dream, the ultimate dream, and I feel so fortunate and so grateful that I got to be part of it.” Unfortunately for Diaz, some audiences didn’t feel quite as excited about her role in the film.
Following the release of Gangs of New York, her performance was subject to close scrutiny, particularly her misjudged attempt at an Irish accent. Though she may have savoured the experience of working with Scorsese, she didn’t quite afford her Irish intonations the same attention. In the years since then, it has often featured on lists of the worst on-screen Irish accents of all time, perhaps dimming the shine of the project in Diaz’s filmography.
While Gangs of New York would mark the first in a long line of collaborations between Dicaprio and Scorsese, it marked the first and last time that the director cast Diaz in one of his features. Perhaps this was due to the criticism she received for her performance; perhaps Diaz decided that more intense dramas weren’t quite her style, or perhaps the pair simply didn’t gel creatively.
Since then, Diaz seems to have fallen back into her comfort zone. The years that followed saw her delving back into the Shrek and Charlie’s Angels series, as well as making now-iconic appearances in rom-com favourites like The Holiday and The Other Woman.
Though Gangs of New York may have felt like the “ultimate dream” project at the time, it didn’t mark the beginning of Diaz’s venture into the realm of drama. Still, it remains one of the best films in her catalogue, despite the disappointing responses to her role within it.
