Cameron Diaz recalls the “Something About Mary” scene that made her laugh so hard she 'fell off the bed'
Diaz says when she read the moment in the romcom's script, she "knew I had to do the movie."
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Cameron Diaz in 'There's Something About Mary'For Cameron Diaz, a single laugh-out-loud scene is all it takes to make a film worth shooting.
"The first time I read the script I literally fell of my bed laughing," the actress recently told Vogue, revisiting her memories of starring in the classic 1998 romantic comedy There's Something About Mary.
Diaz continued, "There's this description in the scene where my brother, [W. Earl Brown], literally punches [Matt Dillon] in the throat. For some reason the thought of him punching him in the throat was the funniest thing to me. I started laughing so hard I literally fell off the bed, and knew I had to do the movie."
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Long before Melissa McCarthy punched Jason Bateman's throat in Identity Thief, and even before Norah (Kat Dennings) throat-punched Nick (Michael Cera) in Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, Matt Dillon was treated to a fist full of fury to the throat in There's Something About Mary.
The beloved romcom follows Ted Stroehmann's (Ben Stiller) pursuit of the effervescent Mary Jensen (Diaz), who's also being pursued by a half a dozen others. Ted's main rival for Mary's affections is Pat Healy (Dillon), a P.I. who's given up the spying life to win Mary's heart. During the scene in question, the obnoxious Pat gets a quick rap to the trachea when he brushes too close to her intellectually disabled brother Warren's ears (a part of his body he's repeatedly made clear no one is to go near).
Everett Collection
Cameron Diaz and Matt Dillon in 'There's Something About Mary'Diaz was only five years into her acting career when There's Something About Mary premiered in theaters. She was a working model prior to her film debut, the 1994 Jim Carrey superhero farce The Mask. But Mary, which was the highest-grossing comedy of 1998 and the year's fourth highest-grossing film overall, launched her to a new level of fame by showcasing her unmatchable comedic chops.
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She followed Mary up with a string of modern classics, from Being John Malkovich and Any Given Sunday to Charlie's Angels and Vanilla Sky. But just a decade later, she'd decide to step back from the spotlight at a time when many actors are just hitting their strides.
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Diaz last appeared in a film in 2014. She casually announced her retirement from acting in 2018 during a reunion with her Sweetest Thing costars Christina Applegate and Selma Blair. "I'm semi-retired, too," she said in response to Applegate calling herself "semi-retired," continuing, "and I am actually retired, so I would love to see you ladies."
She opened up about her step back from the spotlight last October, saying "For me, it was just something I had to do... It felt like something I had to do to reclaim my own life. And I just really didn't care about anything else."
With her life sufficiently reclaimed, Diaz is set to grace the big screen again with the upcoming Netflix comedy-thriller Back in Action. The film costars Jamie Foxx, who is making a comeback of his own after a startling 2023 health scare forced his retreat from acting.
You can watch the rest of Diaz's interview with Vogue below.
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