‘The industry is so different’: Cameron Diaz marvels at a post-MeToo Hollywood

Cameron Diaz took an early retirement from the acting industry in 2014, and she’s only recently returned. And she’s amazed at how things have changed in a post-#MeToo world.

“The industry is so different,” Diaz told the Netflix podcast SkipIntro. “I definitely have to say that #MeToo changed everything. It’s palpable. You walk onto the set and it is different. It wasn’t just like the higher-ups [back then]. There was always just that one guy, you know, on set, that you were like, ‘God, here he comes again.’”

The #MeToo movement started in 2017 as a response to the rape allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Multiple Hollywood actresses, some of them very famous names indeed, shared stories at the time about being sexually harassed or assaulted while working on film sets. The sheer scale of the problem was horrifying: everyone had a horror story.

“There were always layers and layers of inappropriateness that you just kind of had to put up with,” Diaz remembered of her earlier acting days. “As women, you just had to like [laugh it off]. Some people you have to be forceful with and put up the boundaries, and others you can’t give them the time of day.”

Diaz has spoken before about laughing it off. During a 2022 interview with Michelle Visage on her podcast Rule Breakers, the Shrek actress recollected of sexual harassment, “It was the normal thing to do to laugh and just be able to get through unscathed.” She also mused, “I certainly didn’t do as much as could be done now because of the awareness of everybody with #MeToo.”

But things got better for her. “It has changed. It’s not the same,” Diaz said in her SkipIntro interview regarding her new movie, the appropriately titled Back in Action. “I have never in my entire career had HR come in prior to a movie and talk about what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior. And there’s a hotline, which Netflix has, to call anonymously to report any issues that you might be feeling. Wow, that is amazing. The level of security of safety you feel as a woman now on set is. … I never felt that before this film.”

That’s really good to hear, although it’s important to remember the problem isn’t over. Women in all lines of work still suffer sexual harassment and worse, and the perpetrators aren’t always punished. There are even still famous men in Hollywood today who were given a pass for the most appalling behavior. Still… small steps are important.