Cameron Diaz: Let's talk about sex

Cameron Diaz is going out with Justin Timberlake and happier than ever. So when her director asked her to act the part of a confirmed celibate, she was bewildered

In September, the Los Angeles Times asked Leonardo DiCaprio if he was having fun in his career. He grimaced. "Fun? No, that wouldn't be the word I'd use. There is a satisfaction when you see what you've done and it's good." Perhaps DiCaprio should hang out with Cameron Diaz one night. They share a manager and an enduring passion for the environment - "I think Leo and I were among the first to have Priuses in LA" - if not the same sensibility when it comes to work. Because Diaz would not hesitate to answer the same question in the affirmative.

Witness her upcoming turn in The Holiday, a Hollywood romantic comedy, which features both bucolic Surrey and an equally attractive Jude Law. No wonder Diaz calls it a "movie wonderland", since she too is there, gambolling across snow-covered fields in utterly unsuitable spindly heels, draped in ludicrously expensive cashmere.

Of her character Amanda, Diaz says she is "a very fashionable girl. We spent a lot of time finding just the right pieces." Diaz too is very fashionable, today sporting a Juicy Couture black jacket with puffy sleeves and William Rast jeans (the clothing line recently launched by her boyfriend Justin Timberlake). She has to wear them, doesn't she? "Well, yes. But I do stray. They just happen to be my favourites. The denim isjust awesome."

Diaz's slender thighs do look awesome, though that may not be entirely down to the jeans. In any case, it's easy to understand what writer/director Nancy Meyers (Something's Gotta Give) means about Diaz being perfect for the part because "she's a typical California girl". That part is as a top Hollywood movie trailer editor, who lives an opulent but soulless LA existence from a house probably the same size as Diaz's own.

"I beg to differ," snorts Diaz later that afternoon, and not about the size of her house. "I am from California, so there I go falling right into that 'California girl' stereotype. Also I smile a lot. But I can be sad. I can muster it up. Seriously, I just thank God that Nancy wrote this part, because I got a job."

Diaz is being naughtily disingenuous here, talking as if she is struggling for job offers when in truth her agent's desk is swimming in the things. It's just that his client is not itching to work, or at least not with the frequency she once did. The Holiday is the only film she has made this year, bar the ongoing voice recording process of Shrek the Third, due out next summer. The Holiday presumably snared her because, travel and fashion elements aside, Amanda falls for Jude Law's Graham who turns Amanda's world upside down in the same way that Timberlake evidently has Diaz's.

"I think the film's wonderful," she grins, famous Diaz dimples dimpling furiously, "because it shows these two women who are having very different experiences with love, but really the same experiences as women. Kate Winslet's character Iris doesn't love herself enough to have a man who loves her back. And Amanda is capable of it, but hasn't dedicated enough of herself. I think that's something all women go through and I can certainly relate to those parts of a human journey."

Diaz was so enamoured of the project that she flew to London with Meyers to ensure that she and Law had the requisite good screen chemistry. Evidently they did, and Diaz has certainly extracted a cuddlier, more vulnerable performance from Law than anyone else might have. "I love him," she says, matter-of-factly. "He's fantastic. Lovely, charming, funny and smart. He was so open and easy to connect with."

Diaz clocks my raised eyebrows, and laughs hard. "Oh no, there's no danger. He's just the perfect gentleman. Well, it probably is dangerous for him, because all the girls on set are foaming at the mouth [she does her best panting impression] but I'm proud of them. They mostly held it together.I think all the guys had man crushes, too. Everyone loved him."

If there are only so many ways one can describe Winslet as apparently very normal and down-to-earth, the same dearth of original adjectives arises with Diaz. She is a kooky version certainly of our perceived take on "normal", but shares with Winslet a lack of any sort of starry façade.

Does she believe in fate, something the film certainly posits? "I believe in fate 100 per cent. I live by it. I think we're all exactly where we're at exactly when and where we're supposed to be. To me, it's just easier to surrender to that, and let things happen. I'm not saying we should surrender everything and not have ambition, but I think you can't fight what is going to happen. I like it that way. It's more of an adventure."

Conveniently, Diaz is not letting work interfere too greatly with that adventure. About now she should have been in New York filming her next film A Little Game Without Consequence with Jim Carrey (whom she starred opposite in her first film, 1994's The Mask). "But I have just removed myself from the film. I've never had that happen before. I had total faith in the director but the script literally changed overnight. It wasn't the same movie I'd signed on for."

A few minutes later, she adds that she's "kind of relieved" she's not making the film. She'd have had to do that and promote The Holiday simultaneously. "But I have Shrek the Third coming out next year," she offers, almost apologetically, as if an actress of her standing should be churning them out. Most of her peers actually are. I asked Nicolas Cage last year if he ever enjoyed margaritas around his (and once Dean Martin's) pool. He told me rather dourly that drinking margaritas by the pool was not a "productive" use of his time. Many actors of Cage's generation and Diaz's (she is still only 34) live to work. But while Diaz may not consider herself the prototypical Californian she does have one uniquely Californian skill licked: "I can hang out all day long."

There is, it seems, no typical day in the life of this actress whose favourite award (for burping) sits alongside those from prestigious American critics in New York, Boston and Chicago. "Every day is something completely different from the day before. Nothing is the same except breakfast and working out. I always try to get those in." Diaz recently (finally) confessed that she can no longer eat what she likes and has to work out like the rest of us. "Hiking or the elliptical and light weight training. A little pilates. I don't like it when I get very man-like in appearance because of my muscle definition. I'm always like, 'Don't make me look like a man.' I buff up really fast."

Despite a coterie of men every bit as interested in Diaz as Law's female audience is in him, she is not drop-dead gorgeous. Very pretty, with an obviously camera-ready bone structure, Diaz is not off-puttingly beautiful. She is not intimidating intellectually either, though she is smarter than people give her credit for. And she is without a doubt one of the wealthiest actresses in Hollywood, not so much because she can earn more than $20m a film, but because she has made a fortune by sticking with the Shrek series. "Whenever I don't have to wear make-up, that's a good day," she jokes of her voice work.

Meyers will willingly attest to Diaz's being no pushover on set. "Cameron is the least argumentative actor I've ever worked with. She just doesn't argue about anything. But she came up to me one day and said, 'I don't know about this line [of Amanda's] that no one has time for sex. I don't really think it's true.' And I told her, 'You're a very lucky girl Cameron. Just say it, please. I'm older, it's true.'"

"I hate saying things like that," Diaz worries. "I don't want to perpetuate that thought and theory. I don't want people to think it's OK to be in a relationship when you're not having those kinds of relations with the person. What are you in that relationship for? It was just hard for me to say the line, but as you'll see, Amanda changes her mind about that."

Diaz's "healthy" relationship with Timberlake has lasted four and a half years now, despite their fame, and her being almost nine years older. And despite rampant stories about Timberlake's having proposed, the pair remain happily unwed. "I think that people find people and need people, but I just don't think it's absolutely necessary to walk down an aisle in a white dress and sign a piece of paper. For me, it's spiritual. It's about whether two people have that commitment to one another."

She guards her privacy fiercely and doesn't want to say too much about Timberlake, but is confident that her boy troubles are behind her. "I couldn't wait to be in my thirties and I was totally right. It's so much easier being in your thirties than in your twenties. You just know yourself better. In your thirties you have enough restraint to rethink an impulse to behave a certain way, because you know where it's going to end up. You have a new strategy of how to get to a happier place."

Diaz is clearly in a happy place. It shows. She doesn't need to jump into work to lose or find herself, or feel any particular urge to play deeply challenging roles. She has already sparred with Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday, held her irresistible mock-frumpy own with John Cusack and Catherine Keener in Being John Malkovich and, dirtier but prettier, with DiCaprio in Gangs of New York. Clearly, this is one actress who does not need an Oscar for either fix or fulfilment.

Years ago, Diaz told me that it was interesting watching the biggest star on a film set the tone. She was making My Best Friend's Wedding at the time, and talking about Julia Roberts. Now that Diaz is invariably the movie star, her tone is no surprise to anyone. "I want everyone there to have a good time. Everyone on a film set gives so much of themselves. These guys on the crew have families and might drive an hour and a half to work every day. They work for 12 hours a day for months and then when they get home their kids are asleep. I just want everyone to be happy."

'The Holiday' opens on 8 December