Topics: Hollywood, Netflix, Jamie Foxx, Celebrity, US News, World News, Film and TV, Social Media, Facebook, Twitter
Cameron Diaz has opened up about the way movie sets always had ‘one guy’ who was inappropriate before the MeToo movement.
The 52-year-old Hollywood star has reflected on how much the MeToo movement challenged what other female actresses had described as toxic movie sets.
Diaz's comments come as The Holiday actress took a 10 year hiatus from acting in 2014 but is making her grand return alongside Jamie Foxx in the Netflix movie, Back in Action.
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The action-comedy film follows the pair who play retired CIA spies who are pulled back into action, as the name denotes.
But during Diaz's decade out of the limelight, an ugly spotlight was shone on the sexism, sexual harassment, and rape culture that had been prevalent in the entertainment industry, as countless women came forward to share their stories.
The #MeToo movement swept the online world in 2017, rocked by the exposure of sexual abuse allegations against the then high-profile movie producer, Harvey Weinstein, which prompted others to come forward.
Among the high profile names to join the calls for change in Hollywood were celebs Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lawrence and Uma Thurman.
After the hashtag went viral on social media, Facebook said almost half of its American users were friends with someone who said they had been victims of sexual assault or harassment.
Diaz has since remarked on the changes the calls to action have made in the industry since her return to acting.
Speaking on the SkipIntro podcast, she said: "The industry is so different. I mean, I definitely have to say that MeToo changed everything.”
The Golden Globes winner went on to say before the movement took hold, there was always that 'one guy' on the movie set that she said made women feel uneasy.
“You walk on to the set and it is different. There was always just like that one guy, you know, on set, that you were like, ‘God, here he comes again,'" she continued.
"There were always layers and layers of inappropriateness that you just kind of had to put up with.”
Some of those changes include a hotline for cast and crew to report any inappropriate issues which she was made aware of when returned to the set for Back In Action.
Diaz said HR told her about the anonymous hotline, adding: "I was like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing’. The level of security and safety you feel as a woman now on set is great. I had never felt that before this film.”
Her comments come as she makes a hotly-anticipated return to starring in movies again, saying at the time she took a break that she wanted to 'reclaim my own life' and to build her family.
Diaz married her husband - Good Charlotte guitarist, Benji Madden - in 2015, and they share two children together.
But she said she 'couldn't say no' when Foxx approached her to return to the movie life.
She is also going to return as the voice of Princess Fiona in a fifth Shrek movie, and has signed up to appear in the dark comedy Outcome, alongside Keanu Reeves.
