GERMANY: Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette have been promoting their new film "In my sister's shoes" in Berlin

Actress Cameron Diaz has ended her sabbatical in a relatively unflattering role. When director Curtis Hanson was looking for an actress to play a slutty, thieving, despicable younger sister for his latest project, "In Her Shoes," his thoughts settled on Cameron Diaz. And that delighted Diaz, the bubbly star of films like "Charlie's Angels" and "There's Something About Mary." The stars of "In Her Shoes," which also features Toni Collette as Diaz's older sister, enjoyed a rapturous reception at the German premiere in Berlin on Friday (November 4th). Diaz character is a self-centered blonde, who gets by on her looks and is permanently being pulled back down to earth by her long suffering older sister - until she goes too far. Diaz is actually a younger sister in real life, and confessed to being self-centered now and then. According to the director, the film's main challenge was getting audiences to accept familiar stars in unfamiliar roles and getting the actors to see themselves that way as well. The characters go through a lot of changes, Diaz said at a press conference in Berlin, and that is what drew the actresses to the film. "Although they seem very different women, they are actually very similar as you get to know them and you see that they are all three struggling with the same issues," she said. "And so I think that that is the wonderful thing about this story, and I think anybody can relate to it because I think life is about change and it is a constant change, and there are sometimes you change drastically within a month, sometimes you change drastically within an hour, you know, so that's the journey of this life, and you know, it's kind of exciting to partake in that." With a screenplay written by Susannah Grant of "Erin Brockovich" fame, "In Her Shoes" is the story of two sisters who lose their mother at an early age and have nothing in common but their shoe size. Diaz's selfish younger sister embarks on a self-destructive, bed-hopping, chaotic life while Collette is thrust resentfully into the role of responsible older, motherly sister. The two actresses said they developed a friendship off screen as well. "The minute I met her I was like right in her face," Diaz explained. "Every time she turned around, I was like 'Hi'" "We had a fantastic foundation to start with, which was a brilliantly written script, the characters were very real and incredibly well defined. We had a couple of weeks of rehearsal, but to be honest, in terms of forming or creating a believable sisterly bond, I just think we get on really well," Collette explained as they joked together at the press conference. "We have a lot in common, we actually are the same age, I am actually older than her by a couple of months, even though she plays my older sister. And so we have a lot of the same sort of references and cultural references and experiences and so, from growing up in the same era," Diaz said of the chemistry between them. Diaz, who personally pushed for the project to get made, has herself slowed the frenetic pace she has kept in recent years. Her return to the screen comes after taking months off to travel with boyfriend pop star, Justin Timberlake.

ITN Source | November 10, 2005

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