Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

With an unparalleled level of chipper energy and likeability, Cameron Diaz has been one of Hollywood’s most adept comic actresses. Her many comedic roles in films include My Best Friend’s Wedding, There’s Something About Mary, Being John Malkovich, the Charlie’s Angels films, the Shrek films, The Sweetest Thing, What Happens In Vegas?, and Knight And Day.

Now, the 38 year-old plans to bank her all her comic likeability into what may be her most unlikable character yet, as titular character Elizabeth Halsey in Bad Teacher. However, Diaz says that when it comes to playing Elizabeth, the comic fun is from the simple fact that there are no limits whatsoever to her.

“Well, the great thing about it is there’s no going too far,” she believes, “That’s why if you never have to apologize, then you can do anything. She does whatever she feels like and she says whatever she feels like because she really doesn’t have the conscience that it takes to have to worry whether or not you have hurt somebody’s feelings. I think that’s why also people kind of, even though people should think you should hate her, you kind of want to be her because you’re like, hmmm, if I could just have one conversation with one person where I can just say whatever I feel and not three hours later after the good endorphins wore off that all of a sudden, I felt bad about what I said and maybe wished that I hadn’t said it, like she never has that, she never does.”

“It’s foreign to her and that’s what I loved about her and that’s why I wanted to play her,” Cameron adds, “Thirty pages in and I was like, ‘I can’t do this. There’s no way I can redeem her.’ I think because I had the mentality that you always have reading a script, especially someone who’s horrible, in general, you’re always trying for the most part to have people relate

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

to a character and also like them. And so, I thought I was going to have to redeem her at the end. And I got to the end of the script and they did this miracle, this thing that they never do in scripts, they didn’t redeem her, there’s no apology, and I thought it was amazing. And I was like, I have to play this character.”

One of the things Cameron says sets Elizabeth apart from other more unsavory characters in film is that she has no moment of redemption at all into the film’s end.

“The great thing about her is that she’s like on the train,” Diaz says, “But you get that feeling, I got that feeling that she’s like, if this train stays at this station too long and possibly, as soon as it stops, I’m going to get off and get back on the train and go back the way I came. There’s no huge epiphany. She’s like, I’m trying to figure it out, just like we all do in life. Nobody goes just, ‘I got the answer! I know what it is.’”

“Even if you have a really good sense of something you’ve figured out, like I know the right and wrong in this, there’s still a day you’re going to stumble again and make the same mistake,” she continues, “And you’re going to go, I know better than to do that and I wish that I was able to apply it every single time, but nine times out of ten isn’t so bad. And she has, I think, a very, very small inkling of that experience. The tiniest bit of character arc that she has is kind of lost on her. It’s only witness solely by the audience in a glimmer and a glimpse, but for her, it’s completely like she didn’t even see it. She just like. ‘Eh, I’m here.’”

In the film, Diaz’s character Elizabeth hopes to advance her dismal

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

life as a teacher by marrying a rich man, but when her fiancée dumps her, she begins to pursue the rich substitute teacher at the school, played by Justin Timberlake. The actress spoke of experience of working with the singer/actor, whom she had previously been in a relationship with for three years prior to doing the film together.

“It was great to work with Justin, one, because he’s so talented, and two, we’ve always loved laughing together,” Cameron says of him, “And yes, we went out and people think, oh, should that be awkward? It really isn’t. We’re friends. We haven’t gone out with each other for as long as we’ve been together.”

“It’s been a long time,” she adds, “And because of that, we know each other so well. And we have allowed our friendship and our love to totally morph and change to something completely appropriate for us to do this with one another because we love to be able to make people laugh. We both feel privileged and blessed to be able to make movies.”

Cameron also commented on a dry-humping scene in the film she and Justin’s character engages in and why she considered her famous ex the perfect person to do it with.

“Go down in history, that’s what we wanted it to do,” she says, “Well, Justin and I wanted to create the least sexiest sex scene ever seen on film, put on the screen ever and to show the lack of chemistry, the total lack of chemistry between these two people and I think we succeeded and we did all of that for the sake of comedy. And to be able to do that with somebody that you know you can do that with and have fun doing it and you trust him completely and there’s no question and no worries and no boundary issues, because you know what the deal is, that it’s the perfect person to do something like that.”

“It

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

wouldn’t have been the same to do that with somebody else,” Diaz continues, “There wouldn’t have been the trust and maybe not someone who has the same sense of humor and was willing to be game to do something that no other man ever has ever done, which is make those faces on camera or those sounds. He’s so brave to do that. So, for the sake of comedy, we just had a great time.”

We, then, interjected by mentioning that Timberlake’s character takes his pants off at the end of it.

“Exactly,” she replies, “No, this is the weird shit that goes down. This is what we’re thinking of when we’re in there. We’re like, what if he, and we’re like, that’s so weird, you have to do it. You know what I mean? Why would he take…And we would have the full conversation. He’s like, why would he take his pants off now? And Elizabeth is like, why is he taking his pants off now? She’s walking out. And we’re just like, it’s so weird, and then, the kiss.”

“I mean, we don’t kiss through the whole scene,” Cameron continues, “There’s no kissing. Until the end, she’s like, I guess I’ll go in for the kiss. Weirdo. And then he kisses her on the forehead. And she’s like, what the fuck is that? It’s so weird and that’s what we get to do for our day. It’s like what time are we going to start acting really weird. Oh, let’s start at 8:00. He’s like, and then think of the most bizarre shit to do. It’s like hilarious. That’s our job. How great is that? Who wouldn’t want to do that?”

It was mentioned that Elizabeth’s unique characteristics in Bad Teacher is that she’s both smart and crafty and yet not so smart at the same time.

“She has a total lack of self-awareness, first off, in the way of an emotional, spiritual sense, period,” Diaz says, “She’s

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

crafty and she’s clever on the way of obtaining things just because she’s a crafty bitch. That’s the way she’s wired. And because she’s concerned with the wrong things is why she’s also emotionally vapid is because she’s not looking. Her viewpoint, her scope of experience and what she wants in life is so narrow and tunnel vision, that she doesn’t see anything else outside of that. And we’re not commenting on anything social at all.”

“In the big scheme of things, it’s not that,” she adds, “But if you want to look at what it is, she’s a girl who everybody knows, everybody’s seen, and it’s a sign of our times, too. People are just motivated by material things and she doesn’t see anything outside of it and her life suffers because of it. If she was trying to find a guy that she really loved and he would treat her well and she could be partners with and she could have a full life and all the great things that would help her evolve as a human being and maybe he could have money, she’d probably find that guy, like that. But those aren’t the things that she’s looking for, so the things that are coming into her life are not satisfying to her.”

Diaz shared with us about the good and bad teachers in her own growing up.

“My best teacher was the teacher that kept his feet up on the desk the entire year, meaning that he did not teach anything, but told the best stories about his kid that he was having fun with raising,” she recalls, “And I tell this story and nobody really laughs, so I probably won’t tell it. And then, I had a teacher who always used to have food in his teeth. And it was terrifying that he was going to come up and talk to you at like close proximity, because you were afraid that shit was

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

going to fly at you. It was amazing how much stuff he had in his teeth, amazing.”

“And then, there was this teacher that I had, who she just really hated me and I don’t know why she did,” Cameron continues, “And at the time, I’m sure looking back now, I think that she was probably helping me, teaching me a life lesson, but it was so aggressive and totally uncalled for, like inappropriate the way that she did it, that I just felt it was aggressive and it was missed on me. I didn’t know.”

Cameron was further pressed on her own school experience by asking if she ever cheated on a test.

“I probably would not have been out of high school if I hadn’t, I’m pretty certain,” Diaz says, “I don’t recall how I got graduated out of high school, can’t really honestly tell you how it happened, but I’m pretty sure it had to do with cheating, I’m positive. I did not like school.”

However, Diaz says the one thing she never had in high school was an embarrassing moment.

“I didn’t really have any embarrassing high school memories,” Cameron says, “I was modeling in high school, so I already lived by myself when I was 16 in Japan for a summer and high school, you can’t embarrass me. First off, you couldn’t embarrass me even before high school because it’s not the way that I am wired.”

“I laugh at myself well before everybody else can laugh at me, so I rarely get embarrassed,” she adds, “And so, clearly, that’s why I can do stupid things. But I just was never really embarrassed by very much.”

One particular standout scene in the film has Elizabeth getting involved in a student car wash fund-raiser in a highly suggestive manner. It was asked of Cameron where she got her research for the scene.

“Well, it was all of the eighties that I intently used,” Diaz replies, “Now I know why

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

I watched video after video after video after video when I was in the 1980’s. MTV just locked into Whitesnake and every other video that played. Now I know why because this was the purpose. I found my purpose.”

Diaz was also asked about what she feels are her favorite films of all time.

“I’m so bad at favorites, honestly, terrible at favorites,” Cameron says, “But I used to love all the Mel Brooks films, just the irreverency of it all. I remember seeing Animal House when I was a kid, too, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, and all these fun, shockingly honest movies that just said it as it was. I loved those. And Eight Is Enough. I’m just teasing.”

Cameron speaks of how terrified she was not by the fact that Elizabeth does not have a moment of redemption at the end of Bad Teacher, but actually that the studio would eventually catch up with that fact and give her one.

“I was terrified that at any moment, the producers and the director and the studio was going to come up and sit me down and go, ‘Listen, Cameron. We think that she needs to apologize at the end, that somehow we have to redeem her,’” Diaz recalls, “And I was like, I was waiting and I was waiting and then, when I finally realized that it wasn’t going to happen, I was like, ‘Yes!’ And I was so proud of them and grateful.”

It was brought up whether or not Elizabeth’s falling in love with the school’s gym teacher who has designs on her, played by Jason Segal, at the end of the film could be considered her moment of redemption.

“Is she really in love with him?” she replies, “Doesn’t mean she’s in love with him. It’s that small little thing that I say is lost on her. The audience might go, ‘Huh, does this mean that she can get in on the train and go back

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

on the other direction at any time?’ It’s by no means a happy ending, like we’ve tied it all up.”

“She’s like, ‘Eh,’” Cameron adds, “And she’s still the same person. ‘You! Get in here!’ You know what I mean? She hasn’t changed. It’s like when she says to the kid, she’s got her priorities all screwed up, and there’s this moment when she goes, ‘No,’ like she had one second of, and then, she was like, ‘No, didn’t sound familiar at all. I thought I might have, but no.’

Cameron revealed the improv that was done in the film’s scenes.

“Actually, the way it worked was that [director] Jake [Kasdan] and [writers] Lee [Eisenberg] and Gene [Stupnitsky] were all offset throwing lines to everybody,” she reveals, “Extra alternative lines that they were trying to shock us with, and people would be like, ‘I can’t. How do you say that? Can you spell that for me, please?’”

“I’m like, ‘I can’t, I can’t get it out. I can’t say the words. It’s too hard. I’ll try, if it gets there and it lands and if we can get it in five takes,” Diaz continues, “By the fifth take, you can keep it. If I can’t get it out, it’s not my fault. You guys can’t just throw shit at me.’”

Diaz talks about the many rambunctious teenage boys that Elizabeth must deal with in her class, including one going through puberty named Garrett Tiara, played by child actor Matthew Evans.

“He’s so lovely,” Cameron says of him, “I mean, such a great sport, Matthew. The thing that was really honestly funny about working with a boy who’s going through puberty is that it happens overnight. And we had like six weeks with this kid and we started, his voice would be cracking and going really deep and then really, really high and then, he’d have no voice at all.”

“And we would try not to laugh because we would go, oh, my

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

God, he’s really a 13 year-old going through puberty just like in the movie,” she continues, “And then, but we realized, hair started coming in and all these things and we’re like, ‘Oh, my God, we better hurry. Because his voice will start coming in completely and there won’t be any continuity. He’d just have a different voice.’ You know what I mean? So we’re like, ‘Hurry up. Shoot him out.’ We were like Friday, because by Friday, he’s going to be full-blown man.”

Cameron was asked what it was like for Evans to deal with puberty in front of Cameron.

“Oh, he was so cute,” Diaz says, “He was so sweet. He wasn’t at that place yet. I don’t want to say because I don’t want to embarrass him. I don’t think it was at that moment in time. He was still a little boy. I mean, he hadn’t gotten all the way over yet. That’s one of the reasons why we wanted to get through it, but there were some boys who had and they were fun.”

Diaz talked about some of the scenes that were cut from Bad Teacher

“The only scenes that didn’t make it in the movie were not because they were too racy or didn’t work in the scene,” Cameron says, “They didn’t work in the movie to make the best version of the movie because they put everything in, they cut it out to make the best version. I’m sure there’s going to be other stuff. I don’t know why they wouldn’t have all the best stuff, that stuff when it’s rated R because they don’t have to not use it. They could use whatever they want to use.”

Cameron was asked if there were any scenes cut from the film that she wishes was left in the final cut.

“There was one when Amy, [played by Lucy Punch,] says to me after I win the check,” Diaz says, “She says, ‘We’re going away.

Cameron Diaz

"Hot for Teacher!"

We’re dating, so it will be romantic.’ And she says, ‘Oh, that’s right. You’re dating, you don’t have a boyfriend.’ And she’s like, ‘I got my eyes on somebody, but he’s dating a total cunt.’”

“And they took it out, they took out, ‘Because he’s dating a total cunt,’ because I’m talking about her,” she adds, “And for whatever reason, they decided that was going too far with her. And I was like, ‘No, that’s the best line.’ So hopefully that will be on the DVD.”