don't call it a comeback

Cameron Diaz Is Coming Out of Retirement

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images

What does retirement really mean? If you’re Tom Brady, it doesn’t mean much, which explains why Netflix asked him to help coach Cameron Diaz out of acting retirement and back into the movie business. On Wednesday, Netflix released an audio clip to announce a brand new movie starring Jamie Foxx and Diaz was in the works, with some help from the Super Bowl champ.

Why Tom Brady, you ask? Well, as Jamie Foxx says in the clip — which is supposed to be a spontaneous phone call between Foxx, Diaz, and Brady and is definitely not at all scripted — he’s the GOAT who has some pretty recent experience coming out of retirement. Plus, Brady is slowly laying the groundwork for a post-football career move into Hollywood — he’s currently producing Eighty for Brady, starring Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin, and Sally Field — and he clearly wants fans to know he can make fun of himself. “I was talking to Jamie and he said you needed a few tips on how to un-retire,” he says in the clip. “I’m relatively successful at un-retiring.” Jury’s technically still out on that one, Tom, but we’ll let you have it. Unfortunately, the clip cuts off before Brady actually starts giving Diaz advice, but I’m guessing it went something like, “Just never, ever, announce your retirement on Twitter.”

Unlike Brady, Diaz’s retirement was never officially announced. The actor, who hasn’t acted professionally since 2014’s Annie (which also starred Jamie Foxx), quietly stepped back from Hollywood in recent years. Instead, she got married to Benji Madden, welcomed a baby, and launched a wine company called Avaline. “I had gone so hard for so long, working, making films. And it’s just a grind,” she told Gwyneth Paltrow in a GOOP interview a few years ago. “I decided to stop making movies and really focus on my personal life, my personal relationships, my family, my friends, and then Benj and I met each other and we got married pretty much immediately, because we both knew we had to do it.” In May, Diaz described her retirement as “a reclaiming of myself for myself” during an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

Now, after eight years away, Diaz is coming back for Back in Action, an action comedy that is expected to start shooting sometime this year. “I can’t frickin’ wait,” she wrote on her Instagram story. “It’s gonna be a blast!”

Cameron Diaz Is Coming Out of Retirement