Jamie Foxx is Cameron Diaz’s biggest cheerleader on her first film in a decade

Cameron Diaz is finally back, and no one’s more excited than Jamie Foxx.

For their new action comedy “Back in Action” (streaming Friday on Netflix), the Oscar-winning actor did what no one else could: pull Diaz out of retirement. When the rom-com icon walked onto the set for her first movie in more than a decade − about former spies whose old life comes back to haunt them − Foxx remembers hyping her up to the cast and crew.

“It was great to see Cameron back,” he says, recalling how he talked up the significance of her to everyone on the set. “I was back there behind the monitor like, ‘You’ve got to see this!’ ” The 57-year-old “Django Unchained” star was “such a good cheerleader,” she says, and the film’s director, Seth Gordon, recalls Foxx even joked that Diaz was “the star” and he was just her “bodyguard.”

Diaz, 52, stepped away from Hollywood after 2014’s “Annie,” her second film with Foxx after they first worked together on 1999’s “Any Given Sunday.” Since she last appeared onscreen, the actress married musician Benji Madden, welcomed her first child, and launched a wine brand.

Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY’s movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

“I had been acting for a couple of decades, and I felt like I had done it,” Diaz says. “Although I loved making movies, I felt like it was time for me to just do something else, try something else, live a different way. I met my husband, we started our family, and that was where I just wanted to exist. It was a wonderful 10 years.”

Though Gordon knew there’s nobody who can “do action and comedy together quite like” Diaz, he initially didn’t approach her for the role because he was under the impression she wasn’t looking for work.

So when Diaz’s longtime friend Foxx, who was already on board “Back in Action,” suggested she could come out of retirement to play his character’s wife, Gordon thought it was “too good to be true.”

For Diaz, the movie came along at a time, after COVID-19, when she and Madden thought it might be “something good for our family” to switch things up and have her get back on a set. Ultimately, though, she considered the project only because Foxx was involved.

“I knew, having made movies with Jamie in the past, that I was going to get the most talented man in show business, and the best partner,” she says. “If I’m leaving my family for 10 hours out of the day, it really matters who I’m doing it with.”

Good news, fans!Cameron Diaz is back onscreen for ‘Back in Action’ with Jamie Foxx

“Back in Action” stars Diaz and Foxx as a pair of spies, Emily and Matt, who leave the world of espionage behind to start a family. Years later, after dipping their toes back into their old roles by tracking their teenage daughter during a night out, they accidentally blow their cover and are pulled into the life they left behind.

Diaz’s character making a triumphant return after walking away from her career and prioritizing her family certainly calls to mind the actress’ real-life journey, though given the script was written without knowing she would star. This “echo between what’s happening in the movie and her life” was “coincidence and luck,” Gordon says.

Despite a decade-long absence, it was “kind of like muscle memory” for Diaz to pick up where she left off, she says: “A chef doesn’t forget about how to chop.” Indeed, the actress “didn’t even take warm-up time” to get back in the swing of things, Gordon says. “She was just in it immediately.”

But work on “Back in Action” hit a terrifying snag in 2023 after Foxx was hospitalized midproduction with a health emergency. The comedian later revealed he suffered a stroke, which left him initially unable to walk and with no memory of 20 days.

At that point, “Back in Action” still had about eight days of filming to go. Some footage was shot with a body double for Foxx, though little of it ended up in the film after a rewrite of the scene. Production was further delayed by a four-month Hollywood actors strike.

Gordon felt “total relief” when Foxx, after making a full recovery, came in to look at early footage and was just like his old self, complete with his signature riffs as he joked around about the strike. “It was really miraculous how he had healed,” Gordon says.

Filming began again in 2024 with Foxx, adding another meta layer to the film’s title as he became the one back in action. The star says he and Diaz shared some “tears” after reuniting for the first time since his stroke, but he was eager to put these emotions aside and get back to work.

“We definitely had those somber moments where (you say), ‘Man, we’re glad everything worked out all right,’ and you take that and you have that moment,” he says. “Then you put it off to the side, and you go back to doing what you’re blessed to do.”

Foxx, who discussed his health scare at length in his December Netflix special “What Had Happened Was …,” maintains a sense of humor about the crisis as he jokes about feeling relieved by how the film came out. “What would have put me back in the hospital (is) if it was bad!” he quips.

So now that Diaz is back, what might the next phase of her career look like? The actress, who welcomed her second child last year, now has a “whole new filter” when it comes to considering projects to take on.

“There’s completely different boxes to check off than before,” she says. “I know the two that are most important, that are there no matter what, are my family and my time and how I spend it. After that, the rest of the boxes, I’ll have to make that up as I go to see what speaks to me to make it worth my while.”