Cameron Diaz's Changing Roles

Throughout her career you can't say that Cameron Diaz has stuck to one genre of movie mixing comedy, drama and the big budget blockbuster.

She teamed up with Tom Cruise earlier this year for action movie Knight and Day, which is out on DVD next week.

Diaz made her breakthrough on The Mask back in 1994 as Tina Carlyle, everyone remembers that redress moment as she set tongues wagging and pulses racing, it's fair to say that she has never looked back.

She worked steadily for a couple of years but it soon became clear that comedy really was her thing and the end of the nineties really saw her establish herself in this genre.

My Best Friend's Wedding set the ball rolling in 1997 but it was There's Something About Mary and that hair gel moment that cemented her as one of Hollywood's most promising talents.

It was drama next for the young actress as she worked alongside John Cusack and filmmaker Spike Jonze for Being John Malkovich before moving onto Any Given Sunday with Al Pacino.

The noughties brought major mainstream success for the actress kicking off with big budget movie Charlie's Angels, an adaptation of the hit TV show. The film grossed over $264 million at the box office and was considered a hit.

Animation movie Shrek was next for the actress as she lent her voice to the character Princess Fiona. The film grossed in excess of $484 million two sequels followed which surpassed that and Shrek has become one of the most successful animation franchises of all time.

By 2002 she had caught the eye of filmmaker Martin Scorsese and she was cast alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York. The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, missing out on both.

In recent years she has had continuing box office success with the likes of In Her Shoes, The Holiday and most recently What Happens In Vegas.

She returns to the drama genre with My Sister's Keeper last year, which was a big screen adaptation of the Jodi Picoult novel.

After their daughter is stricken with leukaemia, a couple conceives a younger sister who can provide a donor match, but the family is torn apart when, after years of medical procedures, the healthy younger sibling sues her parents for the right to decide how her body is used.

Since then she has starred in The Box as well as returning to the character of Fiona in Shrek Forever After before reunitinig with her Vanilla Sky co-star Tom Cruise to kick some ass in Knight and Day.

June Havens finds her everyday life tangled with that of a secret agent who has realized he isn't supposed to survive his latest mission.

As their campaign to stay alive stretches across the globe, they soon learn that all they can count on is each other.

She is back on the big screen in the new year when she stars alongside Seth Rogen in Green Hornet and she has also completed work on Bad Teacher, which is out next year.

Knight & Day is out on DVD 13th December.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw