She began her hiatus after starring in the 2014 hits The Other Woman, Sex Tape, and Annie — all of which I can’t believe came out ten years ago.
Speaking about her break from acting on The Graham Norton Show last week, she said, “Oh my God, I loved it. It was the best ten years of my life. I was just free to just say, ‘I’m a mom, I’m a wife, I’m living my life.’”
And the press tour for the new film alongside her costar Jamie Foxx has been as wholesome as we’d hoped, with the two talking about everything from their longstanding friendship to Cameron’s absolute domination of the early 2000s.
On Jan. 17, Cameron appeared on the Netflix podcast Skip Intro with Krista Smith to discuss one such moment, and the two mentioned this iconic photo from the premiere of Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle — which, I think, should be featured in history books around the world. If for nothing else but Drew Barrymore’s legendary butterfly tat.
And while we have the paparazzi to thank for this shot, Cameron took a moment to mention how it felt to be the subject of constant photos — and how it all changed with the development of technology in the early 2000s.
“I actually remember because it was Charlie’s Angels 2… our international tour. We were in Tokyo. It was in Roppongi, and the three of us walked out and there was like a whole wall of fans who were waiting for us. They knew we were there,” she began.
“And they’re all like… they’re holding something over their heads like this,” Cameron gestured, miming with her arm up. “And we’re like… ‘What is that? What are they doing?’”
“And the woman who was our host there said, ‘They’re filming you… They’re taking pictures of you,’” she continued. “And we’re like, ‘On what?’ and [the host] is like, ‘Their phones!’”
Cameron continued while the interviewer’s mouth fell open. “The wind was knocked out of us, and we looked at each other. Drew, and Lucy [Liu] and I, we looked at each other and almost started crying,” she explained. “It just flooded us.”
Cameron recalled thinking, “If everybody has a camera on their phone… And everyone has phones… It’s over.” And for a celebrity in 2003, that realization must have hit like a ton of bricks.
You can listen to the full episode of Skip Intro here. Back In Action in available to watch on Netflix now.