Cameron Diaz says taking a break from acting was the “best 10 years” of her life.

Cameron Diaz is grateful for her 10-year hiatus from acting, but she's just as grateful to be back.

“Oh my God, I loved it. It was the best 10 years of my life,” Diaz, 52, said on the Friday, Jan. 17, episode. The Graham Norton Show on her retirement from filmmaking. “I was just able to just say, 'I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm living my life.'

Diaz's last project before her 10-year hiatus was 2014's Annie, in which she co-starred Jamie Foxx. She and Foxx, 57, both star on Netflix's Back in actionwhich premiered on the streaming platform on Friday.

Diaz went on to say that giving up acting at the time “made sense for (her) family” because she and her husband Benji Maddenwhom she married in 2015, they have two children together: daughter Radix, born in 2019, and son Cardinal, born in 2024. Diaz added that after a while, “people stopped asking” her to take on new roles. “It was so nice,” she said.

Related: Cameron Diaz's return to the inside after reaching breaking point

Cameron Diaz had reached her breaking point. When Annie hit theaters in 2014, it was her 38th film in 20 years. “It's so intense to work at that level and be so public and put yourself out there,” she told friend Gwyneth Paltrow in a 2020 Goop interview. “There is a lot of energy coming to (…).

Diaz has offered several reasons why she ultimately chose to do another film – Foxx is her image inside Back in action between them. However, she elaborated on why she ultimately made the choice to return to the silver screen.

“It's a privilege to do this,” she told the host Graham Norton about acting. “I just said to myself, if I just let go of this, all this goodwill, all that I've had to build up for so long, the passion that I have for entertaining people and making movies that (make) people smile and laugh and well hang out and they're sitting in the theater or they're sitting at home and they're moved by it — if I don't get involved with it and give it a chance and participate in it and be grateful for it, I'd be a fool.”

Despite her return, it has not been decided whether this will be a permanent step in her acting career. “It might be the beginning, maybe I'll tiptoe, maybe I'll go gung-ho, we'll see,” she said. “It's here and I'm very grateful for it.”

At the beginning of this month a the source said Us Weekly that Diaz's decision to act again “evolved over time,” adding, “It wasn't sudden.”

In a December 2024 interview with empireDiaz shared that it's hard to say if she would do another film after that Back in actionsaying, “I reserve the right to say no to never watching a movie again, and I reserve the right to say yes if I choose to.”

Back in action now streaming on Netflix.