10 Exact Moments Actors Stopped Trying

By the early 2000s, Cameron Diaz had seemingly graduated beyond her early eye candy roles, having worked with the esteemed likes of Danny Boyle, Spike Jonze, Oliver Stone, Cameron Crowe, and in 2002, even Martin Scorsese.

But almost immediately after appearing in Scorsese's Gangs of New York - which was without question her most prestigious role to date - Diaz abandoned any remaining desire to work with classy auteurs and started shamelessly slumming it in low-effort genre films.

The cynical epitome of this was 2008's What Happens in Vegas, a head-smackingly convoluted rom-com in which herself and Ashton Kutcher play two strangers who, after drunkenly getting married and winning a casino jackpot, are forced to stay together for six months in order to each receive half of the winnings.

It's a movie which comfortably adheres to every tired genre trope, most of all the inevitable gratuitous underwear scene where Diaz needlessly struts her stuff for the audience.

It's the point at which Diaz seemingly forgot about her rising cred with actual artists and decisively cashed in on her looks, which she followed up with similarly shallow dud projects like Knight & Day, Gambit, What to Expect When You're Expecting, The Counselor, The Other Woman, Sex Tape, and Annie.

Though Diaz has since retired from acting, it's clear from her final years of work that she'd lost her passion and was simply chasing the fat paycheck roles, which she evidently hoovered up in abundance - and landed herself a Worst Actress Razzie win (for The Other Woman and Sex Tape) in the process.

Fingers crossed she might return to acting in the future and deliver something totally unexpected, because she's so much better than all this trashy genre slop.