As a follow-up to The Mask, Cameron chose a small, independent film called The Last Supper with a first-time feature director. The black comedy, released by Sony Pictures Entertainment, gave Cameron the chance to play a condescending, liberal graduate student amongst a talented ensemble cast that included Annabeth Gish, Ron Eldard, Jonathan Penner and Courtney B. Vance. An art house hit, The Last Supper was the beginning of two years of non-stop work in feature films.
Her third feature was writer/director Steven Baigelman’s offbeat love story, Feeling Minnesota, in which Cameron co-starred with Keanu Reeves and Vincent D’Onofrio, playing a white trash bride who falls in love with her brother-in-law. She went on to play a cold, manipulative New Yorker in Edward Burns’ eagerly-anticipated follow-up to his critically-acclaimed The Brothers McMullen, a working-class romantic comedy called She’s the One, which, once again, Burns wrote, directed and starred in. Next, she starred opposite Harvey Keitel and Craig Sheffer in Head Above Water, a thriller about a respectable judge, his wife, her ex-lover, their neighbor and a dead body that won’t go away.
In 1996, Cameron was named ShoWest’s Female Star of Tomorrow by the National Association of Theatre Owners (a title previously held by such actresses as Winona Ryder, Nicole Kidman and Julia Ormond). Cameron’s first studio film since The Mask, My Best Friend’s Wedding became one of the biggest hits of the summer of 1997 and one of the 10 top-grossing films of the year.
Starring opposite Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney and Rupert Everett as a sweet debutante on the eve of her nuptials, My Best Friend’s Wedding gave Cameron an opportunity to show yet another side of her many talents, capturing the hearts of critics and moviegoers in the process. Her performance earned her the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actress in a Comedy, voted on by more than 11 million customers of Blockbuster Video internationally.
In A Life Less Ordinary -- from yet another talented young filmmaker, director Danny Boyle of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire fame -- Cameron starred opposite Ewan McGregor, playing a spoiled, unhappy rich girl who falls in love with the janitor who accidentally kidnaps her.
