From the window of the sunlit suite where Cameron Diaz sits, there is a beautiful view of the Santa Monica beach with blue sky and fluffy white clouds.The 36-year-old star is dressed to match -- a lightweight white sweater with thin blue horizontal stripes, white slacks.

She seems relaxed and happy.

''That's how I feel inside,'' she says, smiling. ``I'm glad that it shows. I like to put nice things out in the world.''

Last year at this time was different. The unexpected death of her father, Emilio, at 58 from pneumonia, had shaken the Long Beach native, who was in the middle of shooting My Sister's Keeper.

The film deals with death, too. Diaz plays a mother, Sara, whose older daughter, Kate (Medium's Sofia Vassilieva) is stricken with cancer. She and her husband (Jason Patric) have conceived a second daughter, Anna (Abigail Breslin), a bone-marrow match for Kate, but when asked to donate a kidney to save Kate, the 11-year-old balks.

Directed by Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook) from a novel by Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper may seem like a ready-made tearjerker, but it addresses some interesting issues regarding medical ethics as well as delves into the family dynamic.

Diaz left the set for about two weeks in April after her father died. (Production shut down for a while, and then they shot around her.)

''For me, this last year has been the most important year of my life,'' says Diaz, her voice growing quieter the more she talks about the experience.

''So I've been very fortunate to have time to be with my family and be with myself, and I've learned many lessons this year that unfortunately I couldn't have learned without that loss. I believe that if something so great has been taken from you or goes because that's the course of nature -- my father was going to have to die at some point -- there has to be gifts in that,'' Diaz says.

``Although my father is dead, which really sucks, other than that, there are good things in life.''

Diaz credits the Sister's cast and crew for helping her when she went back to work. ``Literally, the girls [Abigail and Sofia] helped me. Nick was amazing, too. That's really the only way that I was able to do it.''

Cassavetes says he cast Diaz because she ``represents the innocence of youth. Before my own kid got sick [with congenital heart disease], I was a happy person. I didn't have tattoos all over my body, and I didn't have the temperance in my soul that I do right now. Cameron seemed like a perfect fulcrum for everyone who is completely unprepared for what is about to happen. Plus, she's simply awesome.''

The actress, who began modeling at 16, got her first break in the 1994 Jim Carrey film The Mask and has been a sexy, comic screen presence ever since (There's Something About Mary, Charlie's Angels and the voice of Fiona in Shrek). Although she has taken serious roles (Gangs of New York), playing a mom is not something associated with her. Still, she says, she didn't think about that when she took the role.

``I was so enthralled and completely taken by the story.''

OBSESSED CHARACTER

Part of what fascinated her was her character, Sara, who is obsessed about saving one daughter at the possible sacrifice of the family.

``I don't believe Sara thinks that God is on their side. I don't think that she believes she can have faith. Whenever something like this happens, I believe that trauma stunts growth. Hearing her child was going to die just sent her in one direction. . . . I can't judge her because I don't know what it's like to be in that position. I do know what it's like to be human, to make a mistake, to not see the biggest picture. Sometimes we get narrowly focused on things because we're hurt or we're fearful and we think that the only way something can happen is what we convince ourselves is the right way.''

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