Surprise: Cameron Diaz started her acting career in a porno.

Remember how Cameron Diaz starred in a film called Sex Tape, in which she and Jason Segel’s characters go to extremes trying to cover up a home-made porno that accidentally hits the internet?

Well, it seems art really does imitate life… because Cameron starred in a legit soft-core porn video when she was first starting out as an actress.

Diaz in Sex Tape. The feature film, not the 1992 bondage video.

Yep, at the age of 19, Diaz shot a bondage photo shoot, which was filmed and turned into a half-hour video

(No, we're not embedding it here you guys. Geeeze.)*

In the 1992 video, Diaz is apparently dressed in a high-cut body suit that brings to mind Sandra Dee (if Sandra Dee exposed her boobs.)

She's also shown lurking, dominatrix-style, over a shirtless guy in chains with another young model called Natasha, the New York Post reports.

In the video Cameron pulls down her body suit and apparently hardens her nipples with some kind of aerosol spray (which is more intriguing than arousing, in our books.)

Diaz was a teen model, appearing as a covergirl at age 17.

Diaz had already been working as a fashion model for about three years, including appearing on the front cover of Seventeen at age 17, at the time of the shoot.

Two years after the kinky video was shot, she auditioned for The Mask starring Jim Carrey and hit the big-time. She went on to build a squeaky-clean homecoming queen image you probably know her for.

When the 1992 video apparently hit the web in about 2004, Diaz' lawyers were not happy (apparently, they and the photographer became embroiled in a legal battle over the pictures and video footage.

The photographer even allegedly tried to blackmail Diaz by asking if she wanted to buy back the shots. Shady!)

Now 43, Diaz is one of the most successful actresses on the planet. She's worth about USD$100 million, and most recently has published The Body Book.

 She's also shacked up in a ridiculously cute relationship with Benji Madden, who has an enormous tattoo of her because that's how in love they are.

Before she was Mary, Cameron was... a teen dominatrix. (Screenshot: There's Something About Mary)

We all have our equivalent of a dodgy-fashion-bondage-shoot when it comes to our early careers, right? So it's nice to be reminded we all have to start somewhere...

* Don't watch the video. Apparently there are websites that are exploiting the video without a license. Not cool.