(CNN) -- Cameron Diaz is feeling fearless.

With her 42nd birthday approaching on August 30, the actress is dismissing Hollywood's obsession with youth and embracing growing older with pride and an eagerness to try something new.

"I like being 41. I love it," Diaz tells Esquire magazine in its August issue, on sale July 8. "So much s*** just falls away. Fear, mostly. It's the best age. That's when a woman knows how to work things, or she doesn't care about that anymore. You just stop being afraid. You don't worry about what men think. You just don't worry that time registers anything awful."

Perhaps it's that perspective that helped lead Diaz to the July 18 comedy "Sex Tape," in which she and Jason Segel play a couple who accidentally share a home video of their intimate moments for all to see.

Obviously, neither Diaz nor Segel could be shy about showing some skin with a plot like that, but in fact, Diaz isn't just showing some skin. She's showing everything.

"It's a first for me," she says of the nude work in the comedy. "But Jason (Segel) gets naked, too. It's just a part of the role. So I did it. I mean, you see everything."

While Diaz is still conquering career firsts, in her personal life she's content with where she is. When the topic veers toward her decision not to have kids, Diaz explains, "it's so much more work to have children."

"To have lives besides your own that you are responsible for -- I didn't take that on," the actress continues. "That did make things easier for me. A baby -- that's all day, every day for 18 years. Not having a baby might really make things easier, but that doesn't make it an easy decision.

"I like protecting people, but I was never drawn to being a mother. I have it much easier than any of them. That's just what it is. Doesn't mean life isn't sometimes hard. I'm just what I am. I work on what I am.

"Right now, I think, things are good for me. I've done a lot. And I don't care anymore."

Cameron Diaz's guide to success

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