Yahoo Lifestyle "I Felt Like I Had Really Screwed Up": 11 Celebs Who Said Goodbye To Their Careers Only To Make Legendary Returns
Sometimes, it's not all that fun or easy to stay an A-list actor. In fact, many decided it wasn't for them and left acting aside forever. And who could blame them?
However, for some actors, taking a break from their famed profession was temporary. Here are 11 celebs who walked away from their careers only to make massive returns to the screen:
1.Cameron Diaz has returned for her first movie in over a decade. After years of tearing up the screen, Cameron starred in three films in 2014: The Other Woman, Sex Tape, and Annie. She then stepped back to focus on her personal life, including marrying Good Charlotte singer Benji Madden in 2015 and becoming a mom to two children.
Cameron's new film Back in Action is an action comedy co-starring Jamie Foxx. It premiered on Netflix this week. "I didn't think I was going to make another movie," she told Netflix. "I was perfectly happy just living my life, doing other things day in and day out. Not movies." However, a pitch from Jamie Foxx convinced her to return to acting. "If there's anyone I'm going to go back and spend months on end on set having a ball [and] laughing with, it would be Jamie."
2.Pamela Anderson is having a career renaissance thanks to her new film The Last Showgirl. But this almost didn't happen. Her work with Playboy and a starring role on Baywatch in the '90s made her a household name, but Pamela's personal life became endless tabloid fodder for years. She moved from France to her native Canada in 2020, before a run in Chicago on Broadway in 2022, and now The Last Showgirl, offered the opportunity to reintroduce herself. Pamela scored her first Golden Globes nomination for the film.
"A few years back, I kind of gave up at some point and needed a change. I thought, Well, I guess that's just what people think of me. I was not in a good space when I moved back to Canada," she told Better Homes & Gardens in August 2024. "I don't know what happened over the last few decades, but I feel now so far removed from the image of who I was. I felt very sad and lonely. I didn't feel just misunderstood, I felt like I had really screwed up, that my whole life was a bundle of mistakes. I was hard on myself, and I thought I put my family through a lot and put my kids through so much. I came to a point where I decided to move home and disappear and get into my garden."
3.Tyler James Williams has successfully transitioned from a child star on Everybody Hates Chris to an acclaimed actor, scoring multiple Emmy nominations for his role on Abbott Elementary. However, when Tyler was 17, he stopped acting for a time.
"I realized at 17 that I didn't like the road I was on," he told GQ in 2023. "So I decided to stop and pivot. I got with a really good acting coach and I turned down every single thing I was offered."
4.While Josh Hartnett has never stopped acting, he notably pared down his work on blockbusters like the ones he made in the early 2000s: Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down. The Guardian reports he even turned down the role of Superman two times. He's recently experienced a renaissance with roles in the films Oppenheimer and Trap and an appearance in The Bear.
"I just didn't want my life to be swallowed up by my work," he told The Guardian in July 2024. "And there was a notion at that time you just kind of give it all up. And you saw what happened to some people back then. They got obliterated by it. I didn't want that for myself."
5.Comedy legend Eddie Murphy paused making movies shortly after he received the Razzie for Worst Actor of the Decade in 2010. In 2019, he made a big comeback with a dramatic starring role in the Rudy Ray Moore biopic Dolemite Is My Name. The movie garnered him Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations.
"I was like, 'This shit ain't fun. They're giving me Razzies.' ... Motherfuckers gave me the 'Worst Actor Ever' Razzie. Maybe it's time to take a break," he said on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast in 2021. "I could sit on the couch and not get off it, but I don't want the last bunch of shit they see me do [to be] bullshit."
6.Renée Zellweger walked away from Hollywood after a string of less-than-favorable movies. Already an Oscar winner, she returned in 2016 with the film The Whole Truth and a third Bridget Jones movie. She went on to win a second Oscar a few years later for her role as Judy Garland in a 2019 biopic.
Renée is releasing her fourth film in the Bridget Jones series, Mad About the Boy, on February 13. Ahead of the film's release, she told her franchise co-star Hugh Grant in a British Vogue interview that she took a break from 2010 to 2016 because she "needed to."
"I was sick of the sound of my own voice. When I was working, I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, listen to you. Are you sad again, Renée? Oh, is this your mad voice?' It was a regurgitation of the same emotional experiences," she said. Renée added that, during her time off, she did things like write music, study international law, build a house, and even rescue older dogs. "I got healthy," she said.
7.Matthew McConaughey took an acting break after making his name as a rom-com leading man in movies like The Wedding Planner, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and Fool's Gold. He took a two-year hiatus after Ghosts of Girlfriends Past came out in 2009, returning for more serious roles in the early 2010s like The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, and Magic Mike.
"It was scary. I had long talks with my wife about needing to find a new vocation. 'I think I'm going to teach high school classes. I think I'm going to study to be a conductor. I think I'm going to go be a wildlife guide.' I honestly thought, 'I stepped out of Hollywood. I got out of my lane.' The lane Hollywood said I should stay in, and Hollywood's like, 'Well, fuck you, dude. You should have stayed in your lane. Later,'" he said in Interview Magazine in June 2024. Matthew went on to win an Oscar a few years later for the film Dallas Buyers Club.
8.Ke Huy Quan made it big as an '80s child actor in the films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies. While in his 20s and struggling to land acting gigs, he decided to step behind the camera to find work. It turned into a nearly two-decade break. He returned to the screen in 2021 with the film Finding 'Ohana. The following year, he starred in Everything Everywhere All at Once and won an Oscar for his role.
"I spent a long time lying to myself that acting isn't fun anymore," he told NPR of walking away from acting. However, the Everything Everywhere All at Once script gave him a new appreciation for the craft. "All of a sudden I felt like I was back where I needed to be."
9.Meg Ryan, who'd made her name in classic rom-coms like When Harry Mert Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, stepped away from Hollywood in 2015. She didn't return for a major project until 2023, when she directed, co-wrote, and starred in the rom-com What Happens Later.
"I took a giant break because I felt like there's just so many other parts of my experience as a human being I wanted to develop," she told People in 2023. "It's nice to think of it as a job and not a lifestyle. And that is a great way of navigating it for me."
10.While Gwyneth Paltrow has kept herself busy with her Goop empire and other projects, she hasn't appeared in a substantial acting role since The Politician in 2020. Well, she's coming back. The Oscar winner is starring alongside Timothée Chalamet in the upcoming A24 film Marty Supreme.
She said on The Drew Barrymore Show in November 2024 that she was "nervous" to film a movie. Her last film was Avengers: Endgame in 2019. "I'm doing a movie which I haven't done in a really long time. To be honest, I was a bit nervous," she said. Marty Supreme arrives in theaters later this year on Christmas Day.
11.Finally, Rachel McAdams was riding a major career wave in the 2000s with films like Mean Girls, The Notebook, and The Family Stone. Amid her success, she moved back to Canada and took a two-year break from acting, turning down roles in films like The Devil Wears Prada, Casino Royale, and Iron Man. Her career never suffered because Rachel went on to receive an Oscar nomination for the 2015 film Spotlight.
"I felt guilty for not capitalizing on the opportunity that I was being given, because I knew I was in such a lucky spot. But I also knew it wasn't quite jiving with my personality and what I needed to stay sane," she told Bustle in 2023 of her hiatus. "There were definitely some anxious moments of wondering if I was just throwing it all away, and why was I doing that? It's taken years to understand what I intuitively was doing."
Which of these actors are you so glad made a return, and are there other notable examples we didn't mention? Let us know in the comments below!
