Plenty of performers who rose to fame in the ’90s went on to become household names. Others, however, faded from the spotlight, choosing to pursue more “normal” careers or low-key lifestyles instead.
Here are 22 ’90s stars who ditched Hollywood:
1.
Jonathan Taylor Thomas exited Home Improvement before the series ended, appearing in only three episodes of the final season. Trading acting for academia, he attended Columbia, Harvard, and St. Andrew’s University. In 2013, he told People, “I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old. I wanted to go to school, to travel, and have a bit of a break…To sit in a big library amongst books and students — that was pretty cool. It was a novel experience for me.”
He went on to work mainly as a director and voice actor. However, he’s done a few small acting roles over the years, most notably guest-starring on his former co-star Tim Allen’s show, Last Man Standing. Tim is open to having JTT return for his new show, Shifting Gears. He told Us Weekly, “Everything is a possibility. He just came back [to the last episode we filmed]. He showed up on the set…He’s literally my kid. I raised that kid for eight years on Home Improvement. All of these are my kids, and I’m kind of sick about this.”
2.
After The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ended, Karyn Parsons had trouble finding roles because of the lack of opportunities for actors of color at the time. She co-created her own sitcom, Lush Life, but it was canceled after only four episodes because the new Fox studios execs decided to pull the plug on all the new comedies at the time. Eventually, she moved to NYC, where she met her husband and started a family. She told Vice, “My interests were changing. It became very difficult to do everything, to memorize lines for a part and have to get someone to last-minute watch the kids — to race across town and do all that, and if you got a call back, do it again. I’d find myself dropping the ball a lot.”
She switched her focus to writing. Then, in 2005, she founded Sweet Blackberry, a nonprofit that teaches kids about the lesser-known aspects of Black history. She said, “When I was pregnant with my daughter, that’s when I started really thinking about what are they going to teach her in school, and what am I supposed to teach her? How do I supplement her education as a parent? As I was talking a lot about Black history and stories that you don’t hear about, my husband was like, ‘You need to do this.'”
3.
In 1997, Rick Moranis took a step back from acting to focus on his kids after his wife, Anna, died from breast cancer. In 2015, he told The Hollywood Reporter, “I took a break, which turned into a longer break. But I’m interested in anything that I would find interesting. I still get the occasional query about a film or television role…I was working with really interesting people, wonderful people [in Hollywood]. I went from that to being at home with a couple of little kids, which is a very different lifestyle. But it was important to me. I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever. My life is wonderful.”
At no point did he actually consider himself “retired” from acting, but shifting his focus was important for his family. He said, “It wasn’t a formal decision. It began in an already busy year, where I declined a film that was being shot out of town as the school year was beginning. But I was fortunate to be able to continue to make a living writing and doing voice work in Manhattan.” He was reportedly set to reprise the role of Wayne Szalinski in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids sequel Shrunk, but according to lead actor Josh Gad on Twitter, production has stalled multiple times.
4.
Omri Katz told Bronx Buds, “I left the industry not too long after Hocus Pocus and kind of never really looked back.” He also told Bloody Disgusting, “I grew up in the industry, so that’s kind of all I knew. I think I was soul searching and wanted more of a human experience; just see what else is out there, see the world, and be normal. I didn’t really have that growing up.” However, he returned to LA after spending time surfing, snowboarding, and traveling. He said, “I wanted to get back into acting for all the wrong reasons — to make money so I could escape again — and that didn’t work out too well. I had to get a real job, the first one in my life!”
He worked as a hairdresser until he transitioned to the cannabis industry. He said, “Obviously, I had to be discreet, stay under the radar, but I’ve been doing it ever since. I have my own brand called The Mary Danksters. We’re doing everything the legal way, and I’m really excited to see where this industry takes me. It’s been a tough thing to navigate, but I feel confident that I’ve got something to contribute.”
5.
After roles became harder to come by, American Pie actor Chris Owen took a job as a server at a Santa Monica sushi restaurant. In 2014, he told the New York Daily News, “Life doesn’t always go the way you planned. I love acting, and this job lets me stay in the fight…I get recognized a lot. I walk up to the table and see the look in their eyes…People get excited, and it feels good. I like connecting with people for that brief moment in time.”
He’s continued acting, most recently appearing in the movie Money Game.
6.
Yasmeen Ghauri left the modeling world behind in the mid-90s, per Vogue. After retiring from the catwalk, she married and started a family with Ralph Bernstein. She went on to be an advocate for breast cancer research and environmental causes.
7.
Following a decline in music sales, Vanilla Ice decided to turn to house flipping after he made a major profit selling off the homes he’d purchased when his rap career took off. In 2014, he told the New York Daily News, “I thought, ‘Is it that easy to make money?'” He returned to school to study design and construction, then went on to balance his music career with his contractor career. He said, “I’m a weekend rocker. Monday, it’s back to work.”
In the 2010s, he hosted two DIY reality shows — The Vanilla Ice Project and Vanilla Ice Goes Amish.
8.
According to the Independent, Bridget Fonda retired from acting in 2002. She had actually signed on to a recurring role on The Practice in 2003, but after “miraculously” surviving a car accident a few weeks before the series went into production, she was replaced. In 2023, she reportedly told a paparazzo at an airport that she wouldn’t return to acting because “it’s too nice being a civilian.”
Here’s a slightly more recent picture of her from 2009.
9.
In 1997, following his declaration of bankruptcy and the death of his friend Tupac Shakur, MC Hammer reconnected with his Christian faith. He was ordained as a minister in the Church of God in Christ. Soon after, he began leading his own “Hammertime” hip-hop gospel prayer services. In 2000, he told the LA Times, “Whether the bankruptcy played any role in my refocusing, that’s great. Hallelujah, I hope it did! But the most important part of what occurred to me was love, missing the love of God in the way that I had known it…I ran from being a preacher! I didn’t want to be a preacher. I knew that once I became a preacher that I would be held to more responsibilities. I already had a burden to my community.”
Here’s a more recent picture of him.
10.
In 2000, Matilda star Mara Wilson left acting, shifting her focus to writing instead. In 2016, she told NPR, “There wasn’t like one big moment where I knew I was done. … The rejection hurt because it had been just such a prominent part of my life for so long. It had been the thing that defined me. I remember in college, I would sleep through my acting classes — I would self-sabotage — because I was so afraid to let people see me as an actor. I was at NYU, and I knew there were a lot of good actors there, and the thing about acting classes is you’re playing parts you don’t usually play. … [You have to] not be afraid to make mistakes. Well, I was terrified; I was frozen with fear.”
She continued, “That’s when I started focusing more on writing. Writing I’d always loved. Even on the sets of various movies, I would always be in my trailer writing stories — usually very similar to whatever Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary or Bruce Coville book I was reading at the time — but I loved to write. I started writing dialogue, and I started doing performance pieces — like 10-minute solo performance pieces — and eventually I did a one-woman show, and that felt so much more real than being on a set every day. There’s a saying … ‘If you can live without it, you should,’ and I found that I could.” Alongside writing, she’s continued to work as a voice actor.
11.
Smoke Signals actor Evan Adams has done a few small acting roles over the years, but he’s done more work in two other fields — playwriting and medicine. According to his official website, he graduated from the University of Calgary with his medical degree in 2002. He’s served as the first Aboriginal Health Physician Advisor in the Office of the Provincial Health Officer, BC Ministry of Health and the Deputy Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia. Now, he’s the Chief Medical Officer of the First Nations Health Authority.
Here’s a more recent picture of him.
12.
A Little Princess actor Liesel Matthews hasn’t acted since 2000. According to Vice, Matthews was a stage name — she’s actually Liesel Pritzker, heiress to the family who founded Hyatt hotels. In 1995, she told Entertainment Tonight, “I don’t think I want to become a huge actress or anything. And I wouldn’t make it a career. It would still be a hobby.”
Per Vice, Liesel majored in African history at Columbia. During her freshman year, she sued her dad and the Pritzker cousins, alleging they’d cleared out her and her brother’s trust funds in a way “so heinous, obnoxious, and offensive as to constitute a fraud.” According to Vanity Fair, the cousins allegedly made a “secret pact” to divvy up the family fortune in a way that excluded Liesel and her brother. In 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the siblings settled the lawsuit, each receiving $450 million in cash and other trusts. Leisel went on to found the impact investment organization Blue Haven Initiative alongside her husband, Ian Simmons.
13.
Never Been Kissed actor Leelee Sobieski left acting to focus on her growing family. In 2016, she told Us Weekly, “I don’t do movie stuff anymore. I am totally an outsider! I … am just a mom and an outsider… I am just focused on my kids. I think that’s mainly why I stopped.” Describing her life with her fashion designer husband, Adam Kimmel, she added, “I help my husband with what he does. And I paint, secretly!”
However, in 2018, she re-emerged as an artist under the name Leelee Kimmel. She told Artnet, “I kept working fervently in secret. Painting was always my goal; I just kept getting distracted with work things and paying bills…Actors end up going from one role to another with all this energy behind them, and you just become emptier and emptier and emptier — you end up having no real experiences. To cry, you end up drawing on the experiences of another character you played. I don’t want my children to look at Netflix and see me on screen in the arms of someone who’s not their dad.”
14.
In 2017, The Adventures of Pete & Pete actor Michael C. Maronna told Talk Nerdy With Us, “After Pete & Pete was done, I went to college and travelled around a little bit. I was auditioning after college and then started working as an [electrician] doing lighting, and I’ve been in the union for the past ten years.” Then, in 2020, he told Rewind It Magazine, “I was always interested in the technical aspects of film production and spent my whole life on sets, whether film, TV show, or commercials. I have worked in the theater as well and have family in the stage business, but it didn’t hold the same allure for me.”
“On Pete & Pete, production was on location and shot on 16mm film, as opposed to a television show shot on videotape in a studio. This afforded me a lot of opportunities to get to know the process and the equipment and to ask the crew a lot of questions. After the first season of half-hour episodes, the grips gave me a tool belt with some tools as a wrap gift. It was very sweet. A couple of seasons later, I just kept asking questions of the gaffer, and eventually he offered me a job after the show ended. My first proper electric job was on a film called Six Ways To Sunday. I auditioned for the lead role and ended up driving the electric truck for it. A lot of crew from Pete & Pete worked on the job, so it was a nice transition. The pandemic shutdown put a lot of shows on hold for a few months, but I’ve been back to work for a while. Currently, I’m working on Dickinson Season 3, starring Toby Huss,” he said.
15.
In 2017, Michael’s The Adventures of Pete & Pete costar Danny Tamberelli told Talk Nerdy With Us, “I worked for Nickelodeon until 2000. I was on All That, and then I went to college and tried to be a normal kid.” He reconnected with Michael years later. Danny continued, “We had done some Pete & Pete reunions prior to the Splat being invented in 2011 or 2012, so that was when we started hanging out again. That’s when we decided to do a podcast.” They co-host the podcast The Adventures of Danny and Mike, and they also had small roles in I Saw the TV Glow together.
Here’s Danny more recently.
16.
Hook actor Charlie Kosmo told Case Western Reserve University’s The Daily, “As I recall, I mostly wanted to get out of school and make enough money to buy a Nintendo. I never saw acting as a lifelong career ambition.” He left acting and had a “relatively normal” high school experience, then in college, he filmed Can’t Hardly Wait but decided that full-time acting wasn’t his calling. He said, “I think I managed the trick of leaving voluntarily just about the time I would have been thrown out anyway.” After graduating from MIT, he worked in various government positions before going to law school. He went on to become a law professor. However, he’s appeared in a few movies over the years, most recently A Different Man.
17.
The Crying Game actor Jaye Davidson’s last acting role was in 2009, though he’s been predominantly absent from the he public eye since 1994. In 2019, director Neil Jordan told Yahoo Entertainment, “Very wisely actually, Jaye made one other movie for which he made a ton of money. He then said, ‘Look, this is not for me.’ You know? He went back to his life. He’s a very happy man now. He’s bulked up now. … Different person now. But very healthy and very good.” Jaye reportedly lives in Paris and works as a fashion stylist.
Here’s a more recent photo of Jaye.
18.
In a 2013 blog post, Mrs. Doubtfire actor Lisa Jakub wrote, “You’ve probably left a job before. Why did you leave? Probably because you didn’t enjoy it anymore. Maybe something about that job didn’t feel authentic to you or fit in with what you wanted from life. There were probably parts of your job that you really liked, but one day, when you made your pro and con list, the con side was longer. Maybe you had done the job for 18 years – like I had. Maybe it was time to do something new. That’s why I left my job. I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t awful, and I’m not whining about how hard my life was. Parts of it were really wonderful for a while. But then I got to the point where it just wasn’t fun for me anymore.”
She continued, “So, I decided I should leave before I became one of those alcoholic/eating disorder ravaged/drug addicted train wrecks of a former child actor. I had no desire to be a cautionary tale…So, since I left LA a decade ago, I’ve been trying to bury Lisa Jakub. I’ve buried her with going to college, getting married, becoming a writer, and learning how to use my stove. I’ve been trying to forget that the old life existed. Everyone has something that they try to cover up about themselves, something that makes them feel different and a little strange. Something that they worry will make them not quite fit in, like that quickie divorce or the strange uncle or the funny-looking thing on their foot. Movies happen to be that thing for me.” In 2015, she published the book You Look Like That Girl: A Child Actor Stops Pretending and Finally Grows Up.
19.
After The Wonder Years ended, Josh Saviano went on to study political science at Yale. Then, for 12 years, he worked as a corporate and intellectual property transactional attorney and played a role in the onset of influencer marketing. He co-founded Spotlight Advisory Group, where he serves as president.
Here’s a more recent photo of Josh.
20.
Clarissa Explains It All actor Jason Zimbler went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s in theatre directing. He worked as a professional theater director and served as the Buck’s Rock Performing and Creative Arts Camp’s theatre program head, director, and educator. In 2013, he told The New York Daily News he was balancing directing with his career as a software developer/designer for HBO.
21.
Sleepless in Seattle actor Ross Malinger’s last acting credit is an episode of Without a Trace from 2006. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he went on to work in author sales, managing Automotive Legends until its closure in 2009.
22.
And finally, according to his official website, Highlander: The Series actor Peter Wingfield initially left medical school a month before graduation to pursue acting. Then, in 2011, he took a step back from acting and returned to medical school. According to the Paths Podcast, he now works as an anesthesiologist at LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.