The allure of Hollywood is hardly a mystery: stardom, status, the satisfaction of succeeding in an incredibly difficult competitive field. And considering so many actors dream of making it in Tinseltown, it'd seem almost absurd to give it up once they've gained recognition. And yet, many actors have opened up about the struggles of succeeding in the entertainment industry.
Every so often, when an actor announces their retirement, the industry celebrates their accomplishments with a lifetime achievement award and sends them off into the abyss with trumpets and fanfare. However, sometimes, an actor's retirement plans are short-lived, and Hollywood lures them back into the limelight.
10 Joe Pesci's 'Retirement' Lasted 7 Years
Joe Pesci announced his retirement in 1999 after spending close to 40 years in the industry, stating he wanted to pursue a musical career and enjoy life away from the camera.
Since his 'retirement,' Pesci has starred in 3 films: The Good Shepherd (2006), Love Ranch (2010), and The Irishman (2019)—a role he was reportedly offered over 50 times by Martin Scorsese before agreeing to star in the film. The Irishman resulted in Pesci being nominated for over 30 industry awards, including Best Supporting Actor nominations at the Oscars, BAFTAs, and Golden Globe Awards.
9 Daniel Day-Lewis Won Two Oscars After His 'Retirement'
Daniel Day-Lewis originally announced his retirement after completing The Boxer in 1997. He took up an apprenticeship in Italy as a shoe-maker during his hiatus (which only lasted 3 years). For a time, his exact whereabouts and choice of post-acting profession were not made public.
Day-Lewis would then return to film Martin Scorsese's historical epic Gangs of New York, with principal photography beginning in December 2000. His role as William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting earned over 35 award nominations, including an Academy Award. He won a BAFTA in the category of 'Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.' Day-Lewis would then go on to win two Oscars at the 80th & 85th Academy Awards for his performances in There Will Be Blood (2007) and Lincoln (2012).
8 Liam Neeson 'Retired' From The Action Genre
Liam Neeson has starred in some of cinema's most beloved action films. He's best known for his role as Bryan Mills in the Taken trilogy, which paved the way for his type-casting of rough, tough, justice-pursuing, heroic protagonists. In January 2021, Neeson announced he would no longer be making action movies after The Marksman, citing his age as a primary reason for retirement in an interview with ET. "I'm 68 and a half. 69 this year... I think that will probably be it."
Neeson has since starred in action films The Ice Road (2021) and Backlight (2022) and has completed filming for upcoming action-thrillers Memory, Retribution, and Marlow.
7 Daniel Craig Tried To Retire James Bond
Immediately following the release of his 4th Bond film Spectre, Daniel Craig said he would be retiring from the role, flippantly stating he would be more inclined to kill himself than reprise 007. "I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on," Craig said in an interview with Time Out Magazine. "If I did another Bond movie, it would only be for the money."
Craig later rescinded his response in 2021 during an interview with The Independent, preceding the release of his final Bond film, No Time To Die. "To be completely honest, I was thinking: I don't know if I can do another one of these. I finished Spectre with a broken leg. But a little bit more skill in the answer might have been better... I was joking, but it came across as ungrateful."
6 Sean Connery 'Retired' in 2006
Sean Connery confirmed his retirement from acting in 2006 while receiving the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. He cited one of the reasons for his decision to retire was because of "idiots now making films in Hollywood."
In 2007, rumors swelled as to whether Connery would appear in the fourth Indiana Jones film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which he denied after stating, "retirement is just too much-damned fun." In 2012, Connery officially came out of retirement to voice Sir Billi in the animated film, Guardian of the Highlands.
5 Rick Moranis Left Hollywood For His Family
Following the untimely death of his wife, Anne, in 1991, Rick Moranis retired from acting to focus on fatherhood and raise his two children. Moranis has since provided voice-over work for a few animated films, but he hasn't appeared in a single live-action film for 25 years.
In 2020, Moranis closed a deal with Disney to return to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids franchise in the sequel Shrunk—alongside the director of the original 1989 classic, Joe Johnston. The sequel will also reportedly star Josh Gad.
4 Michael J. Fox Retired Twice
Michael J. Fox took a break from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1991, dedicating his time to finding a cure for the disease. In 2000, he founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Fox would later return to a more active career, voicing the titular character in the Stuart Little films (1999-1995), as well as the lead of the animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001).
In 2020, Fox released a memoir detailing his declining health struggles and second retirement, “There is a time for everything, and my time of putting in a 12-hour workday and memorizing seven pages of dialogue is best behind me … I enter a second retirement. That could change because everything changes. But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it.”
3 Terrence Howard Announced His Retirement In 2019
In 2019, Terrence Howard announced he would be retiring from acting after the sixth and final season of Empire. "I'm done with acting. I'm done pretending," Howard told Extra. “I love the cast members. I will miss them a great deal, and the crew... I'm just focusing on bringing truth to the world.”
In 2021, it was announced that Howard would appear in the sci-fi/thriller film Beneath, scheduled to release in 2022. Directed by Gene Fallaize, Beneath follows a 'marine salvager looking for the wreckage of a missing airliner' who 'becomes stranded inside a damaged submersible at the bottom of the deep ocean'.
2 Robert Redford Regrets Announcing His Retirement
In 2018, Robert Redford announced his retirement from acting following the completion of his final film, The Old Man and the Gun. “Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and [I’ll] move towards retirement after this ’cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21,” Redford told Entertainment Weekly—confirming his claims from 2016.
Redford returned to the big screen when he reprised his role as Alexander Pierce in Avengers: Endgame (2019). He would later state that he regretted announcing his retirement in an interview with PEOPLE magazine, “I think it was a mistake to say that I was retiring because you never know”.
1 Joaquin Phoenix Fooled Hollywood
Joaquin Phoenix announced his retirement from acting in 2008, stating he would be pursuing a musical career as a hip-hop rapper. The plot thickened after talks of his appearance in a documentary project, created by similarly-disheveled and standoffish actor, Casey Affleck. Suspicions grew as to the legitimacy of Phoenix's retirement, along with his hair and beard.
I'm Still Here premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2010 and was met with critical queries. Days after its release, creators Affleck and Phoenix came clean about the documentary, which was actually a mockumentary spoof film experiment. They wanted to see how much the mainstream media would believe. Phoenix has since starred in some of the last decade's best films, earning countless award nominations and winning an Academy Award in 2020 for his performance in Joker (2019).