9 Established Actors Who Have Opened Up About Taking a Break From Acting

9 Established Actors Who Talked About Taking a Break From Acting 

Established celebrities are prioritizing their mental health and deciding to spend more quality time with their families. The trend of staying away from the spotlight has taken over Hollywood, more celebrities are voicing their opinion over feeling "burnt out" and "exhausted" after successfully achieving fame. Let's take a look at some of the famous personalities who have called it quits from acting. 

1. Angelina Jolie 

Angelina Jolie created quite a stir with her recent WSJ interview, the Tomb Raider actress expressed the desire to stay away from the spotlight and settle in Cambodia. “It’s part of what happened after my divorce. I lost the ability to live and travel as freely. I will move when I can,” Jolie said. “I grew up in quite a shallow place. Of all the places in the world, Hollywood is not a healthy place. So you seek authenticity.” The Oscar-winning actress said she doesn't feel the same anymore, “I don’t feel like I’ve been myself for a decade, in a way. Which I don’t want to get into.” “My body reacts very strongly to stress,” Jolie said. “My blood sugar goes up and down. I suddenly had Bell’s palsy six months before my divorce.”

2. Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz was last seen in the 2014 comedy flick Annie, she is now making a brief comeback with Back in Action. "When you’re doing something that you know and you’ve done well and you know how it works and it’s consumed your whole life for so long, it’s kind of a nice thing to kind of go, ‘You know what? Let me just step back for a second, take a look at what the whole picture looks like for me and what are the things that I could do better and be more engaged with that would make me feel more whole.’ And I did that," Diaz said in an interview with CBS Mornings' Dana Jacobson. The Mask actress shares a three-year-old daughter, Raddix, with her husband Benji Madden, and loves motherhood. "I think just being able to, you know, influence a child that's developing. All mothers have that moment where you're watching your child and they're doing something for the first time, and you're like, 'I remember doing that.' It's cool." 

3. Sandra Bullock

Sandra Bullock talked about being tired of the constant spotlight. Speaking to Hollywood Reporter, the Lost City actress said, "I don't want to be beholden to anyone's schedule other than my own," she said. "I'm so burnt out. I'm so tired, and I'm so not capable of making healthy, smart decisions and I know it." She added, “Women of a certain age that aren’t 18 don’t go out on the first weekend. We have other shit to take care of … like families and careers. That’s why, if you’re lucky, you have a movie that sticks around." Bullock added. "I'm so not capable of making healthy, smart decisions and I know it. I said to myself, 'Stop looking for it here because it doesn't exist here. You already have it; establish it, find it, and be OK not having work to validate you,'" she said.

4. Emily Blunt

After delivering an applause-worthy performance in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer  Emily Blunt is on a yearlong break. As per Vanity Fair, the Devil Wears Prada actress revealed, “This year I’m not working,” she said on a recent episode of the Table for Two With Bruce Bozzi podcast. “I worked quite a bit last year, and my oldest baby is nine, we’re in the last year of single digits.” Blunt, who shares her two daughters—Hazel, 9, and Violet, 7—with actor husband John Krasinski continued. “I just feel there are cornerstones to their day that are so important when they’re little,” she added. “And it’s, ‘Will you wake me up? Will you take me to school? Will you pick me up? Will you put me to bed?’ And I just need to be there for all of them for a good stretch. And I just felt that in my bones.” 

5. Jim Carrey

After starring in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, iconic comedian Jim Carrey spoke about quitting acting. In a 2022 interview with Variety, he said, “Well, I’m retiring. Yeah, probably. I’m being fairly serious,” Carrey said. “It depends. If the angels bring some sort of script that’s written in gold ink that says to me that it’s going to be important for people to see, I might continue down the road, but I’m taking a break. I like my quiet life and I like putting paint on canvas and I love my spiritual life and I feel like — and this is something you might never hear another celebrity say as long as time exists — I have enough. I’ve done enough. I am enough.”

6. Channing Tatum

Channing Tatum was last seen in the romantic comedy feature Magic Mike's Last Dance, the hunky actor likes to keep a low profile after being on a break for over four years. Speaking to Variety he explained his absence saying, "I felt like I was the fat kid at the buffet, just working and working and working ... I took four movies back to back without any time off. I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be in those last two movies because I didn’t have the energy.” “Do I want to act anymore?” Tatum revealed he asked himself. “Was I going to direct? Do I want to be in the industry anymore? I got lucky. I won a creative lottery ticket. I made a little bit of money, so I could take a step back and figure out what life is.”

7. Jennifer Lawrence

The fiery Jennifer Lawrence wowed the audience with her Oscar-winning performances but soon decided to quit the camera and lead a quiet life. In a 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, the Mother actress opened up about her journey in Hollywood. “I wasn't getting the quality I should have”, she explained. “I just think everyone got sick of me. I got sick of myself. I had just reached the point where I couldn't do anything right. If I walked down the red carpet, it was like, 'Why didn't she run?'" “I think I've pleased people most of my life. Working made me feel like no one could be mad at me,” he revealed. “And then I felt like it had reached a point where people weren't satisfied with just my existence. So that kind of took me away from the thought that work or your career can bring any kind of peace to your soul.” 

8. Eva Mendes

Eva Mendes was at the peak of her Hollywood career when she left it all to start a family. In a 2022 exclusive interview with Variety, the Hitch actress expressed that she doesn't miss acting.  “I don’t miss it. I got tired of fighting for the good roles,” Mendes said. “There just was a point where I thought, ‘I’m going to create my opportunities and become a producer on things and create my material,’ but it just didn’t feel worth it to me.” “There are more opportunities for Latina actresses now, but when I bowed out 10 years ago I wasn’t being offered things that weren’t specifically Latina,” she said. “It is exciting that things are different now, so who knows what I will do in the future,” Mendes continued. “But right now, I’m keeping it in the home with my kids.” Mendes shares two kids, Esmeralda, 8, and Amada, 7, with her husband, Ryan Gosling. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is what I’m supposed to do right now,’” Mendes concluded.

9. Tom Holland 

Tom Holland landed himself a promising role in the Spiderman franchise, the 27-year-old British actor amassed a worldwide fan following after appearing in the Marvel movies. But after essaying a challenging character in The Crowded Room, Holland decided to take a break from acting. As per The Guardian, he is on a fruitful hiatus after experiencing a major mental breakdown from playing the role. “I’m no stranger to hard work,” he said. “I’ve lived by the idea that hard work is good work. Then again, the show did break me. There did come a time when I needed a break and disappeared and went to Mexico for a week and had time on a beach and laid low. I’m now taking a year off, and that is a result of how difficult this show was. I am excited to see how it turns out. I feel like our hard work wasn’t in vain. It was a tough time, for sure,” he added. “We were exploring certain emotions that I have never experienced before. And then on top of that, being a producer, dealing with the day-to-day problems that come with any film set, just added that extra level of pressure.” Holland concluded, “But the mental aspect, it beat me up, and it took a long time for me to recover afterward, to sort of get back to reality.”