Brad Pitt recently revealed he’ll stop working in front of the camera when he turns 50, in just three years, to turn his attention to behind-the-scenes work. From the mother of Pitt’s children to the legendary Clint Eastwood to Twitter quitter Amanda Bynes, see more stars who claimed to grow tired of the spotlight.
Although critics have been hailing Brad Pitt’s 2011 on-screen performances as the best of his career—with some surmising Tree of Life or Moneyball could earn him an Oscar—the Hollywood A-lister reportedly has had enough of the camera … at least, of being in front of it. On Australia’s 60 Minutes, 47-year-old Pitt said he intends to act for only three more years. “I am really enjoying the producorial [sic] side and development of stories and putting those pieces together,” the father of six added. “And getting stories to the plate that might have had a tougher time otherwise. I’ve gotten away with a few things, and I’ve been pissed off about a few things.” Later, Pitt clarified to The Daily Telegraph: “I wasn’t actually putting an exact deadline on my expiration date, but I see it coming... I just have other interests and I do quite enjoy the production side.” But even if Pitt does hold true to his timeline, audiences will still be seeing him in the coming years. He’s signed on to appear in Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years a Slave, due to hit theaters in 2014.
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The other half of the world’s most famous couple, Angelina Jolie, also revealed her intention to leave Hollywood behind. The 36-year-old star’s career has already earned her an Oscar, and in the August 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, Jolie said: "Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I’m very, very grateful, it’s a fun job. It’s a luxury ... But I don’t think I’ll do it much longer.” Jolie’s reassessment was largely due to her ever-growing family, which currently includes Pitt, three adopted children, and three they conceived together. “I have a happy home,” she explained to Vanity Fair. “I got back from work last night, and everybody was playing music and dancing and I suddenly found myself dancing around with a bunch of little fun crazy people.” As of now, she isn’t attached to any projects.
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Joaquin Phoenix gave an Oscar-nomination-worthy performance as Johnny Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line. But three years later he dropped a bomb on Hollywood when he told Extra!, “I want to take this opportunity ... to give you the exclusive ... that this will be my last performance as an actor ... I'm not doing films anymore.” Phoenix, who was promoting his 2008 film Two Lovers at the time, explained he planned to work on his music and leave acting behind at just 35 years old. His brother-in-law, fellow actor Casey Affleck, backed up the story, saying, “I don't think he's kidding. He's got music and stuff." But in early 2009, a fully whiskered Phoenix revealed that he and Affleck were working on a documentary about his burgeoning hip-hop career and appeared on Late Night With David Letterman for one of the most bizarre, one-sided TV interviews of all time. The film, I’m Still Here, was released in September 2010, but the truth came out: Phoenix’s “Bye! Good” to acting was just a hoax. The since clean-shaven actor will return to the screen in 2013’s The Master along with Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
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Amanda Bynes was introduced to the world as the adorable 10-year-old star of Nickelodeon’s All That, a children’s take on Saturday Night Live, in the 1990s. Bynes stole the show, earning her own spinoff called The Amanda Show and a successful career as a teen star throughout the early 2000s, starring in What a Girl Wants and She’s the Man. But the work started to taper off, and the frequent tweeter dropped a bomb on her followers in June 2010. “Being an actress isn’t as fun as it may seem,” the then-24-year-old actress tweeted. “If I don’t love something, I stop doing it. I don’t love acting anymore, so I’ve stopped doing it.” Just a month later, Bynes announced her “unretirement” via Twitter and appeared in the critically acclaimed Easy A in September. Though she doesn’t appear to have any projects in the works, she is still tweeting up a storm.
Fans of 30 Rock were crushed in November 2009 when one of the sitcom’s Emmy-winning stars, Alec Baldwin, announced he was over the bright lights of Hollywood. “I don’t have any interest in acting anymore,” he told Men’s Journal. “Movies are a part of my past. It’s been 30 years. I’m not young, but I have time to do something else.” Two years later, Baldwin also revealed that 30 Rock was coming to an end, but NBC execs say the show will go on, with or without the actor. Baldwin has since been toying with the idea of entering the political sphere, telling The Daily Beast in September, “I’m quite confident that I can do whatever all those other men and women have done in order to obtain political office. I don’t think there’s any trick to running a campaign. But can I tailor those opinions and soften them on behalf of a successful campaign? I guess the answer to that is, we’ll see.” But Baldwin may still be on the red carpet in the coming years. In 2012 he has five projects coming out, including the highly anticipated musical Rock of Ages and Woody Allen’s Nero Fiddled.
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Lost star Evangeline Lilly spent six years in a love triangle on a stranded island. And after the series wrapped in 2010, she was seemingly through. “Acting is something I appreciate, and I think it's been an amazing experience," Lilly told E! "But I'm not passionate about acting the way you probably should be to call yourself an actor … I want to have some quiet space … [I want to] drop off the radar a little bit and enjoy a little bit of normalcy again.” She did take a short leave, but Lilly returned to the screen for the surprise box-office hit Real Steel and will next appear in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. In September, she told SFX: “I don’t get harassed anymore and generally speaking I can kind of get away with not too much trouble from the paparazzi … I sort of felt like this is what I was working towards and why I say I’m not going to act anymore—I want this! I want this peace, this normalcy, to visit my family and go for walks on the beach. I’m hoping it lasts because I’m not sure what will happen.”
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Ryan Phillippe has been in the spotlight since he played daytime first’s gay character on One Life to Live at just 18 years old. He went on to become a '90s teen heartthrob in I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions, where he met his future wife, Reese Witherspoon, which eventually led to their high-profile divorce. While promoting The Bang Bang Club in April 2011, the actor said he’d had enough of the business. “It’s so hard to go out in LA. I’m going to move,” Phillippe griped to Page Six about the paparazzi-filled life. “I’m going to spend a third of my year in New York … I think I’m going to end my acting career. I’m so introverted. I'm ready to be behind the scenes. I’m 36, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years." But he’s not done quite yet—Phillippe recently wrapped filming on Straight A’s and Revenge for Jolly! and has joined Chronicle with Justin Long, Ben Foster, and Oscar nominee James Hawkes. “It’s sort of the Wall Street of marijuana distribution,” he told Collider.
It’s hard to believe that 11 years ago, Taylor Momsen played the adorable Cindy Lou Who opposite Jim Carrey in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Though she went on to play the rebel Brooklynite on Gossip Girl, the barely legal, controversial frontwoman of The Pretty Reckless decided to leave the Upper East Side set behind for life on the road. Though it was reported that Momsen had been fired from the show, the 18-year-old actress turned rocker told Elle that she’s the one who opted out. “I quit acting, actually,” nipple-tape proponent Momsen explained. “I quit Gossip Girl and now tour and am in a band and that’s pretty much all I want to do. Hopefully I’ll be able to only do that for the rest of my life.” As of now, her dream is coming true.
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Nicolas Cage didn’t know how busy the following years would be for him when he considered quitting Hollywood in 2008. “Some movie stars look like they are having a ball, but I’m tired of it. It has made me reclusive. That is an increasingly gnawing feeling in my body. When I first started I loved it. One of my frustrations is I have no control,” Cage explained. “For some reason, I piss off the audience. People who like one type of film don’t like to see me in another. Things I did and said early on still haunt me. I started acting at 17, but I’m 44 now and have grown up. I wonder if I am still interesting to watch if I didn’t drink or raise hell, but it’s obnoxious to keep drinking.” Still, Cage kept at it. In 2009 he appeared in Knowing and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and in 2010 he starred in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Cage will reprise one of his roles for a third time in National Treasure 3, which hits theaters in 2014.
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Though 2008 was one of Diane Lane’s biggest—she starred in Untraceable, Nights in Rodanthe, Jumper, and Killshot—the actress announced that three decades on screen was enough for her. She told Extra! that year that she wanted to focus on being at home with her teenage daughter and supporting her star husband, Josh Brolin. “I'm going to be the missus who comes and visits and says, ‘Hi, honey. How's it going?'” she said at the time. “This is what is so amazing about being a wife. I get it now. Mrs. B.” But Lane came out of retirement to star in 2010’s Secretariat and then starred in the 2011 HBO movie Cinema Verite. She will next appear as Superman’s adoptive “Ma,” Martha Kent, in Man of Steel. “I took two years off to be home, and I think that helped me out a lot,” Lane told AV Club in 2010. “I think fun is an important part of the entertainment industry, and it should be. Anybody who’s not incorporating some of that into their work needs to take a break, go away, and have an attitude adjustment. Periodically, I need to do that, because I can get too analytical and in my head, you might have noticed. So yeah, I needed to be home.”
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Shortly before Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino hit theaters in November 2008, the Hollywood triple-threat told reporters that he’d had enough of being on camera. “It'll probably be my last,” he said. “I'll be drummed out of it after this one. Every time you do a movie you think, 'Aw, that's enough of that.' I always feel it's very comfortable to be behind the camera.” It seems as if Eastwood has stuck with his sentiment, directing J. Edgar, Hereafter, and Invictus over the last three years. But that may change. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he is in talks to star in Trouble With the Curve, about an aging baseball scout who goes on a road trip with his adult daughter. Only time will tell if Eastwood returns to the spotlight.
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Phoebe Cates was the object of many young boys’ affections in the '80s after she infamously lost her red bikini top in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But as she grew up, Cates turned her attention to more family-friendly projects like the Gremlins franchise and Drop Dead Fred. Not long after marrying fellow actor Kevin Kline in 1989, she retired from the scene to start a family. Cates raised the couple’s two children, Owen and Greta, and told USA Weekend magazine in 2006 that she still gets acting offers, but isn’t tempted to go back on her decision. “One of us had to do it,” Cates explained.
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