Watch:Why Antonio Banderas Felt He “Wasn’t Supposed” to Be Living in Hollywood
There are worse things Stockard Channing could do than enjoy her house.
The Greasealum recently shared rare insight into her life out of the spotlight, detailing how she’s preferred a quiet life within the walls of her home since the death of her partner Daniel Gillhamin 2014
“I’ve lived alone since I lost Daniel and I’m happy being a recluse,” she said in an essay penned for The Sunday Timesand published Aug. 5, adding that the loss of her partner was “more devastating than I realised; it had a lag effect. The pattern of my life shifted, so I shifted my life from Maine.”
Gillham and Channing were together for almost 25 years before his death. The West Wingstar had previously been married to Walter Channing, Paul Schmidt, David Debin and David Rawle before she and Gillham, a cinematographer, met on the set of the 1988 movie A Time of Destiny
As for her past romances, she noted, “They all represent epochs of me. I grew up in the Sixties, reacting to that repressed notion of marriage and sexuality from the Fifties—kinda like Rizzo.”
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The 82-year-old also views her relationships, and the lack of children that came from them, with a similar matter-of-factness
“Children were thought about,” she said, “and, yeah, I think about them now because it’d be great to have someone taking care of me. But hey, children can be just as selfish as everybody else out there.”
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These days, Channing revealed her daily life at home involves lazing in bed with her journal every morning, where she puts her feelings and thoughts to paper, making herself lunch, sometimes opting to “play hooky” from exercise, eating an easy dinner before spending the evening pottering—or, as she described it, “moving things from that pile to that pile.”
And while Channing has refrained from spending too much time in the spotlight in recent years, she reprised her witchy role of Aunt Frances for Practical Magic 2, also starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey Kingand Maisie Williams
“Different age groups recognise me from different characters,” she said. “For younger girls it’s Practical Magic, for grown-ups it’s The West Wing, and for real grown-ups it’s Grease.”
“I guess films are like songs: they take you back to a particular time in your life,” she reflected. “Maybe a more innocent time.”
Looking ahead, while she’s directing a show in Edinburgh this year, she’s not rushing back to the screen.
“I’m not sure I’ll do anything after that,” she said. “Acting is like everything in life; you never know what’s going to happen.”
For more stars like Channing who have opted to build their lives outside the Hollywood bubble, read on.
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“It changed the way I look at life,” Antonio told The Times in March 2026. “Faced with death, it made me look back and realise that I am, in fact, a theater actor.”
Now, the Tony nominee—who still occasionally takes on TV and film projects—owns a theater venue and gets involved with the local community.
“I have never been so happy,” he continued. “It keeps me in touch with my roots, my neighbourhood, my people. I haven’t lost that connection over the years. Quite the opposite.”
“I realized I worked all four years through our first child and it was really hard,” Cuthbert confessed in June 2026 during an appearance on Today, “to separate that mom from the working person I was. So, when we had our second, I just felt like I didn’t want to waste any second of it and I didn’t want to be on set.”
The 43-year-old—best known for starring in ’00s films like Old School as well as hit TV shows including 24 and Happy Endings—added, “I just felt like I needed to be at home with the kids and I enjoyed every minute.”
“I came here chasing a dream that I am still shocked worked out,” she wrote on Instagram. “And I also got to raise babies in the sun and the mountains and enjoy this beautiful home and attend public schools ?? Pinch me I’m overwhelmed by the blessings and hope, really hope I gave enough back. LA will always be where my family is from.”
Ellen returned to the spotlight for her final standup special For Your Approval, which released on Netflix in September 2024. During the lead-up to that special, she revealed she would be leaving Hollywood altogether.
“This is the last time you’re going to see me,” she told a crowd during her Ellen’s Last Stand…Up tour, per SFGate. “After my Netflix special, I’m done.”
Ellen and her wife Portia de Rossi have since moved to the Cotswolds, deciding to stay put in November 2024 after Donald Trump’s reelection, the talk show host told to Richard Bacon in a July 2025 conversation at the Everyman theater in Cheltenham.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she gushed about the English countryside, per the BBC. “We’re just not used to seeing this kind of beauty. The villages and the towns and the architecture—everything you see is charming and it’s just a simpler way of life.
“It’s clean,” Ellen continued. “Everything here is just better—the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here. We moved here in November, which was not the ideal time, but I saw snow for the first time in my life. We love it here. Portia flew her horses here, and I have chickens, and we had sheep for about two weeks.”
“I was like, ‘What if I never fall in love? What if this never happens?'” the Mean Girls star added. “And it took me just taking time for me for all those doors to open and the ‘yeses’ to come—the things I wanted to say ‘yes’ to.”Of course, Lindsay did find love with Bader Shammas, the pair marrying in 2022 and welcoming son Luai the following year. They still live in Dubai, but the Freaky Friday actress hasn’t left the Hollywood industry completely, starring in movies like Our Little Secret, Irish Wish and Freakier Friday.
“I had the means to shift directions and choose a course in my life that focused on healing myself so that I could help heal others,” she told Boston Magazine. “I would be remiss if I didn’t now share the transformation and the peace and the passion that I have. This is just absolutely so clearly my real calling, my real purpose.”
“I miss my other kids,” she said in a video on TikTok. “I miss my friends. I miss many things about life there at home and I’m trying to find a home here in in this beautiful country. And when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back.”
“I am so filled with joy and contentment today as I live out my vision,” Evangeline wrote on Instagram in June 2024. “I feel so grateful for my blessings. Stepping away from what seems like the obvious choice (wealth and fame) can feel scary at times, but stepping into your dharma replaces the fear with fulfillment.”
But she isn’t necessarily shutting the door, either, adding, “I might return to Hollywood one day, but, for now, this is where I belong.”
“I stepped away from acting a little over four years ago to raise my kids, build my companies and get these films launched,” Ian, who shares two children with wife Nikki Reed, told E! News in November 2023 of launching the 2020 documentary Kiss the Ground and its follow up Common Ground, each detailing the need for regenerative farming.
When he looks years down the road, the actor continued, “I will be a rancher and building legacy brands, whether it’s my bourbon or my health and wellness company, and the regenerative agriculture and healthy soil management practices that I live by and our family lives by. That’s where my life was going. So when people say ‘Why do you care?’ That’s why I care. Because that’s who I am, that’s what I’m going to become.”
“My experience with acting is, I’m so ashamed of the parts I’ve done in the past,” revealed Jennette, who detailed her experience in her 2022 memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died. “I resent my career in a lot of ways. I feel so unfulfilled by the roles that I played and felt like it was the most cheesy, embarrassing. I did the shows that I was on from like 13 to 21, and by 15, I was already embarrassed. My friends at 15, they’re not like, ‘Oh, cool, you’re on this Nickelodeon show.’ It was embarrassing.”
Though she hasn’t totally written off a second act. “I do feel like only through writing the book have I gotten to a place where I think there might be a way of exploring acting that doesn’t carry that baggage that I carried with me for so long,” she told E! News in October 2022. “Maybe if I write something for myself. I think that’d really be maybe one of the only ways I could kind of try exploring it again.”
Following the path Grace Kelly took from Hollywood to the Palace of Monaco, Meghan left behind her home in Toronto—and her breakout role on Suits—for a life in The Firm. Though, now that she and Harry have shed their senior roles and live in Montecito, Calif., she’s edging back into the business thanks to business moves like their multi-year production deal with Netflix. The Duchess of Sussex released her 2022 docuseries Harry & Meghan as well as her 2025 lifestyle show With Love, Meghan on the streaming service. She’s also launched podcasts and her brand As Ever.
“I just decided that I wanted different things out of my life,” she explained to pal Gwyneth Paltrow of her ultimate act of self-care. “I had gone so hard for so long, working, making films and it’s such a grind. When you’re making a movie—it’s a perfect excuse—they own you. You’re there for 12 hours a day for months on end and you have no time for anything else.”
And there was plenty more she’d like to explore, from writing (she followed up her 2013 New York Times best-seller The Body Book with 2016’s The Longevity Book) to starting a family with husband Benji Madden. But while Cameron confessed to InStyle in 2019, “I don’t miss performing. Right now I’m looking at the landscape of wellness and all that,” apparently she could be swayed into making at least one encore.
“We just begged and pleased on my knees, like, ‘Just give the people one more again,'” Jamie Foxx told E! News of getting Cameron to sign on for the 2025 Netflix film Back in Action. “We love her, we’ve been waiting on her and this is just gonna be fantastic.”
And though he returned to set for a handful of projects, the Oscar nominee again announced his plans to quit acting while promoting his Peacock series The Best Man: The Final Chapters in 2022. “I’ve gotten to the point where now I’ve given the very best that I have as an actor,” he told ET. “Now I’m enjoying watching other new talent come around, and I don’t want to do an impersonation of myself.”
Despite these comments, though, Howard has since appeared in a few more shows and movies, including the TV series Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist and Netflix film Shirley, with multiple projects lined up in the future.
No longer a child star, a bit of the magic had worn off. “Now there’s the prospect of doing it for a living, whereas up until now it was always something I did for recreation with my friends, or in the summer for some fun,” Jack continued. “I enjoyed it. When you make a living from something, it changes your relationship with it. It’s not like I hate it, it’s just not what I want to do.”
But after a six-year break, he was ready to resume his reign, joining the cast of BBC’s series Out of Her Mind in 2020. Since then, Jack has also appeared in movies like Rebecca’s Boyfriend and In the Land of Saints and Sinners as well as TV shows like Safe Harbor and The Famous Five.
However, he continued, “whenever it’s been her slot to work, Phoebe has chosen to stay with the children.” Though she made a cameo in pal Jennifer Jason Leigh’s 2001 indie The Anniversary Party, Cates devotes most of her time to operating her New York City boutique Blue Tree.
Though Rick hasn’t had a live-action movie role since 1997, even passing on a cameo in Paul Feig’s 2016 Ghostbusters remake, he’s remained a treasured cultural icon, as evidenced by the outrage over reports that he’d been assaulted while walking in New York City in 2020.Thankfully there’s good news for fans: He’ll make his triumphant return alongside Josh Gad in the forthcoming Disney reboot Shrunk.
Her decision was solidified after son Martin joined older sister Louisanna in 2014. “I don’t do movie stuff anymore. I am totally an outsider! I … am just a mom and an outsider,” she noted to Us Weekly at a 2016 event, explaining that she helps Kimmel with his business and paints on the side. “I am just focused on my kids. I think that’s mainly why I stopped.”
“I was approaching 45 and I just kind of…was wondering is there something that I could tackle now that I’ve never done before that would be really challenging and different,” she explained on wife Ellen DeGeneres’ eponymous talk show in 2018. “I kind of knew what acting would look like for me for the next 10, 20 years, so I decided to quit and start a business.”
Her consumer-art company, General Public, already a work in progress, she had just one piece to finish.
“I called Mitch Hurwitz, who’s the creator of Arrested Development and I said, ‘If there is a season 5, I won’t be doing it because I quit acting. And he seemed really understanding and he totally got it. We had a great conversation, and then he wrote me into five episodes.”
But just when Daniel thought he was out, his son pulled him back in. In October 2024, production company Focus Features announced the Oscar winner would star in Anemone, the film he wrote alongside son Ronan Day-Lewis (who will also direct).
And as if that weren’t enough, Bridgit launched her own startup Northwood Space, which aims to build ground satellite stations to help send and receive data from space, becoming CEO of the brand in February 2023.
