If you spent any time at the movies in the 1990s, you know how big some of those names were. Meg Ryan. Rick Moranis. Joe Pesci. Cameron Diaz. They were everywhere, and then, one by one, they weren’t.
So what happened? The answers, curated by folks at People, are more interesting than you might think. Some chose family over fame. Some found a whole new calling. And a few have quietly found their way back.
They Chose Family First
Rick Moranis is probably the most beloved story on this list. After starring in the Ghostbusters films, Little Shop of Horrors, Spaceballs, and the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids trilogy, Moranis gradually stepped away from acting after his wife Ann Belsky died of breast cancer in 1991. He raised the couple’s two children as a single dad, making only occasional returns to the screen. Now in his 70s, he is set to reprise his role as Lord Dark Helmet in the long-awaited Spaceballs sequel, The New One, due in 2027.
Phoebe Cates, who so many of us remember from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Gremlins, made her last film, Princess Cariboo, in 1994 alongside her husband Kevin Kline. She stepped away to raise their two children, and in 2005 opened a boutique gift store called Blue Tree on Madison Avenue in New York. She has worked successfully in business ever since.
Joan Cusack earned two Oscar nominations in the 1990s, one for Working Girl and one for In & Out, and delivered a now-legendary performance in Addams Family Values. After appearing in School of Rock in 2003, she stepped away from acting to raise her children and quietly opened a gift shop in Chicago called Judy Maxwell Home. She recently made her first red carpet appearance in over a decade, stepping out to promote Toy Story 5, in which she reprises her role as the cowgirl Jessie.
Bridget Fonda, daughter of Peter Fonda and niece of Jane Fonda, had an impressive run of her own in the ’90s, with roles in The Godfather Part III, Single White Female, and Jackie Brown. She stepped back from acting to focus on her family with composer Danny Elfman, also recovering from a car accident that left her with a fractured vertebra. She has not appeared on screen since 2002.
They Reinvented Themselves Entirely
Kate Capshaw, who starred alongside Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, directed by her future husband Steven Spielberg, made a string of films and TV appearances in the 1990s, including Just Cause and How to Make an American Quilt. She retired from acting in the early 2000s and has since built a successful career as a painter, exhibiting her work at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
David Caruso became a household name as Detective John Kelly on NYPD Blue in the ’90s, then stepped away from the series over a reported pay dispute. He eventually returned to television in 2002 with a lead role in CSI: Miami, which ran until 2012. Since then, Caruso has quietly retired from acting and now works in the art world.
Dennis Franz, who played Detective Andy Sipowicz on NYPD Blue for the entire run of the series, earned a Golden Globe and four Emmy Awards for the role. When the show ended in 2005, he almost immediately retired from acting and now leads a quiet life in rural Idaho.
Charlie Korsmo charmed audiences as a child actor in Dick Tracy and Hook in the early 1990s, then walked away from Hollywood altogether. He studied at MIT and Yale, worked as a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency, and is currently a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.
Karyn Parsons, best known as Hilary Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, has continued to act but largely stepped back from the spotlight in the 2000s to focus on her family. In 2005, she established the Sweet Blackberry Foundation, which educates children about African American history and achievement through short films. She has also built a successful career as an author of books for young adults.
Hollywood Wasn’t Always Fair to Them
Linda Fiorentino had a late-1990s surge with starring roles in Men in Black and Dogma, but her career was derailed in the early 2000s following reported on-set difficulties, including a clash with director Kevin Smith, which Smith himself later walked back and largely took responsibility for, more than 20 years later. Fiorentino’s most recent on-screen appearance was in 2009.
Eva Mendes made her acting debut in the late 1990s and went on to star in Training Day, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Hitch, and Ghost Rider before stepping away from acting. “I got tired fighting for the good roles,” she told Variety in 2022. “There just was a point where I thought, ‘I’m going to create my own opportunities and become a producer on things and create my own material.'”
Heather Graham’s supporting role in Boogie Nights made her one of the biggest actresses of the late 1990s, leading to roles in Bowfinger, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and the Jack the Ripper horror film From Hell. She later had a series of encounters with now-disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, and afterward found lead roles hard to come by. She has continued to work in film and television, however, and is set to appear in The White Lotus season 4.
Chris Owen (the Sherminator from American Pie) found roles harder to come by in the 2010s. The New York Daily News reported in 2014 that he was working at a sushi restaurant. “Life doesn’t always go the way you planned,” he said at the time. “I love acting, and this job lets me stay in the fight.” The article, perhaps ironically, led to a flurry of film and TV roles in the 2020s.
They Stepped Back on Their Own Terms
Joe Pesci won an Oscar for Goodfellas and was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1990s, with roles in JFK, My Cousin Vinny, and the Home Alone films. He famously gave one of the shortest Oscar acceptance speeches in history, and later expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the roles he was being offered, choosing instead to focus on music. He remained in semi-retirement for over 20 years before returning in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman in 2019 a role he reportedly turned down some 50 times before saying yes. His performance earned him an Oscar nomination at the age of 76.
Meg Ryan commanded a reported $15 million per role at the height of her career, starring in Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and City of Angels. She largely stepped away from lead roles in the mid-2000s to work on smaller projects and move behind the camera. She made her directorial debut with Ithaca in 2015, and returned to the screen again in 2023’s What Happens Later.
Cameron Diaz, star of The Mask and There’s Something About Mary, quietly retired from acting in the early 2010s to focus on her family, then made a tentative return with the spy thriller Back in Action in 2025.
Shelley Duvall, best remembered for her unforgettable performance in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film The Shining, struggled to find good roles in the 1990s and abandoned acting at the end of the decade when her brother was diagnosed with cancer. She settled into a quieter life in Texas, and made one final return to the screen in 2023’s indie horror film The Forest Hills. Duvall died in 2024 at the age of 75, two years after the Razzie Awards took the rare step of rescinding her Shining nomination, more than four decades after it was originally given.
And Then There Are the Ones Who Came All the Way Back
Lee Evans broke into Hollywood in the late 1990s with roles in The Fifth Element, There’s Something About Mary, and Mouse Hunt, then returned to standup comedy in the UK and became one of the first British comics to sell out an arena tour. At the height of that career, he retired from comedy too, and has worked quietly in theatre and music ever since.
Omri Katz starred in the ’90s supernatural series Eerie, Indiana and the cult Halloween favorite Hocus Pocus, then largely stepped away from acting. He reportedly retired in 2022, though he remains a fan favorite at conventions and regularly reunites with his former castmates.
Mara Wilson, who appeared in Matilda, Miracle on 34th Street, and Mrs. Doubtfire as one of the most in-demand child actresses of the decade, took a hiatus from acting in 2000 to focus on writing and advocacy. She continues to work as a writer and, more recently, as a voice artist and audiobook narrator.
And then there is the story that gives every one of these a hopeful ending. Ke Huy Quan starred in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies in the 1980s, found parts drying up through the 1990s, and stepped away from acting entirely in 2002 to work as an assistant director and stunt coordinator. Approaching 50, he decided to try acting one more time and auditioned for an offbeat sci-fi fantasy called Everything Everywhere All at Once. The film was a critical and box office smash, and earned Quan his first Oscar after a two-decade absence from the screen.
Hollywood is a funny place. Sometimes stepping away is just the beginning of the next chapter.
