Why did Rick Moranis quit acting?
In the 1980s and ’90s, one of the biggest names in comedy was a nebbish, bespectacled Canadian who charmed audiences and made them laugh hysterically in equal measure. Rick Moranis was a true genius of mirth-making, and his turns as Louis Tully in the Ghostbusters franchise and Wayne Szalinski in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids series imprinted him on a generation as a genuinely beloved figure. Then, in ’97, when he was theoretically at the top of his game, Moranis walked away from Hollywood and hasn’t been seen in a live-action movie role since.
The question of why Moranis stopped acting puzzled fans for years, although he has given rare interviews over the years where he played down the idea that there’s any great mystery to it. Before going any further, though, it’s worth mentioning that Moranis didn’t completely quit acting as a whole. In the years since his final on-camera part, he has been fairly active in voicework, lending his talents to animated movies like Brother Bear and shows such as Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Kids, as well as Bob & Doug, an animated sitcom based on the popular sketch characters he co-created on the Canadian sketch show SCTV.
In truth, Moranis disappearing from movie screens was simply a case of him wanting to raise his family, instead of working all the time. In 1991, his wife Ann Belsky tragically passed away from breast cancer, and he tried to muddle through with acting for the next few years. However, it eventually got to the point where he declined a movie role because the shoot would have taken him away from his two children as their school year was beginning. In 2015, he told The Hollywood Reporter that retirement “wasn’t a formal decision” and shrugged, “Stuff happens to people all the time, and people make adjustments, change careers, move to another city. Really, that’s all I did.”
To Moranis, his decision to leave the glitz and glamour of Hollywood behind wasn’t one he agonised over, and he also never thought of it as a big deal. In a rare 2013 podcast appearance on Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, Moranis theorised that people only find it interesting because of his fame. “The decision, in my case, to become a stay-at-home dad, which people do all the time,” mused Moranis, “I guess wouldn’t have meant as much to people if I had had a very simple kind of make-a-living existence and decided I needed to spend more time at home.”
What was Rick Moranis’ last movie?
Moranis’ admirable desire to be in his children’s lives instead of travelling the world as a movie star meant that his final live-action movie appearance came in 1997’s Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. This was the third entry in the franchise that saw scientist Szalinski get into all sorts of wacky mishaps thanks to the pesky electromagnetic shrink ray he invented. The film was the first ever live-action Disney film to bypass the cinema entirely and be released direct-to-video, where it sold 1.5 million copies in its first month.
Over the years, Moranis has been asked a few times whether he’d be interested in returning to the world of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. He admitted to The Hollywood Reporter in 2016 that he was genuinely surprised that Disney hadn’t already approached him about the logical sequel idea Honey, I Shrunk the Grandkids but admitted he had no interest in returning. In fact, he confirmed, “I’m happy with the things I said yes to, and I’m very happy with the many things I’ve said no to. Yes, I am picky and I’ll continue to be picky.”
What was Rick Moranis’ most recent appearance onscreen?
Fast-forward to 2020, though, and Moranis’ retirement took a twist. It was announced that he would, in fact, return as Szalinski in Shrunk, a sequel helmed by original Honey, I Shrunk the Kids director Joe Johnston. It was reported that Josh Gad would be starring as Szalinski’s son, a scientist who wants to emulate his father but also winds up shrinking his children. Sadly, though, by 2023, with no forward momentum on the project, Gad announced it had been put on indefinite hold.
With Shrunk failing to reach the screen, Moranis’ most recent on-screen appearance actually occurred in a 2020 TV advert. In a fairly amusing spot for Mint Mobile, Ryan Reynolds talks about how the phone provider had gone too long without an unlimited customer plan. However, now that it was introducing one, it wanted to borrow the goodwill of an actor everyone had gone too long without: Moranis. Proving he still has comedy in his bones, Moranis then ambles out beside Reynolds and acts bemused when he finds out he’s not actually there to do anything important. Instead, the Deadpool star just wanted him there because he’s such a big fan.
