Author: Kristen Harris

Facts About Asian And Pacific Islander Celebs

There are so many incredible Asian and Pacific Islander (API) celebs we have to thank for our favorite movies, TV shows, and songs!

2.

Ken Jeong used to be a doctor! He was a pre-med major at Duke University. He went to UNC-Chapel Hill for medical school then practiced medicine for several years before going into acting full-time. Taking a drama class sophomore year inspired him to double major in drama, but he ultimately dropped the idea on his dad’s advice. However, his dad gave him an ultimatum — if he got into medical school, he’d “give him the opportunity to develop his hobby and go anywhere in the world to develop his hobby.” Ken continued doing college theater on the side, then during the summer between undergrad and medical school, his dad paid for him to take theater classes at UCLA.

During medical school, he got into stand-up comedy. It paid off — he won an important comedy contest during his residency at a New Orleans hospital. His medical experience actually helped him land his breakout role as Dr. Kuni in 2007’s Knocked Up. Around the time the movie premiered, he decided to pursue entertainment full-time.

3.

It’s been reported that Jason Momoa won Hawaii’s Model of the Year contest in 1999, but he actually “made that shit up.” He told Square Mile, “When I was in Hawaii, I went to a casting call for Baywatch Hawaii – it was basically like a cattle call for 1,300 people. I got there, and seven hours later, when I finally got to the front of the line, they said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to have a resume.’ I was like, ‘Oh yeah, well, I don’t have one.’ They were like, ‘Dude, have you ever acted?’ I was like, ‘No,’ and they were like, ‘Have you modeled?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m a big model. I do Gucci and Louis Vuitton.”

He continued, “And I’m looking at my friend, and I’m like, ‘You did Prada, right?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, we did that in Japan.’ So we were just kind of making it up on the spot…Yeah, we just kind of bullshitted our way in, and then I met some managers down there; they kind of made up some stuff for me, like, ‘Hawaii Model of the Year’. We basically just did head shots of me and said, ‘Hey he’s the model of the year.’ We just made it up…Well, it kind of stayed on there. It’s like, when I finished Baywatch, all I had was Baywatch, and you’ve got to have something more credible. So we just left it on.”

4.

Lana Condor made a “no dating each other” pact with her To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before costar Noah Centineo. She told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, “We had just got back from a hot yoga class, and we went to his apartment and we ordered pizza. And it’s kinda like, ‘Oh, hot yoga, pizza, what’s happening?’ It was right before we shot the movie — just getting to know each other. And I felt something…I said, ‘Noah, it’s not going to happen between us.’ Because I felt that, for the show to do well, we had to be best friend professionals…We kind of did what we did in To All The Boys, the movie. We made a contract and set boundaries. I’m so happy that we did that, because the movie turned out great.”

5.

In The Acolyte, Manny Jacinto’s secondary role, The Stranger, was originally meant to be significantly smaller. Showrunner Leslye Headland told Inverse, “This is an interesting tidbit: Originally, even up until shooting, The Stranger was not in a lot of the rest of the season. He was much more of a tee-up for a second season arc. But I saw Manny’s screen test early on in pre-production, and I just thought, ‘There will be riots in the streets if I don’t [go further]. Here we go. I guess I’m rewriting an episode.’ Manny was so impressive in every aspect.”

6.

Taika Waititi’s legal name is actually Taika Cohen. Cohen is his mother’s last name, and Waiti is his father’s. He told Cultural Daily, “It’s really because — both my parents are in the arts. My mother is a writer and a schoolteacher; my father is a painter. Growing up I was doing a lot of acting and stuff. And because Cohen is on my passport, I would use Cohen through school, and I was known as Taika Cohen. And then, when I went to live with my dad on that side of the family, I was known as Waititi. So I always used both names throughout my life according to where I was living.”

“As a painter, I often felt like that was more the Waititi side of myself; I would be Taika Waititi as the painter. And then, because I made my first short film in that area where I was known as Waititi, that was the name that was put on the film. And that film did really well and suddenly I had a career as a filmmaker, and now everyone knows me as Waititi. It’s not like I’m running away from Cohen or anything, it just happened. And I’m still Taika Cohen on all my of legal documents,” he said.

7.

Simone Ashley is a self-taught amateur tattoo artist. On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, she said, “I’ve tattooed myself. I’ve tattooed castmates I’ve worked with before.”

She followed an inmate’s YouTube tutorials for prison tattoos and gave herself this ankle tattoo of a sphynx cat:

8.

Michelle Yeoh’s Oscar-winning role in Everything Everywhere All at Once was originally written for Jackie Chan. She told CNN, “It was written for a man when [directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert] set out to do this. They wrote it that way, with Jackie, and me as the wife. So, the roles were completely reversed. I remember Jackie texting me and saying, ‘Congratulations! You know your boys came to see me first. I’m like, ‘Thank you, bro, you did me a huge favor.'”

9.

When Jackie Chan was a kid, his parents fled to Hong Kong, abandoning him and his siblings in mainland China. Through research for the documentary Traces of a Dragon: Jackie Chan and His Lost Family, he discovered that his dad had been a gang leader and Nationalist spy, and his mom had been a well-known gambler, opium smuggler, and part of Shanghai’s underworld. As part of the documentary, he got to meet his dad, who told him that he met his mom when he arrested her for drug smuggling. Jackie also learned of his two half-brothers and two half-sisters.

10.

Unlike her The Suite Life of Zack and Cody character, Brenda Song is super smart in real life — in fact, she got into Harvard at only 15! However, she turned it down to take the role of London Tipton. She told W Magazine, “My mom got breast cancer for the first time, I booked Suite Life, and I was accepted into the college I’d always wanted to go to. My dad, who’s a schoolteacher, sat me down and said, ‘Here’s the thing. You have an amazing opportunity if acting is what you want to do. Education is the most important thing. You go to college to figure out what you want to do, but if this is what you want to do, you have an opportunity to do it.”

11.

On The Ellen Show, Simu Liu shared that, long before he was cast as the lead in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, his first job involved dressing up as another Marvel hero — Spider-Man!

Here’s the full clip, with this part starting at the nine-minute mark:

View this video on YouTube

A Very Good Production / Telepictures Productions / Warner Bros. Television / Via youtube.com

12.

In 2022, KJ Apa was designated the matai title Savae of Moata’a, the Samoan village where his family is from. He followed the legacy of his father and grandfather, who also held the chief title. When KJ appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! back in 2021, he discussed the possibility of one day holding a matai title. At the time, he said, “I would think it’s a huge responsibility. I don’t really feel adequate, to be honest, but I doubt myself in almost everything that I do.”

13.

Saweetie has a famous cousin — Gabrielle Union! Specifically, Saweetie’s dad is Gabrielle’s first cousin. Saweetie told Us Weekly, “Honestly, I didn’t really connect with her until I was older, but I have to say, when I was a young girl, I would be so shy around her because she’s always been so beautiful. So bright…She’s always just had this really bright light about herself, so I’m happy to call her my cousin.”

Saweetie is also related to MC Hammer. He’s her first cousin once removed. She told Billboard that he’s “inspired [her] to be a hard worker” because he’s “put [his] years in.” She said, “So hopefully, I can follow in their path and make a legacy of my own.”

14.

Mindy Kaling goes by her middle name, which was inspired by Robin Williams’s breakout TV show. She told the Improper Bostonian, “No one’s ever called me Vera [her first name]. I’ve been Mindy since I was born. When my Mom was pregnant, my parents were living in Nigeria and wanted a cute American name, because they were moving here, and they knew Mindy from Mork & Mindy. Vera isn’t just an old Russian lady’s name, it’s an incarnation of a Hindu goddess. But they never called me it.”

15.

Jade Thirlwall’s Little Mix bandmate Perrie Edwards famously dated Zayn Malik, but Jade had her own romantic liaison with another One Direction member! Jade told The Louis Theroux Podcast that she and Harry Styles “went on like one date” when they were about 16. It was around the time he was put in One Direction on The X Factor. They “kept in touch” until he ghosted her.

She said, “Then the minute they went on live shows, he didn’t message me back, and I thought, ‘That’s it now, he’s gone, he’s made it.’ And then I made it [on The X Factor] the next year, and then I saw him in the room after, and he was like, ‘I’m really sorry that I ignored you.’..I was so young, it didn’t really matter. But he was always very, very lovely.”

16.

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan learned how to play the harp for Never Have I Ever, so when the series wrapped, she took the instrument home! She told People, “Well, I took the harp. I picked it up, put it in the plane, flew it back to Canada. No, no, no. Thankfully, production was really helpful in helping me take the harp home.”

17.

On The Jennifer Hudson Show, Nicole Scherzinger revealed that the worst thing that’s ever happed to her while performing was when she split her pants seconds before performing on The X Factor with Justin Bieber.

Thankfully, her talented seamstress was able to do a super quick repair.

18.

Ms. Marvel star Iman Vellani has written for the Ms. Marvel comics. She made her comics debut co-writing the miniseries Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant with Sabir Pirzada, who also penned an episode of the TV show.

19.

Mitski loves ghost stories. She told Dazed, “I’ve loved them since I was a kid. When I was a kid, I used to collect them, and then I would go to my classmates and be like, ‘Do you wanna hear a ghost story?’ And they’d be like, ‘No.’ The one that scared me the most was ‘Toire no Hanako-san,’ which is — Hanko is a Japanese girl’s name, and it’s just about the girl in the toilet. It’s never explained why there is a girl ghost in the bathroom, and she just haunts the toilet. And it’s really scary when you’re a kid, and you’re going to the bathroom alone. And you’re just alone in the toilet stall and thinking, ‘There’s gonna be a ghost!’ I used to think, like, a hand would come out of the toilet bowl and just grab my butt. I don’t know what it would do once it grabbed my butt, but I was afraid of the grabbing.”

20.

Randall Park learned how to do the card trick in Wandavision himself. He told Polygon, “Oh, no, that was not movie magic. That was me. I learned it. It took a couple of days, I believe. But I learned how to do it, and I think I mastered it at the time. I don’t think I botched too many takes. Maybe a couple, maybe a couple here and there, but for the most part, I think I nailed it.”

21.

Vanessa Hudgens believes she has the ability to see and hear the paranormal. On The Kelly Clarkson Show, she said, “I’ve accepted the fact that, like, I see things and I hear things.”

22.

H.E.R. — whose real name is Gabi Wilson — kept her true identity a secret at the start of her career. However, the day after her debut album was released, Genius uncovered her real name by finding a cover of “Jungle” by Drake — which was on the album — that she’d previously released as Gabi Wilson. But RCA Records didn’t confirm her identity until Forbes reached out a year later.

23.

When Henry Golding was 21, he left his job as a hairdresser in the UK so could try to make it in the TV industry in Malaysia. As a presenter, he hosted shows like The 8TV Quickie, Welcome to the Railworld Malaysia, and The Travel Show. Though he had no prior acting experience, he knew an accountant who was working in the Malaysian production department of Crazy Rich Asians. When director Jon M. Chu struggled to find a leading man, she recommended Henry as the perfect person.

24.

Constnce Wu has a pet bunny named Lida Rose. She told Refinery 29, “Bunnies are kind of like cats: They groom themselves. But you don’t want them to swallow too much hair because, unlike a cat, the bunnies don’t have hairballs, they can’t spit it up. I’ll brush her with a flea comb, not because she has fleas, but just because it gets the excess hair out. She pretty much keeps herself clean. I might give her a bath once every six months or so, but she’s pretty low-maintenance in terms of cleanliness…. She’s got a litter box and everything — just like a cat.”

25.

Nico Santos’s audition for Mateo in Superstore changed the way the character was written. He told Oregon Live, “It was written as a straight Latino guy, a thug. Then they saw me for the role, and now we’re here!” Landing the role also led to interesting fan interactions. He said, “People stop me at Target, and they’re like, ‘Are you here for research?’ No, girl! I’m here for dish soap and paper towels.”

26.

At the beginning of her career, Drew Afualo worked for the NFL, creating social media content meant to appeal to women. She told Onward State, “I emphasized sports [in college] because I wanted to be one of the few women to go into sports journalism. Specifically, I was trying to re-gentrify the space.” However, she was allegedly let go because they thought she couldn’t bring in a large following — which obviously couldn’t be more wrong! Drew said, “Man, I love being right, but even in that specific instance, it was ironic because I really was meant to target women, and I clearly know how to target women.”

27.

When Mean Girls (2024) was released, Avantika, who played Karen Shetty, watched it in theaters on her own so she could see what other people thought of it. She told Vogue India, “I’m going for a 7.30 p.m. show all by myself because I want to know how the audience reacts to my role in real-time.”

28.

Ambika Mod sleeps with her eyes open. On The Graham Norton Show, she said, “Mostly, it’s not fully. It’s usually just like…” then she demonstrated. She said that she’s slept that way since she was a baby.

29.

In a YouTube video, Bretman Rock and Bella Poarch revealed that they’re cousins.

30.

Jameela Jamil’s first “big splurge” was a three-day trip to Paris with her roommate — but she made a surprising fashion choice. She told Elle, “But sadly, at the time, I had agreed for charity to wear a chicken costume for 30 days…For every £1,000 I raised, I was gonna wear a chicken suit for that £1,000. And so, unfortunately, on my first, like, trip to Paris, I had to go dressed fully as a chicken. And they could not be snobbier. Like, they couldn’t be, like, less up for a chicken suit in, like Paris.”

31.

Olivia Munn was born in the US, but she spent the majority of her childhood and teen years in Tokyo because she was in a military family. She told Rogue Magazine, “I was there from age 8 to about 16. The hardest thing for me was going from Japan to Oklahoma. I was so used to my life. In Japan, we lived on a military base, but I spent my youth running around the streets of Tokyo with my brothers and sisters and friends, from Roppongi to Harajuku.”

32.

Bella Hadid is actually a natural blonde, but she dyed her hair brunette, partially to separate herself from her famous sister, Gigi. In 2016, she told Allure, “I just have a darker personality. And my sister being blonde and me being brunette, it’s a good separation. I put a blonde wig on and think it would be fun to go back, but I’m happy with my hair. Blondes are so angelic. My sister can get away with anything.”

However, Bella has gone back to blonde on multiple occassions.

33.

Dev Patel’s film Monkey Man was largely filmed on an island in Indonesia with the crew in a “bubble” during the pandemic. Such a location challenged him to do a lot of creative problem solving, such as occasionally using GoPros and his cellphone to film. He also attached a camera to a rope to swing it over a crowd. On the day he used the rope, a studio exec was visiting set, so Dev tasked Jomon Thomas, his producing partner, with distracting him. Dev told Rolling Stone, “[It] wasn’t something that I think that person would have signed off on.”

34.

Accepting the role of Eliza Schuyler in Hamilton led Phillipa Soo to meet her husband, Steven Pasquale. He’s close friends with Hamilton writer Lin-Manuel Miranda. Phillippa met Steven while in rehearsals for the musical. They got married in 2017.

35.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was born in the US, but, as a kid, he lived in New Zealand alongside his mom’s family, where he attended primary school and played rugby. He also reportedly got dual Canadian citizenship in 2009 through his dad, who’s from Nova Scotia.

36.

When Ali Wong first moved to New York City to pursue a stand-up comedy career, she regularly performed up to NINE TIMES in a single night. Between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m., she’d do her set, head to the next venue, then repeat.

37.

Hayley Kiyoko’s parents have really interesting jobs! Her mom, Sarah Kawahara, is a figure skater-turned-ice skating choreographer. She won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Choreography – the first in 1997 for Scott Hamilton: Upside Down, and the second in 2002 for the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. She was also Margot Robbie’s skating coach for I, Tonya. Hayley’s dad, Jamie Alcroft, is an actor/comedian who was one-half of the comedy duo Mack & Jamie. He’s also known for his voice acting works in video games, TV, and movies.

38.

On Call Her Daddy, Zayn Malik said he has “a lot of animals” — three turtles, six chickens, three cats, and three dogs. He also said that he adopted the first chickens he had to rescue them from being slaughtered.

39.

When Barbie made Fifth Harmony dolls, Dinah Jane’s doll was the first modern Polynesian Barbie. On the Real Gems With Erin Ashley Simon podcast, she said, “All my first cousins, all my girl cousins, were like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have a Dinah Jane Barbie. I wanna be Dinah!’ And just hearing that made me so proud to be Tongan, just to be an Islander. I knew it wasn’t just me, but other younger Islander girls who were proud to be like, ‘That’s me.’ Just to see that for myself and hear it for myself, it made me realize, ‘Damn. I definitely have responsibility here, and I’m sticking to it.'”

40.

And finally, despite being allergic to cats, Auli’i Cravalho has a rescue cat named Rocco, whom she walks on a leash. She told Just Jared Jr., “I take road trips with my cat Rocco. I adopted Rocco from a publicist friend of mine who found him under her house! After nearly a year of him climbing my curtains and eating everything he could (carpet, clothing, shoe strings, plants, paper, etc.), I realized he needed more stimulation and exercise than just the toys at home. Now we go to the park, he walks on a leash, and he travels across state (and international) lines with me! And, most importantly, he sleeps through the night – lol.”

Check out more AAPI-centered content by exploring how BuzzFeed celebrates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! Of course, the content doesn’t end after May. Follow BuzzFeed’s A*Pop on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to keep up with our latest AAPI content year-round.

’90s Stars Who Quit Hollywood

Plenty of performers who rose to fame in the ’90s went on to become household names. Others, however, faded from the spotlight, choosing to pursue more “normal” careers or low-key lifestyles instead.

Here are 22 ’90s stars who ditched Hollywood:

1.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas exited Home Improvement before the series ended, appearing in only three episodes of the final season. Trading acting for academia, he attended Columbia, Harvard, and St. Andrew’s University. In 2013, he told People, “I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old. I wanted to go to school, to travel, and have a bit of a break…To sit in a big library amongst books and students — that was pretty cool. It was a novel experience for me.”

He went on to work mainly as a director and voice actor. However, he’s done a few small acting roles over the years, most notably guest-starring on his former co-star Tim Allen’s show, Last Man Standing. Tim is open to having JTT return for his new show, Shifting Gears. He told Us Weekly, “Everything is a possibility. He just came back [to the last episode we filmed]. He showed up on the set…He’s literally my kid. I raised that kid for eight years on Home Improvement. All of these are my kids, and I’m kind of sick about this.”

2.

After The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ended, Karyn Parsons had trouble finding roles because of the lack of opportunities for actors of color at the time. She co-created her own sitcom, Lush Life, but it was canceled after only four episodes because the new Fox studios execs decided to pull the plug on all the new comedies at the time. Eventually, she moved to NYC, where she met her husband and started a family. She told Vice, “My interests were changing. It became very difficult to do everything, to memorize lines for a part and have to get someone to last-minute watch the kids — to race across town and do all that, and if you got a call back, do it again. I’d find myself dropping the ball a lot.”

She switched her focus to writing. Then, in 2005, she founded Sweet Blackberry, a nonprofit that teaches kids about the lesser-known aspects of Black history. She said, “When I was pregnant with my daughter, that’s when I started really thinking about what are they going to teach her in school, and what am I supposed to teach her? How do I supplement her education as a parent? As I was talking a lot about Black history and stories that you don’t hear about, my husband was like, ‘You need to do this.'”

3.

In 1997, Rick Moranis took a step back from acting to focus on his kids after his wife, Anna, died from breast cancer. In 2015, he told The Hollywood Reporter, “I took a break, which turned into a longer break. But I’m interested in anything that I would find interesting. I still get the occasional query about a film or television role…I was working with really interesting people, wonderful people [in Hollywood]. I went from that to being at home with a couple of little kids, which is a very different lifestyle. But it was important to me. I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever. My life is wonderful.”

At no point did he actually consider himself “retired” from acting, but shifting his focus was important for his family. He said, “It wasn’t a formal decision. It began in an already busy year, where I declined a film that was being shot out of town as the school year was beginning. But I was fortunate to be able to continue to make a living writing and doing voice work in Manhattan.” He was reportedly set to reprise the role of Wayne Szalinski in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids sequel Shrunk, but according to lead actor Josh Gad on Twitter, production has stalled multiple times.

4.

Omri Katz told Bronx Buds, “I left the industry not too long after Hocus Pocus and kind of never really looked back.” He also told Bloody Disgusting, “I grew up in the industry, so that’s kind of all I knew. I think I was soul searching and wanted more of a human experience; just see what else is out there, see the world, and be normal. I didn’t really have that growing up.” However, he returned to LA after spending time surfing, snowboarding, and traveling. He said, “I wanted to get back into acting for all the wrong reasons — to make money so I could escape again — and that didn’t work out too well. I had to get a real job, the first one in my life!”

He worked as a hairdresser until he transitioned to the cannabis industry. He said, “Obviously, I had to be discreet, stay under the radar, but I’ve been doing it ever since. I have my own brand called The Mary Danksters. We’re doing everything the legal way, and I’m really excited to see where this industry takes me. It’s been a tough thing to navigate, but I feel confident that I’ve got something to contribute.”

5.

After roles became harder to come by, American Pie actor Chris Owen took a job as a server at a Santa Monica sushi restaurant. In 2014, he told the New York Daily News, “Life doesn’t always go the way you planned. I love acting, and this job lets me stay in the fight…I get recognized a lot. I walk up to the table and see the look in their eyes…People get excited, and it feels good. I like connecting with people for that brief moment in time.”

He’s continued acting, most recently appearing in the movie Money Game.

6.

Yasmeen Ghauri left the modeling world behind in the mid-90s, per Vogue. After retiring from the catwalk, she married and started a family with Ralph Bernstein. She went on to be an advocate for breast cancer research and environmental causes.

7.

Following a decline in music sales, Vanilla Ice decided to turn to house flipping after he made a major profit selling off the homes he’d purchased when his rap career took off. In 2014, he told the New York Daily News, “I thought, ‘Is it that easy to make money?'” He returned to school to study design and construction, then went on to balance his music career with his contractor career. He said, “I’m a weekend rocker. Monday, it’s back to work.”

In the 2010s, he hosted two DIY reality shows — The Vanilla Ice Project and Vanilla Ice Goes Amish.

8.

According to the Independent, Bridget Fonda retired from acting in 2002. She had actually signed on to a recurring role on The Practice in 2003, but after “miraculously” surviving a car accident a few weeks before the series went into production, she was replaced. In 2023, she reportedly told a paparazzo at an airport that she wouldn’t return to acting because “it’s too nice being a civilian.”

Here’s a slightly more recent picture of her from 2009.

9.

In 1997, following his declaration of bankruptcy and the death of his friend Tupac Shakur, MC Hammer reconnected with his Christian faith. He was ordained as a minister in the Church of God in Christ. Soon after, he began leading his own “Hammertime” hip-hop gospel prayer services. In 2000, he told the LA Times, “Whether the bankruptcy played any role in my refocusing, that’s great. Hallelujah, I hope it did! But the most important part of what occurred to me was love, missing the love of God in the way that I had known it…I ran from being a preacher! I didn’t want to be a preacher. I knew that once I became a preacher that I would be held to more responsibilities. I already had a burden to my community.”

Here’s a more recent picture of him.

10.

In 2000, Matilda star Mara Wilson left acting, shifting her focus to writing instead. In 2016, she told NPR, “There wasn’t like one big moment where I knew I was done. … The rejection hurt because it had been just such a prominent part of my life for so long. It had been the thing that defined me. I remember in college, I would sleep through my acting classes — I would self-sabotage — because I was so afraid to let people see me as an actor. I was at NYU, and I knew there were a lot of good actors there, and the thing about acting classes is you’re playing parts you don’t usually play. … [You have to] not be afraid to make mistakes. Well, I was terrified; I was frozen with fear.”

She continued, “That’s when I started focusing more on writing. Writing I’d always loved. Even on the sets of various movies, I would always be in my trailer writing stories — usually very similar to whatever Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary or Bruce Coville book I was reading at the time — but I loved to write. I started writing dialogue, and I started doing performance pieces — like 10-minute solo performance pieces — and eventually I did a one-woman show, and that felt so much more real than being on a set every day. There’s a saying … ‘If you can live without it, you should,’ and I found that I could.” Alongside writing, she’s continued to work as a voice actor.

11.

Smoke Signals actor Evan Adams has done a few small acting roles over the years, but he’s done more work in two other fields — playwriting and medicine. According to his official website, he graduated from the University of Calgary with his medical degree in 2002. He’s served as the first Aboriginal Health Physician Advisor in the Office of the Provincial Health Officer, BC Ministry of Health and the Deputy Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia. Now, he’s the Chief Medical Officer of the First Nations Health Authority.

Here’s a more recent picture of him.

12.

A Little Princess actor Liesel Matthews hasn’t acted since 2000. According to Vice, Matthews was a stage name — she’s actually Liesel Pritzker, heiress to the family who founded Hyatt hotels. In 1995, she told Entertainment Tonight, “I don’t think I want to become a huge actress or anything. And I wouldn’t make it a career. It would still be a hobby.”

Per Vice, Liesel majored in African history at Columbia. During her freshman year, she sued her dad and the Pritzker cousins, alleging they’d cleared out her and her brother’s trust funds in a way “so heinous, obnoxious, and offensive as to constitute a fraud.” According to Vanity Fair, the cousins allegedly made a “secret pact” to divvy up the family fortune in a way that excluded Liesel and her brother. In 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the siblings settled the lawsuit, each receiving $450 million in cash and other trusts. Leisel went on to found the impact investment organization Blue Haven Initiative alongside her husband, Ian Simmons.

13.

Never Been Kissed actor Leelee Sobieski left acting to focus on her growing family. In 2016, she told Us Weekly, “I don’t do movie stuff anymore. I am totally an outsider! I … am just a mom and an outsider… I am just focused on my kids. I think that’s mainly why I stopped.” Describing her life with her fashion designer husband, Adam Kimmel, she added, “I help my husband with what he does. And I paint, secretly!”

However, in 2018, she re-emerged as an artist under the name Leelee Kimmel. She told Artnet, “I kept working fervently in secret. Painting was always my goal; I just kept getting distracted with work things and paying bills…Actors end up going from one role to another with all this energy behind them, and you just become emptier and emptier and emptier — you end up having no real experiences. To cry, you end up drawing on the experiences of another character you played. I don’t want my children to look at Netflix and see me on screen in the arms of someone who’s not their dad.”

14.

In 2017, The Adventures of Pete & Pete actor Michael C. Maronna told Talk Nerdy With Us, “After Pete & Pete was done, I went to college and travelled around a little bit. I was auditioning after college and then started working as an [electrician] doing lighting, and I’ve been in the union for the past ten years.” Then, in 2020, he told Rewind It Magazine, “I was always interested in the technical aspects of film production and spent my whole life on sets, whether film, TV show, or commercials. I have worked in the theater as well and have family in the stage business, but it didn’t hold the same allure for me.”

“On Pete & Pete, production was on location and shot on 16mm film, as opposed to a television show shot on videotape in a studio. This afforded me a lot of opportunities to get to know the process and the equipment and to ask the crew a lot of questions. After the first season of half-hour episodes, the grips gave me a tool belt with some tools as a wrap gift. It was very sweet. A couple of seasons later, I just kept asking questions of the gaffer, and eventually he offered me a job after the show ended. My first proper electric job was on a film called Six Ways To Sunday. I auditioned for the lead role and ended up driving the electric truck for it. A lot of crew from Pete & Pete worked on the job, so it was a nice transition. The pandemic shutdown put a lot of shows on hold for a few months, but I’ve been back to work for a while. Currently, I’m working on Dickinson Season 3, starring Toby Huss,” he said.

15.

In 2017, Michael’s The Adventures of Pete & Pete costar Danny Tamberelli told Talk Nerdy With Us, “I worked for Nickelodeon until 2000. I was on All That, and then I went to college and tried to be a normal kid.” He reconnected with Michael years later. Danny continued, “We had done some Pete & Pete reunions prior to the Splat being invented in 2011 or 2012, so that was when we started hanging out again. That’s when we decided to do a podcast.” They co-host the podcast The Adventures of Danny and Mike, and they also had small roles in I Saw the TV Glow together.

Here’s Danny more recently.

16.

Hook actor Charlie Kosmo told Case Western Reserve University’s The Daily, “As I recall, I mostly wanted to get out of school and make enough money to buy a Nintendo. I never saw acting as a lifelong career ambition.” He left acting and had a “relatively normal” high school experience, then in college, he filmed Can’t Hardly Wait but decided that full-time acting wasn’t his calling. He said, “I think I managed the trick of leaving voluntarily just about the time I would have been thrown out anyway.” After graduating from MIT, he worked in various government positions before going to law school. He went on to become a law professor. However, he’s appeared in a few movies over the years, most recently A Different Man.

17.

The Crying Game actor Jaye Davidson’s last acting role was in 2009, though he’s been predominantly absent from the he public eye since 1994. In 2019, director Neil Jordan told Yahoo Entertainment, “Very wisely actually, Jaye made one other movie for which he made a ton of money. He then said, ‘Look, this is not for me.’ You know? He went back to his life. He’s a very happy man now. He’s bulked up now. … Different person now. But very healthy and very good.” Jaye reportedly lives in Paris and works as a fashion stylist.

Here’s a more recent photo of Jaye.

18.

In a 2013 blog post, Mrs. Doubtfire actor Lisa Jakub wrote, “You’ve probably left a job before. Why did you leave? Probably because you didn’t enjoy it anymore. Maybe something about that job didn’t feel authentic to you or fit in with what you wanted from life. There were probably parts of your job that you really liked, but one day, when you made your pro and con list, the con side was longer. Maybe you had done the job for 18 years – like I had. Maybe it was time to do something new. That’s why I left my job. I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t awful, and I’m not whining about how hard my life was. Parts of it were really wonderful for a while. But then I got to the point where it just wasn’t fun for me anymore.”

She continued, “So, I decided I should leave before I became one of those alcoholic/eating disorder ravaged/drug addicted train wrecks of a former child actor. I had no desire to be a cautionary tale…So, since I left LA a decade ago, I’ve been trying to bury Lisa Jakub. I’ve buried her with going to college, getting married, becoming a writer, and learning how to use my stove. I’ve been trying to forget that the old life existed. Everyone has something that they try to cover up about themselves, something that makes them feel different and a little strange. Something that they worry will make them not quite fit in, like that quickie divorce or the strange uncle or the funny-looking thing on their foot. Movies happen to be that thing for me.” In 2015, she published the book You Look Like That Girl: A Child Actor Stops Pretending and Finally Grows Up.

19.

After The Wonder Years ended, Josh Saviano went on to study political science at Yale. Then, for 12 years, he worked as a corporate and intellectual property transactional attorney and played a role in the onset of influencer marketing. He co-founded Spotlight Advisory Group, where he serves as president.

Here’s a more recent photo of Josh.

20.

Clarissa Explains It All actor Jason Zimbler went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s in theatre directing. He worked as a professional theater director and served as the Buck’s Rock Performing and Creative Arts Camp’s theatre program head, director, and educator. In 2013, he told The New York Daily News he was balancing directing with his career as a software developer/designer for HBO.

21.

Sleepless in Seattle actor Ross Malinger’s last acting credit is an episode of Without a Trace from 2006. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he went on to work in author sales, managing Automotive Legends until its closure in 2009.

22.

And finally, according to his official website, Highlander: The Series actor Peter Wingfield initially left medical school a month before graduation to pursue acting. Then, in 2011, he took a step back from acting and returned to medical school. According to the Paths Podcast, he now works as an anesthesiologist at LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Iconic Album Covers Trivia Quiz

There’s so much music out there these days, but a great cover can really help an album stand out. Throughout the decades, some album covers have become so iconic that you’d have to live under a rock not to recognize them.

In this quiz, I’ll show you some of the most iconic and recnognizable album covers of all time, but there’s a catch! The artists and the titles have been Photoshopped out. All you have to do is type the title of the album — so, for example, just “Fearless,” not “Fearless by Taylor Swift” or “Taylor Swift Fearless.” Ready? Good luck!

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