Joan Cusack has opened up about her decision to keep away from Hollywood ahead of her return in Toy Story 5.
The actor, 63, transitioned from a breakout cast member on Saturday Night Live to an acclaimed, Oscar-nominated fixture of 1980s cinema, and starred in several notable films in the 1990s and 2000s, including Addams Family Values and School of Rock.
However, she has distanced herself from acting in the years since and surprised people with her first appearance on a red carpet in 11 years at the Pixar sequel’s London premiere last month.
While attending the film’s premiere in Los Angeles on Tuesday (9 June), alongside her husband Richard Burke and their two sons, Miles and Dylan John, Cusack shed light on why these events are becoming rarer for her.
“I think because I’ve worked for a long time and I’m so honoured to be able to work in this industry for a long time, but it’s also great to live your life and raise your kids and be in Chicago and be a normal person,” she told Variety. “It’s kind of priceless.”
The interviewer told Cusack that people get “so excited” when seeing her on the red carpet, to which she responded: “Aw. Well, it’s kinda cool ’cause there’s not that many movies that do huge red carpets unless you’re doing like an action, superhero [film], so it’s cool.”
Her appearance at the Toy Story 5 premiere in London was the first red carpet event she’d attended since Showtime’s Emmy Eve event in 2015.
When Cusack – the sister of actor John Cusack – stepped away from Hollywood, she and her family moved to Chicago, where she has been running her own gift shop, Judy Maxwell Home, since 2011.
“As my kids would say, ‘Chicago is awesome!’ It has rich culture and history, as well as some of the best museums, architecture and restaurants in the world,” she told The Huffington Post in 2019. “Plus, it prevents our family life from revolving around TV and the movies. In L.A., it’s easy to get caught up in what you look like or how much money you have, and those aren’t values I want my kids to adopt.”
Since 1999’s Toy Story 2, Cusack has voiced Jessie – opposite Tom Hanks’s Woody – in the franchise.
Toy Story 5, which arrives in cinemas on 19 June, sees the toys’ owner, Bonnie, being gifted a digital Lilypad tablet that slowly consumes more and more of her time, leaving the original group of action figures alone.
Cusack has received two Oscar nominations in her career, in the Best Supporting Actress category for comedies In & Out and Working Girl.