Acting in solidarity with laid-off workers, Hollywood’s pampered actors are quitting their well-paid gigs for less glamorous ones: Joaquin Phoenix quit acting for music, Clint Eastwood quit acting for directing, and, in a shocking development, Angelina Jolie announced that “I don’t plan to keep acting very long.” But this could be just the first wave of self-imposed layoffs. Who’s next? Alec Baldwin, Pamela Anderson, and Mena Suvari, for starters. After the jump, we list 24 actors who may quit next.
Clint Eastwood: “[Gran Torino] will probably be my last. I’ll be drummed out of it after this one. Every time you do a movie you think, ‘Aw, that’s enough of that.’”
Joaquin Phoenix: “This will be my last performance as an actor.”
Freddie Prinze Jr.: ‘I’m going to stop acting in the next few years because it’s just too weird.”’
Sean Connery: “The time has come because of my rather unfortunate last movie. The cost to me in terms of frustration and avoiding going to jail for murder cannot have continued.”
Gwyneth Paltrow: “I hated acting… Acting and the whole circus around it.”
Lindsay Lohan: “I hate Hollywood and I don’t want to work there.”
Alec Baldwin: “I believe it is time for me to do something else. It’s absolutely, unequivocally time for me to do something else… I can’t do this anymore. It’s all about compromising. I hate work. I fucking hate it in every way.”
Jamie Lee Curtis: “I’m not an actor anymore.”
Pamela Anderson: “I want to be in Vegas forever.”
Kevin Spacey: “I don’t care about my personal acting career any more. I’m done with it.”
Nicolas Cage: “I’m tired of it. It has made me reclusive. That is an increasingly gnawing feeling in my body.”
Hayden Christensen: “I don’t find Hollywood interesting, so I’m thinking about studying architecture instead.”
Audrey Tatou: “I know I’m not the best actress in the world and not the worst but I think that maybe I’d be happier doing something that doesn’t leave me so exposed.”
Hugh Grant:: “It’s so long and boring and so difficult to get right.”
Eddie Murphy: “Thirty years and I have close to 50 movies and it is like, ‘Why am I in the movies? I’ve done that part now. I’ll go back to the stage and do stand-up.’”
Sting: “It’s too much hard work.”
Mena Suvari: “I don’t have a strong desire to be an actress my whole life–it’s just not fulfilling enough for me… If I hadn’t got into modeling, I probably would have studied psychology and might be working on a PHD right now.”
Ricky Gervais: “I’m not going to make a career of it [acting], certainly not. I’ve never wanted to be an actor. I’ve never thought of myself as one.”
Madonna: “I hate to admit it, but I’ve decided to give [acting] up.”
Uma Thurman: “I am thinking about becoming a stay-at-home mom.”
Tom Selleck: “A dog was killed — trampled to death — and it really disturbed me… I remember saying to my agent, ‘If this is what it’s like, I’ve got to find another line of work.”
Elizabeth Hurley: “I decided I couldn’t really do movies any more.”
Matthew Broderick: “I should probably quit. Acting is a tough living.”
Rachel Bilson: “I love the career I have chosen, but I’d be quite happy as a housewife, at home with the kids.”
Quentin Tarantino: “I just don’t feel like acting anymore, I lost the bug.”
Gary Oldman: “You can get tired. You might say I want to change careers or to do something else…. My love for acting… It’s withered.”
Update: Nicole Kidman wins!
