Celebs should stop making self-absorbed ‘retirement’ announcements
For most normal people, the word “retirement” conjures a familiar picture: Somebody over 65 leaving their job to cupcakes and a card, tapping into their 401-K and moving to Florida.
But funny old Hollywood ain’t normal. There, retirement is a far more glamorous affair. It can happen at any age, juvenile to geriatric, gets an overblown press tour and is often totally meaningless.
It’s the actor’s spin on a final, final, final farewell tour.
Last week, Cameron Diaz, who supposedly “retired” from the film industry a decade ago, returned in Netflix’s aptly-named “Back In Action” starring Jamie Foxx.
Back in 2018, the “Charlie’s Angels” actress announced she’d given up the screen in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
After playing Miss Hannigan in the derided 2014 “Annie” remake, she decided Hollywood was a hard knock life for her. So would I if a Post critic said I was at my “scenery-swallowing worst.”
But, it turns out, the star would come out tomorrow. Now, 52-year-old Diaz has made yet more headlines of her hiatus in glossy magazines and on late-night talk shows, calling it “the best 10 years” of her life. It’s a media blitz. She’s spun last-straw into gold.
Naturally, there’s something about money. Netflix reportedly signed her for a two-picture, $45 million deal — just like Tom from Mergers and Acquisitions.
Another marquee name from the 1990s and aughts, Jim Carrey, declared he was retiring in 2022.
That hard stop turned out to be merely a “Mask” for burnout. “The Cable Guy” was already making faces in front of the camera again less than two years later as Doctor Robotnik in “Sonic the Hedgehog 3.”
The 63-year-old has joked that he took the gig for the dough, but he’s also said, “I think I was talking more about ‘power-resting’” than actual retirement. You know, like Nancy in HR.
And with two departures, Daniel Day-Lewis has almost racked up almost as many farewells as he has Oscars. In 1997, the revered actor waved arrivederci before becoming a shoemaker in Florence, Italy.
He said so long to soles in 2000, and then left showbiz again in 2017 before the release of “The Phantom Thread.”
“Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor,” a spokesman for the actor said with the weight of Richard Nixon’s resignation address.
“He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years. This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”
But it turns out Day-Lewis, 67, would make further movies. Guess who’s coming to a theater near you in “Anemone,” his son Ronan’s directorial debut?
There’s nothing wrong with bidding adieu to a profession, of course. Plenty do. And common people sometimes go back to work, often out of necessity or boredom.
What’s peculiar is Hollywood’s paradoxical approach to it: Relatively wealthy individuals seeking an avalanche of attention over an expressed desire to no longer seek attention.
It’s the equivalent of walking onto the stage of Radio City Music Hall and shouting, “Don’t look at me!”
Why not just stop making movies? Stop granting interviews? Nix your social media accounts?
The truth is the stars probably realize that, if they say nothing, the public won’t really care. They barely pay attention when they do announce it. People just move on, as they always have. What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
So, we get repeated exercises in self-absorption that are ultimately empty.
I’ve had many hard-working but introverted coworkers tell me over the years they didn’t want a retirement party. They don’t want to be a room’s focus.
Over in Hollywood, though, everybody wants one. Or four.
