During the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Rick Moranis was a massive star best known for comedies, appearing in the likes of Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, The Flintstones, Parenthood, Spaceballs and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
In 1997, he appeared in direct-to-video threequel Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves and that, to date, marks his final on-screen appearance.
Since then, he's had voice roles in animation Brother Bear and its sequel, as well as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys and TV shows Bob & Doug (which Moranis co-created) and Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids. Most recently, he reprised his Spaceballs role of Dark Helmet in one episode of The Goldbergs.
His break from acting came after the death of his wife, costume designer Ann Belsky, in 1991. After completing his contracted projects, Moranis decided to focus on raising their two children.
"I'm a single parent, and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn't miss it," he told USA Today in 2005.
"In the last few years I've been offered a number of parts in movies, and I've just turned them down. I don't know whether I'll go back to it or not. I've been doing a lot of writing and a lot of parenting, and now I'm doing this."
But he's not officially retired, despite turning down a chance to appear in Paul Feig's all-female Ghostbusters reboot because it "made no sense" to him. "Why would I do just one day of shooting on something I did 30 years ago?" he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015.
Moranis added: "I'm interested in anything that I would find interesting. I still get the occasional query about a film or television role and as soon as one comes along that piques my interest, I'll probably do it. [But Ghostbusters] didn't appeal to me."
Despite shelving his movie career, Moranis has continued to make music, which started with the 1981 Grammy-nominated The Great White North, a comedy album by the fictional characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, played by Moranis and Dave Thomas, from Canadian sketch show Second City Television (SCTV).
The duo also appeared on the soundtrack to their movie Strange Brew, before Moranis went on to release three solo comedy albums: You, Me, the Music and Me (1989), The Agoraphobic Cowboy (2005) – which was Grammy-nominated for Best Comedy Album – and My Mother's Brisket & Other Love Songs (2013).
Moranis will next be seen in Netflix's SCTV reunion, directed by Martin Scorsese. An Afternoon With SCTV was recorded earlier this year in Toronto and will land on the streaming service in 2019.
"Stuff happens to people all the time, and people make adjustments, change careers, move to another city. Really, that's all I did," Moranis reflected in 2015.
Here's hoping there's another adjustment soon that brings him back to the big screen.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter account.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
