From finding God to pursuing academics: Here are 6 ex-Hollywood stars who opted for different lives

People far and wide dream about moving to Hollywood and becoming famous. However, some achieve this dream only to pursue another endeavour.

Despite how glamorous Hollywood may seem, the celebrity lifestyle isn’t for everyone.

As a result, a number of popular actors and actresses have found success in the business only to pivot and focus their time, energy and talent elsewhere. To help pique interest in these show business anomalies, below is a rundown of six stars who turned their backs on Hollywood:

Jack Gleeson

Former Game of Thrones actor Jack Gleeson retired from acting after his character was written off the show.

Everyone remembers Gleeson for bringing life to perhaps one of the most maniacal and cruel characters to hit TV screens as King Joffrey Baratheon in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Gleeson’s character was a breakout hit, which many fans credited to his impeccable acting talent. However, unlike many characters who have met their demise on the series, Gleeson didn’t parlay the career wind at his back into other acting jobs. Instead, he opted to retire from the business and focus instead on his studies.

Gleeson graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 2015 with a dual major in theology and philosophy. While Gleeson continues to ponder his next venture, fans will be happy to know that he hasn’t walked away from creative ventures entirely. He co-founded the Collapsing Horse theatre company and continues to do work on stage while living a significantly quieter life in London than he likely would have in Hollywood.

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo left Hollywood behind after getting bad reviews on her final movie.

After becoming one of Hollywood’s most iconic and recognisable stars in the 1930s, Garbo abruptly ended her career after receiving a poor reception for her last movie, Two-Faced Woman. After that, Garbo went into what many expected to be a temporary hiatus from the spotlight. However, she leaned into her natural tendencies towards reclusiveness and ended up retiring from acting after 16 years and 27 movies. She was just 36 years old.

Prior to calling it quits on the big screen, Garbo was known for never answering fan mail, attending premieres or engaging in interviews with the press.

“I think people have heard the name (Garbo), but I’m not sure that a lot of people out there know and appreciate what she meant as an actress,” TMC vice president Charlie Tabesh previously said of Garbo. “I love that her intelligence is very attractive. It’s not just her face which is gorgeous, it’s that she’s attractive in a much fuller way than that.”

Garbo died at age 84, sticking to her promise to speak and interact in the public eye as little as possible following her decision to leave Hollywood in her wake.

Angus T. Jones

Two and a Half Men star Angus T. Jones turned on the show that made him famous and retired shortly before it ended.

Jones became a household name in 2003 at the age of nine when he was cast alongside Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer in Two and a Half Men. The show became an instant hit and monopolised most of Jones’ childhood. However, after he and his character graduated high school and started to adopt more adult storylines, Jones found it more and more difficult to reconcile his ever-growing Christian faith with the often lewd humour of the series.

Things came to a head when he appeared in a YouTube video to discuss his faith where he urged fans to stop watching the show and admitted that he didn’t want to be on it either.

“If you watch Two and a Half Men, please stop watching Two and a Half Men. I’m on Two and a Half Men, and I don’t want to be on it. Please stop watching it and filling your head with filth. People say it’s just entertainment. Do some research on the effects of television and your brain, and I promise you, you’ll have a decision to make when it comes to television, especially with what you watch.”

Following the conclusion of Season 10, Jones left the show for good and started studying at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In a 2016 interview with People, he did his best to walk back his previous statements about the sitcom and TV in general.

“I got pretty doomsday with my thinking for a long time, but now I’m having fun and enjoying where I’m at,” Jones admitted. “I no longer feel like every step I take is on a landmine.”

Bettie Page

Bettie Page ended her modelling career permanently after finding God.

Known as the original pin-up girl, Bettie Page rose to fame as a sex symbol often credited with sparking the sexual revolution that marked the 1960s. She attracted national attention for her series of photo shoots in which she posed in bikinis, see-through lingerie and sometimes nothing at all. Eventually, she caught the attention of Playboy and was given a January centrefold in 1955, rocketing her to new levels of exposure and stardom.

“I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society,” Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said at the time of her death. “She was a very dear person.”

Prior to her death in 2008, Page essentially up and vanished from the public eye. She eventually resurfaced, and it was revealed she not only battled mental illness but had become a born-again Christian. As a result, the star admitted her new-found faith conflicted with the way she used to go about making money.

“When I gave my life to the Lord I began to think he disapproved of all those nude pictures of me,” she told Playboy the year she died.

Rick Moranis

Rick Moranis was a popular comedic actor in the 1980s and early ’90s but left show business to be a father.

Known for breakout comedy roles in films like Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, Honey I Shrunk the Kids and The Flinstones, Rick Moranis retired from the public life in the early ’90s. Instead of chasing on-screen roles, he threw his full weight into voice acting and raising his children. Unfortunately, the move was out of necessity in many ways as the actor found himself a single parent in 1991 after his wife died of cancer. Fortunately, Moranis was content with his new, secluded life outside the public spotlight.

“I pulled out of making movies in about ’96 or ’97. I’m a single parent, and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the travelling 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 previously told USA Today.

Luckily for fans of the comedic actor, he will never admit that he’s retired fully. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2015, Moranis said he still got offered roles but was picky about what he’d put his face to. For more than two decades, it seems, nothing has properly piqued his interest.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Jonathan Taylor Thomas quit his role on Home Improvement to dedicate himself to his studies full-time.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a teenage heart-throb in the 1990s, landing roles such as voicing young Simba in The Lion King and starring in on-screen adventures like Tom and Huck. However, he’s best known as the middle child on the massively successful Tim Allen-led sitcom Home Improvement. He’s also well-known for leaving the popular sitcom in Season 8, only to return for a one-off Christmas episode. The actor, at the time, wanted to focus on academics and spent his time after the show studying at Harvard, Columbia and St. Andrew’s University in Scotland.

“To sit in a big library amongst books and students, that was pretty cool,” Thomas told People in 2013. “It was a novel experience for me.”

He continued: “It was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me. When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink. I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers.”

Since stepping away from acting, Taylor Thomas has made minor returns here and there, most notably reuniting with his on-screen dad for a cameo in his new show, Last Man Standing.

This story originally appeared on Fox News and is republished with permission.