And Sara isn’t the only actor who had a difficult dynamic with Hughes, who died in 2009 of a heart attack at the age of 59. While costars Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey detailed having a friendly relationship with the Breakfast Club director on set, Grey shared that Hughes severed ties after he found out they secretly dated while playing siblings on the film.
“Hughes was an unusual and special guy,” Grey—who was briefly engaged to Broderick before splitting in 1988 after nearly four years together—told The Times, “and I think he really didn’t love the surprise there.”
Paramount/Getty ImagesMeanwhile, after her negative experience working on Ferris Bueller, Sara has largely taken a step back from the spotlight. Trading the Hollywood glam for a quieter life in England with husband Brian Henson, she admitted that acting was always difficult for her to pursue.
“I never really had the resilience to deal with the audition process,” she said. “There are some things in my career that I’m really proud of, but overall it was not a happy career for me.”
Read on to see more stars who have left their Hollywood behind…
Carlos Alvarez/Getty ImagesAntonio Banderas
After the Mask of Zorro actor suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 2019, he moved back to his native Málago, Spain, to focus on his love of theater.
“It changed the way I look at life,” Antonio told The Times in March 2026. “Faced with death, it made me look back and realise that I am, in fact, a theater actor.”
Now, the Tony nominee—who still occasionally takes on TV and film projects—owns a theater venue and gets involved with the local community.
“I have never been so happy,” he continued. “It keeps me in touch with my roots, my neighbourhood, my people. I haven’t lost that connection over the years. Quite the opposite.”
Justine Yeung/Prime VideoElisha Cuthbert
Before landing a role in Prime Video’s Every Year After, The Girl Next Door actress took a four-year break from acting, leaving L.A. to raise her two kids with husband Dion Phaneuf.
“I realized I worked all four years through our first child and it was really hard,” Cuthbert confessed in June 2026 during an appearance on Today, “to separate that mom from the working person I was. So, when we had our second, I just felt like I didn’t want to waste any second of it and I didn’t want to be on set.”
The 43-year-old—best known for starring in ’00s films like Old School as well as hit TV shows including 24 and Happy Endings—added, “I just felt like I needed to be at home with the kids and I enjoyed every minute.”
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for DisneyEllen DeGeneres
The Ellen DeGeneres Show host’s eponymous talk show ended in 2022 after a 19-season run amid allegations of a toxic work environment that prompted an internal investigation, multiple firings of executives and public ire.
Ellen returned to the spotlight for her final standup special For Your Approval, which released on Netflix in September 2024. During the lead-up to that special, she revealed she would be leaving Hollywood altogether.
“This is the last time you’re going to see me,” she told a crowd during her Ellen’s Last Stand…Up tour, per SFGate. “After my Netflix special, I’m done.”
Ellen and her wife Portia de Rossi have since moved to the Cotswolds, deciding to stay put in November 2024 after Donald Trump‘s reelection, the talk show host told to Richard Bacon in a July 2025 conversation at the Everyman theater in Cheltenham.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she gushed about the English countryside, per the BBC. “We’re just not used to seeing this kind of beauty. The villages and the towns and the architecture—everything you see is charming and it’s just a simpler way of life.
“It’s clean,” Ellen continued. “Everything here is just better—the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here. We moved here in November, which was not the ideal time, but I saw snow for the first time in my life. We love it here. Portia flew her horses here, and I have chickens, and we had sheep for about two weeks.”
