What Rick Moranis Knew That Most of Us Learn Too Late
Rick Moranis left Hollywood at the height of his career—not for a breakdown or a comeback, but for something far more ordinary and real. There's great power in choosing a life that actually fits.
We’ve been trained to believe the next step should always be up. A promotion, a higher income, more visibility. Grow that business! Scale, dammit!
What if your next right move isn’t climbing higher but brings you closer to yourself, instead?
Rick Moranis didn’t burn out. He didn’t blow up his life. He simply stepped away.
And that’s a story worth telling, because there’s something magical about redefining success in midlife, even if no one claps for it.
Right On Time is our weekly series of lessons in courage, clarity, and change for those rewriting their story — in two minutes or less.
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, Rick Moranis was everywhere. Ghostbusters. Spaceballs. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Parenthood.
He was funny, beloved, and bankable. Rick was one of Hollywood’s most familiar faces. The roles kept getting bigger, and the paychecks did, too.
But when his wife died in 1991, Rick didn’t try to keep juggling it all. He finished a few projects, but by the mid-90s, at the height of his fame, he quietly stepped away to raise his two kids.
He didn’t make it a performance. He didn’t stage a documentary about grief. He just quietly stepped out of the spotlight.
Hollywood never really knew what to do with that. Still doesn’t. There’s no comeback story to sell in a man who decided a smaller, quieter life felt more like his own.
In interviews years later, Rick said he hadn’t retired. He just paused.
In a rare 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Moranis clarified his status: "I took a break, which turned into a longer break... But I'm interested in anything that I would find interesting."
The truth is, he never came back in full. He didn’t chase the spotlight again… he just let go of a life that no longer fit.
That still feels radical to me, given all of the messaging and conditioning to the contrary. We’re told that if things are going well, we should keep going. If it’s working, double down! Invest more. Build it bigger. Hire more people, even if that means going into debt or bringing on investors.
We have it drilled into our heads that stepping off the path means something went wrong. But sometimes, it just means we’ve changed.
Honestly, I find it wildly inspiring.
Not every life needs a reinvention, and success doesn’t have to translate to how high we can rise.
Maybe real success is grounded, steady, and sustainable, instead.
If you’ve been trying to talk yourself into staying the course, stop for a moment and ask yourself:
Is this still your course?
Or are you chasing someone else’s dream?
If no one else needed to be impressed— if there was no LinkedIn post, no applause, no "what’s next?"— what would you let go of?
You don’t owe the world a climax. Just a life that feels like yours.
✌🏻 Miranda
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