Elisha Cuthbert Breaks Silence on Hollywood Exit While Reflecting on Life After 'The Ranch'

Elisha Cuthbert opened up about leaving Hollywood and her life after Netflix's The Ranch after four years.

Cuthbert shot to fame in the 2000s with films and shows such as The Girl Next Door, 24, and Old School. Since then, she has been working nonstop, with her last major role being in the sitcom The Ranch, which ran from 2016 to 2020.

The actress stated during her appearance on NBC's "Today" that what she needed at the time was a break to spend time with her growing family. She said she realized she had worked through the first four years of her eldest child’s life.

"I realized I worked all four years through our first child and it was really hard to separate that mom from the working person I was," she recalled. As a result, when she had her second child in 2022, she made a point of stepping away from work to focus fully on her family.

"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." Cuthbert added.

She also revealed that she felt like she "needed to be at home with the kids" at the time, and doesn't regret her decision at all.

Per Page Six, Cuthbert made her acting debut at the age of 13. Before then, she was a child model. Life in the spotlight has been familiar to her since childhood.

However, after spending such a large portion of her life under constant public scrutiny, she wanted to savor her family life away from Hollywood for a while.

Cuthbert shares her daughter, Zaphire, born in 2017, and son, Fable, born in 2022, with her husband, former NHL star Dion Phaneuf.

Now that her children are getting older, she finally feels ready to step back into the limelight. "They’re in school now full time," the House of Wax star explained during the interview, referring to her children.

Hence, she stated that she feels like she has "the space and the energy and the heart to kind of leave them" and get back to acting.

Cuthbert is returning to Hollywood with the new Prime Video series Every Year After. The coming-of-age tale is based on Carley Fortune's bestselling 2022 novel Every Summer After. Cuthbert plays Sue, the mother of Sam (Matt Cornett) and Charlie (Michael Bradway).

The Love Actually star revealed that prior to getting the role, she had no idea of Fortune's books. However, she made it a point to become familiar with them, and now she recommends them to everybody.

In any case, her love for the story made her even more excited to portray her character onscreen.