EXCLUSIVE Spaceballs star Rick Moranis, 72, does not look like this anymore
So it was quite the shock for fans of the 72-year-old actor and comedian when it was announced last week that he will be making his long-awaited return to movies.
Director Mel Brooks, 99, was in fine spirits as he shared the news that Moranis would be back in action for a sequel to his sci-fi parody Spaceballs (1987).
The Canadian comedy legend appeared in the original film — which was beset by middling reviews before being adopted as a cult classic — as Dark Helmet, a parody of Star Wars ' Darth Vader.
Since his comedy heyday in films of the 1980s and '90s, Moranis has been on a decades-long Hollywood hiatus to allow him to focus on raising his children as a single parent.
Now, nearly 30 years after he stepped back from the silver screen, DailyMail.com takes a look at what Moranis looks like today.
The comic star was nearly unrecognizable when he was spotted this week on a busy day running errands in New York City.
Moranis was on the move in a casual but sporty outfit with a pale yellow ribbed polo shirt, blue athletic shorts and a white baseball cap.
He stuck with simple black trainers and carried a reusable back to take care of some shopping while he was out.
The actor has stayed impressively trim over the last few decades, but his appearance was considerably different after losing the baby-faced looks that helped him get laughs early on.
Moranis soundtracked his walk with earbuds, and he was seen marching back with two full bags after finishing his shopping.
The Ghostbusters star's gradual retreat from Hollywood began following the tragic death of his wife Ann Belsky in 1991 after a battle with cancer.
In a 2005 interview with USA Today, Moranis clarified that his family was his main motivation for holding off on more time-consuming film shoots.
'I'm a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage to raise my kids and to do the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break,' he explained. 'And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn't miss it.'
Moranis' final on-screen appearance in a theatrical feature was for the 1996 comedy Big Bully, which he starred in opposite Tom Arnold.
However, the following year he played a lead role in the straight-to-video sequel Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.
Moranis was more willing to focus on voice acting in subsequent years, as recording sessions take far less time than on-camera appearances.
He voiced characters in multiple children's cartoons, as well as his final theatrical film, the 2003 Disney animated feature Brother Bear.
He continued with voice acting throughout the 2000s, and he made a rare live-action return for the TV Movie Bob & Doug McKenzie's Two-Four Anniversary, a sequel to the 1983 cult classic comedy film Strange Brew that costarred Canadian comedy legend Dave Thomas.
Aside from that, Moranis' only roles in recent years were a brief voice appearance as his Spaceballs character Dark Helmet in a 2018 episode of The Goldbergs and a 2020 Mint Mobile commercial that he starred in with Ryan Reynolds.
Despite mostly eschewing the spotlight, Moranis has clarified that he doesn't consider himself officially retired.
After it was reported that he turned down a cameo offer in the woman-led 2016 version of Ghostbusters — which original stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Sigourney Weaver all appeared in — Moranis explained prior to the film's release that he has only been on a 'hiatus,' and now that his children — Rachel and Mitchell — are grown up he is no longer opposed to acting.
In 2015, he clarified that he didn't consider himself retired, but rather on hiatus, after he turned down a cameo in the 2016 woman-led Ghostbusters sequel
He told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015 that he was simply much more selective about what roles he was willing to take on this far into his career.
'I took a break, which turned into a longer break,' he said. 'But 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 wish them well,' he added. 'I hope it's terrific. But it just makes no sense to me. Why would I do just one day of shooting on something I did 30 years ago?'
The film would have been a legacy sequel starring Josh Gad as the son of Moranis' reckless inventor, with the older star reprising his original role.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic forced the production to be put on hold. Gad shared his desire to push forward with the project in subsequent years, and he said he had been collaborating with Moranis on the film as recently as 2022.
However, Gad admitted in 2023 that the sequel is now dead in the water, though it could potentially be revived at a future date.
Despite Shrunk's misfortune, Moranis will still be making his long-awaited return to movies with the Spaceballs sequel, which is slated for a 2027 release.
The returning stars include Brooks, who will be playing his Yoda-like character Yogurt, along with Bill Pullman as Lone Starr and Daphne Zuniga as Princess Vespa.
The film has also gotten some new blood, as Pullman's real-life son Lewis Pullman will be joining the cast to play his character's son Starburst, while Keke Palmer will be playing a character named Destiny and Josh Gad will be appearing in an undisclosed role.
Brooks co-wrote and directed the original Spaceballs, but Josh Greenbaum is now taking over directing duties, while Gad, Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit are collaborating on the screenplay.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
35 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Bring Her Back to Destination X: the week in rave reviews
Disney+/National Geographic; available now Summed up in a sentence A powerful, gripping look back at the tragic events that overwhelmed New Orleans in 2005. What our reviewer said 'This series is a devastatingly precise illustration of systemic failure, political impotence and media distortion.' Phil Harrison Read the full review Further reading 'There's New Orleans before and after': revisiting Hurricane Katrina in a new docuseries BBC iPlayer; available now Summed up in a sentence A surreally elaborate reality competition that makes contestants live on a coach with blacked-out windows, drives them around Europe – and forces them to guess where they are for cash. What our reviewer said 'Destination X does not close like a vice around you in the manner of The Traitors, nor does it have the cockle-warming aspect of Race Across the World. But it's fun to go along for the ride.' Lucy Mangan Read the full review BBC iPlayer; available now Summed up in a sentence This powerful documentary tells the story of Japan's deployment of kamikaze pilots to bomb US ships in the Pacific during the second world war; missions that killed almost 4,000 Japanese and 7,000 American soldiers. What our reviewer said 'Clear answers are not to be found here but, as we gaze at photographs of squadrons of men under the age of 25, whose whole adult lives were rehearsals for their death, we have to ask why.' Jack Seale Read the full review Channel 4; available now Summed up in a sentence A belated airing of the hugely controversial documentary that the BBC refused to show: a horrifying investigation into claims that Israel's Defence Force has systematically targeted Palestinian medics. What our reviewer said 'This is the sort of television that will never leave you. It will provoke an international reaction, and for extremely good cause. Forget what got it stopped at the BBC. It is here now and, regardless of how that happened, we owe it to the subjects to not look away.' Stuart Heritage Read the full review In cinemas now Summed up in a sentence The Philippou brothers seal their position as dark chiefs of modern horror in story of an orphan trying to save his stepsister from a villainous Sally Hawkins. What our reviewer said 'It's a horror preying with hideous expertise on our protective instincts towards the vulnerable, our fear of our own vulnerability, the shame and guilt of abuse, and survivors' wretched sense of loyalty to their abusers.' Peter Bradshaw Read the full review Further reading 'It's very risky': the Philippou brothers on horror films, back yard wrestling and knocking back Hollywood In cinemas now Summed up in a sentence Highly amusing spoof reboot of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker's comedy classic, with Liam Neeson as the son of Leslie Nielsen's Lt Frank Drebin, appearing opposite Pamela Anderson. What our reviewer said 'It is a life-support system for some outrageous gags, including sensational riffs on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sex and the City, and one showstopping are-they-really-gonna-do-it reference to OJ Simpson, who featured in the original films.' Peter Bradshaw Read the full review Further reading The return of the spoof: can comedy's silliest subgenre make a comeback? In cinemas now Summed up in a sentence Third in a playful trilogy from Norwegian novelist and film-maker Dag Johan Haugerud, about a 17-year-old whose memoir about her passion for a teacher rattles three generations. What our reviewer said 'I can imagine two different sorts of US English-language remake: one which ramps up the wry indie comedy, and another which transfers the emphasis to a dead-serious generational family drama. Neither would have this insouciant flavour.' Peter Bradshaw Read the full review In cinemas now Summed up in a sentence Heartwrenching follow-up to 20 Days in Mariupol, in which photojournalist Mstyslav Chernov is embedded with the 3rd Assault Brigade during a gruelling counteroffensive in Ukraine. What our reviewer said 'The forces brutally fight every metre of the way, heading for the symbolic liberation of the largely ruined village of Andriivka in north-eastern Ukraine. They are carrying a precious Ukrainian flag, and it is their mission to fix this to any broken bit of wall they can find, to proclaim their national spirit is not dead.' Peter Bradshaw Read the full review Further reading 'The soldiers want you to see what they're going through': the heartbreaking follow-up to 20 Days in Mariupol Multiple digital platforms; available now Summed up in a sentence Deba Hekmat is impressively subtle as a British-Iranian teen whose celebrations come unstuck on a complicated A-level results day. What our reviewer said 'Director Sasha Nathwani gets a headlong rush of energy from his zesty young cast, as they roam all over London – first in a horribly uncool 80s car, then on bikes, then via train.' Peter Bradshaw Read the full review Review by Houman Barekat Summed up in a sentence Scorching literary hot takes. What our reviewer said 'Reviewing Bret Easton Ellis's 'deeply needless' 2019 essay collection Long Chu bemoans his descent into fogeyish paranoia, and suggests the author of American Psycho is starting to resemble his most famous creation.' Read the full review Review by Emma Brockes Summed up in a sentence A gossipy, unsparing portrait of the actor and wellness guru. What our reviewer said 'Here's a reveal: Paltrow is such a massive cheapskate she used Goop's food editors to cook for her.' Read the full review Further reading Self-belief and sex eggs: 10 things we learned about Gwyneth Paltrow from an explosive new biography Review by Xan Brooks Summed up in a sentence Precocious 10-year-old Vera Bradford-Shmulkin comes of age in a near-future, post-democracy US. What our reviewer said 'Shteyngart's ode to a good American in a bad America conspires to be, by turns, a rueful human comedy and a coming-of-age caper, a dystopian chiller and an espionage yarn.' Read the full review Review by James Smart Summed up in a sentence Two fortysomething Glaswegians from either side of the tracks form an unlikely friendship. What our reviewer said 'A comic melodrama that's never dull, and a satire that hits most of its targets … a fine choice for anyone who likes a little grit in their holiday read.' Read the full review Further reading John Niven: 'My comfort read? Alan Clark's diaries' Review by Patrick Gale Summed up in a sentence In the rugged far north of Sweden, an elderly man lives out his last days with his beloved dog. What our reviewer said 'As Bo's end draws near, he faces the twin challenges of keeping his beloved Sixten at his side and overcoming his masculine conditioning so as not to die with love unexpressed.' Read the full review Review by Marcel Theroux Summed up in a sentence As his kids leave home, a middle-aged man takes a road trip to figure out his future, and whether to leave his marriage. What our reviewer said 'The relaxed precision of the writing is one of the novel's pleasures. Another is the gradual unpacking of Tom's mind as we travel alongside him.' Read the full review Out now Summed up in a sentence Velvets-style drone rock, trad folk, anarcho-punk and hippy whimsy are all discernible in the Brighton quartet's debut album. What our reviewer said 'The New Eve Is Rising sounds as if it's being played live, by a band who prize immediacy over virtuosity, with all the teetering potential for disaster that suggests. There's a certain white-knuckle intensity to the moment when Circles shifts its rhythm, and given that the change is counted in with such vociferousness, perhaps it hasn't always come off in the past.' Alexis Petridis Read the full review Out now Summed up in a sentence This sequel retains the original's generation-defining mix of dread and debauchery, although it is overshadowed by recent bolder versions of the sound. What our reviewer said 'It's an understandable impulse to make a sequel: rappers have done it for years, and nostalgia-bait has become a dominant form of popular art – to the point that Madonna has been teasing Confessions Part 2. But for an innovator such as AraabMuzik, moving on seems the best path.' Shaad D'Souza Read the full review Out now Summed up in a sentence Kaique Vieira's latest 'bruxaria' album is even bolder and louder than his 2023 debut, as he brings revolutionary spirit to the funk sound of São Paulo. What our reviewer said 'Vieira displays immense skill in balancing his arrangements and allowing each element, no matter how brash, to play clearly without collapsing into muddy loudness. Some listeners may find it too noisy, but succumb to Vieira's relentless energy and there is freedom in the barrage of sounds – an invitation to lose yourself in the cacophony.' Ammar Kalia Read the full review Out now Summed up in a sentence Exaudi, directed by James Weeks, explore late 16th-century choral works in this fascinating and involving disc. What our reviewer said 'The writhing, convoluted lines of these pieces, negotiated with exemplary precision and clarity by the seven singers of Exaudi, their voices perfectly matched and balanced, carry their own expressive power. This is a disc that becomes more fascinating and involving the more you listen to it.' Andrew Clements Read the full review Out now Summed up in a sentence Painted as a villain following Janet Jackson and Britney Spears controversies, the pop-R&B megastar gets back to brass tacks – and bed-rattling. What our reviewer said 'With not a hope in hell of regaining the narrative upper hand, the only weapon in Timberlake's arsenal is to produce bangers beyond reproach. For nearly half of this excessively long album, he gets close.' Laura Snapes Read the full review Further reading Justin Timberlake reveals Lyme disease diagnosis
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Justin Bieber offers a rare glimpse inside his and wife Hailey's $26M Beverly Hills mansion
This week Justin Bieber gave his Instagram followers a peek inside the $26 million Beverly Hills mansion he shares with wife Hailey Bieber. On Friday the 31-year-old pop star shared a brief reel as he joined the 'slide city' internet challenge inspired by a lyric from his hit song Yukon. Justin was dressed in red basketball shorts and a white T-shirt as he slid across his hardwood kitchen floor in a pair of knit socks. While fans have been posting themselves gliding across the floor to his catchy track, off his latest album Swag, his video did not include music. Hailey, 28, made a cameo appearance as she was shown in the background wearing black leggings and a black pullover sweatshirt. The Biebers' abode boasts seven bedrooms and 10 bathrooms with heated floors, according to They bought the sprawling residence, which is located in an exclusive guard-gated community, in 2020. Per the real estate outlet, its original listing noted that it is situated 'in the middle of park-like grounds' stretching over 2.5 acres. Justin recently posted photos in the couple's pristine entryway, which is punctuated with a piano. The home also offers a spacious living room, dining room, theater room, and chef's kitchen. Windows throughout permit lots of natural light into the love nest, where they're raising their son Jack Blues, who turns one this month. Outside there is a swimming pool, tennis court, and outdoor rooms featuring a barbecue, pizza oven, and koi pond. Meanwhile, the master suite has dual closets and a sitting area. In addition to their Los Angeles home base, the husband and wife purchased a $16.6 million house in La Quinta in 2023, using it as a vacation home. And their real estate portfolio also includes a property in Ontario, Canada. Justin released his surprise seventh studio album, Swag to great fanfare on July 11. Several songs make mention of his public persona, personal struggles, and his commitment to his wife Hailey and their baby son. There is also a theme of interludes featuring comedian Druski, during which Justin engages in candid 'therapy sessions' with the social media star. Rumors have recently circulated that the music sensation will tour Australia following the album release. Justin has not yet confirmed whether he will be touring, nor has Frontier Touring, who told Rolling Stone it had no information on any potential Australian tour dates. The hitmaker previously cancelled his Justice world tour in 2022 for health reasons.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Authority: Essays on Being Right by Andrea Long Chu review
Andrea Long Chu stands accused of not playing by the rules, of appraising works of fiction as if they were essays or confessions rather than aesthetic objects. 'It is true that I tend to treat a novel like an argument', she writes in the introduction to Authority, a collection of essays and reviews published between 2018 and 2023 in outlets such as N+1, Bookforum and New York Magazine. Long Chu – who won a Pulitzer prize for criticism in 2023 – believes 'all novels refract the veiled subjectivity of their authors', and to pretend otherwise is to indulge a 'pernicious form of commodity fetishism'. In her reviews, books betray their authors, invariably revealing some kernel of inadequacy – be it immaturity, myopia or just terminal dullness. This approach borders on the psychoanalytical, and makes for fun reading. Long Chu diagnoses a case of 'Munchausen by proxy' in Hanya Yanagihara, whose bestselling novels A Little Life (2015) and To Paradise (2022) are powered by 'the misery principle': 'horrible things happen to people for no reason', and the author is 'a sinister kind of caretaker, poisoning her characters in order to nurse them lovingly back to health'. She notes a troubling tendency towards 'infantile' idealisation of mothers and girlfriends in Tao Lin's autofiction, and finds 'something deeply juvenile' about the scatological motifs in Ottessa Moshfegh's novels. Moshfegh's medieval gore-fest Lapovona (2022), fails to shock, because 'You cannot épater le bourgeois without an actual bourgeoisie'; 'the leading coprophile of American letters' is trying too hard to convince us she's not a prude. Reviewing Bret Easton Ellis's 'deeply needless' 2019 essay collection, White ('less a series of glorified, padded-out blog posts than a series of regular, normal-size blog posts'), Long Chu bemoans his descent into fogeyish paranoia, and suggests the author of American Psycho is starting to resemble his most famous creation. 'At some point,' she quips, 'one must ask if a man who sees Nineteen Eighty-Four all around him is really just stuck in the 80s.' A takedown of Curtis Sittenfeld's 2020 novel, Rodham, which imagines an alternative universe where Hillary Clinton never married Bill, is a withering indictment of hollow girl-boss feminism: this is 'an unpolitical book by an unpolitical author about … an unpolitical person'; Sittenfeld's complacency mirrors that of her protagonist, a woman whose 'true talent lies in persuading college-educated people that her ambition, and by extension theirs, is a genuine expression of competence'. A recurring figure in these essays is the successful author with a gripe about oversensitive lefty youngsters and social media mobs. These include Ellis, Moshfegh, Maggie Nelson – whose complaints about art-world censoriousness in On Freedom are dismissed with a huffily italicised 'boring' – and Zadie Smith, whose 'habit of sympathizing with the least sympathetic party in any given situation frequently drives her to the political center'. Long Chu provocatively suggests this tendency is a bit of an act, compensating for Smith's failure to produce a touchstone work of social realism: since Smith has 'never actually excelled at constructing the kind of sympathetic, all-too-human characters she advocates for', she makes up for it with a lofty bothsidesism she thinks becoming of a serious, above-the-fray liberal humanist. Long Chu is similarly unsparing in her critique of the publishing industry's patronising and counterproductive tendency to over-hype minority voices in order to atone for past wrongs. ('This is to respond to pigeonholing by overstating the value of being a pigeon.') In a refreshingly clear-sighted essay on Asian American fiction, she questions whether the experiences depicted in a glut of diaspora novels have anything significant in common beyond their 'diffident, aimless, frustrated' protagonists and a vague melancholy; the much-laboured theme of identity manifests as little more than 'a sensation, a mild, chronic homesickness', and 'the acute experience of racial indeterminacy has diffused into something more banal'. Alongside the literary essays, Authority features dissections of TV shows and video games, and a wryly funny meditation on Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical shortcomings. (His winning strategy as a composer is 'not to persuade but to overwhelm'.) There are also several personal pieces including an essay on vaginoplasty, a fictionalised account of undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation (a treatment for depression), and On Liking Women, a widely shared 2018 essay about the author's gender transition that kickstarted her writing career. Here Long Chu draws a connecting line between the gender separatist ideology of 1970s political lesbianism and today's anti-trans activists, whom she accuses of laundering 'garden-variety moral disgust'. In another era, such personal material would have sat uneasily in a volume of criticism, and it says something about our cultural moment that it doesn't seem particularly out of place here. As Long Chu observes in the title essay, the subjectivity of the critic is an increasingly visible presence these days. Tracing the vexed debates around critical authority from the 18th century to the present day, she concludes that the concept has always been 'an incoherent, inconsistent, and altogether empty thing'. The job of today's critic is not so much to impart expertise but to become a storyteller in their own right: 'The critic has become a witness, one whose job is to offer up an event within her own experience in such a way that the reader, if she is so inclined, may experience it too.' This checks out. Though Long Chu's writing style is not as overtly chummy as that of her fellow US critic Lauren Oyler, it has a similarly disarming first-person candour, offsetting stridency with spasms of self-effacing humility, and the sort of tentative qualifications more commonly encountered in spoken discourse than on the printed page. ('Perhaps I am being ungenerous'; 'What I mean is that …'; 'My point is that …'; 'I do not mean …'; 'If it sounds like I'm saying … I suppose I am.') These tics can be a bit cloying, and the occasional adolescent turns of phrase feel jarringly regressive: Long Chu uses 'boring' an awful lot; at one point, she introduces a particularly unimpressive quote with 'The following is an actual sentence.' Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion In a postscript to one of the greener pieces in this volume, Long Chu, who is in her early 30s, winces at the prose style deployed by her younger self – 'that kind of bloggy 'voiceyness' was dated even then'. Her anxiety on this score is symptomatic of a generational dilemma for a cohort of American writers who, having been raised to distrust authority – not just as a concept but perhaps especially as a register – and steeped in the highly self-conscious patter of online communities, must now work out how to be publicly clever in a non-overbearing way. In an anti-intellectual media landscape, one way to make yourself legible is to make yourself small. This is the striking thing about Long Chu's authorial tone: she combines the expert and the naif in a single voice, which chimes with a similar dualism in her reader. These essays are essentially journeys – knotty and meandering, with moments of pithy, clarifying insight. If you can hold someone's interest while figuring things out for yourself in real time on the page, you're doing something right. Perhaps the true source of authority is companionable intelligence, and what we think of as sound judgment is just a function of familiarity – comfort in another person's psychic skin. Authority: Essays on Being Right by Andrea Long Chu is published by Hutchinson Heinemann (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
