'This Is Us' star Chrissy Metz left Hollywood after two decades, says she found a 'better quality of life'

Fox News

06-04-2025

After over two decades in Los Angeles, "This is Us" actress Chrissy Metz is embracing life in Nashville, Tennessee.
"I moved to Nashville," the 44-year-old actress and singer told People magazine in a new interview. "I was in LA for 21 years, but my family is in Florida, where I'm from, and during the pandemic, I could drive to them from here. It's just a better quality of life here. Everything is 15 minutes away, and it's just so much less stress."
"There's a lot going on," she added. "There's obviously great music, great food. I grew up in the South, so I'm used to sort of that hospitality—it feels more communal here. In L.A. it was always like, 'Oh, you have an audition? What's it for? Oh, you have an audition? What for?' It was all very dog-eat-dog."
Lately, Metz – who starred alongside Mandy Moore, Justin Hartley, Milo Ventimiglia and Sterling K. Brown in the series from 2016 to 2022 – has been focusing on her career in music and the upcoming release of her new children's book, "When I Talk to God, I Talk About Feelings."
"I think we're coming into this age of mental health awareness and just talking about our feelings in real ways," she told the outlet. "And so I wondered, could we preemptively strike and get the kids to name their feelings and then express their feelings and have the confidence to even do that?"
Metz isn't the only celeb who has been open about their retreat from Hollywood.
Renée Zellweger recently reflected on her six-year hiatus from Los Angeles,
Zellweger, who found fame starring in movies like "Jerry Maguire" and "Cold Mountain," was featured on the cover of British Vogue's February 2025 issue and explained that there was one specific reason she decided to leave the spotlight in 2010.
"Because I needed to. I was sick of the sound of my own voice."
"When I was working, I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, listen to you. Are you sad again, Renée? Oh, is this your mad voice?' It was a regurgitation of the same emotional experiences," she told the outlet.
Prior to her return to Hollywood in 2016, Zellweger "wrote music and studied international law."
She also "built a house, rescued a pair of older doggies, created a partnership that led to a production company, advocated for and fundraised with a sick friend and spent alot of time with family and godchildren and driving across the country with the dogs."
"I got healthy," Zellweger explained.
Fox News Digital's Janelle Ash contributed to this post.