Celebrities Who Now Work Normal Jobs

From famous movie stars to pop stars, here are celebrities who now work normal jobs.

May 23, 2023・

11 min read

The life of a celebrity might seem glamorous and exciting, but in the immortal words of Dr. Dre, “anyone can get it, the hard part is keeping it”. Whether their success was short-lived, or they realized they just weren’t cut out for fame, let’s check out these celebrities who’re now working regular jobs.

Peter Ostrum

12-year-old Peter Ostrum snagged the role of Charlie Bucket in the 1971 classic, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, after being scouted in a children’s theater production in Cleveland.

This could’ve been the golden ticket to stardom for a young actor, but he simply wasn’t interested after the film’s production wrapped. He refused a three-movie deal and, as he grew older, became reluctant to admit he’d ever played the role of Charlie.

It turned out, Ostrum was more into animal farms than chocolate factories. He studied at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine and has worked as a veterinarian in Lowville, New York for nearly 4 decades now. He specializes in farm animals like dairy cattle, so maybe there is some hope for milk chocolate in his future.

Nikki Blonsky

While the mega-hit 2007 movie musical Hairspray was enough to get Nikki Blonsky a golden globe nomination, it wasn’t enough to get her consistent work in showbiz.

To find a way to pay the bills while waiting for her next big break, Blonsky started working in a Long Island beauty salon in 2011. She was seen doing everything from applying makeup to sweeping floors. While she probably can’t belt out any musical numbers in the salon, Blonsky hasn’t given up on her dreams.

She continues to audition while keeping her day job, making the occasional appearance on stage and screen, though nothing close to the success of Hairspray (yet). But hopefully for Nikki, it can be hair today, second stardom tomorrow!

Kevin Jonas

What happens when three brothers with good singing voices and TV-friendly faces form a band and start making pop hits? Teenage girls everywhere go crazy. What happens when the band calls it quits? Well, if the Jonas Brothers are anything to go by, two of the brothers move onto solo careers in acting and music while one goes into entrepreneurship.

Yep, after the boy band disbanded in 2013, the eldest Jonas, Kevin, became the co-CEO of an influencer marketing company called Blu Market. He’s also founded a real-estate development and construction company, as well as dabbling in the world of programming.

While these jobs might not seem “normal” in the traditional sense, they’re certainly a far cry from what made him a celebrity. While the brothers reunited in 2019 to make new music, it’s safe to say Kevin has a pretty solid backup plan for when he gets tired of playing mid-2000s pop-rock again.

Chris Owen

When you’re type-cast as the geekiest of geeks, maintaining a Hollywood career is always going to be tricky. For Chris Owen, better known as Chuck, “the Sherminator ”, from American Pie, this was the reality.

While he’s been invited back for every American Pie sequel, finding regular acting work has proven difficult for someone as distinctively ‘Sherman’ as Chris. He worked as a waiter at a sushi restaurant in Santa Monica to support him between auditions, while also dabbling in commercial photography and real estate. Although if he doesn’t tell clients having their picture taken to “prepare to be Shermanated ”, I’ll be very disappointed.

Tom Selleck

As the owner of arguably the most famous mustache on TV, you might expect Tom Selleck to still be enjoying an illustrious on-screen career. But after gaining fame as Magnum P .I., the 2010s saw Selleck’s acting career slow right down.

Instead, the mustachioed icon sprouted a new career that might seem unusual to most. In what started as a relatively casual business venture 30 years ago, Selleck has now fully established himself as an avocado farmer at his 30-acre California ranch. He even has some friendly competition with the owner of a neighboring avocado farm, Jamie Foxx.

The plot twist is that Tom doesn’t even like avocadoes, but chooses to grow them nonetheless. Millennials, well done: your love of whole-wheat toast and smashed avocado is contributing to Magnum P.I.’s retirement mustache fund.

Steven Seagal

In the 80s and early 90s, Steven Seagal was best known for his impressive martial arts and performances in movies like Under Siege and Hard to Kill. But when his movie career began to lose steam, Seagal decided not to let his action-man skills go to waste.

In 2013, he was sworn in as a deputy sheriff in New Mexico, following on from various forms of law enforcement work throughout his life.

His combination of star power, strength and martial arts expertise saw him train officers around the U.S.-Mexico border. As if that wasn’t enough, in 2018, he added special representative for the Russian Foreign Ministry to his resume, thanks to his much-publicized mutual-respect relationship with Vladimir Putin.

His job was to promote good relations between Russia and America through the exchange of culture and art. While for most of us, that may still seem like a pretty exceptional job, there are fewer explosions involved than on a film set. Slightly.

Terry Chimes

In the late 1970s, the English punk group The Clash stormed the music scene with their aggressive, politically-charged songs. Their repertoire evolved to include funk and reggae sounds, creating hits like “Rock the Casbah”, that would gain them international renown.

Terry Chimes was the original drummer for the group but left after their first album because he, ironically, “clashed” with the other members. The path he ventured on was hardly what you’d expect of a punk rocker.

While participating in a few musical endeavors on the side, he followed his passion for medicine and healing to become a chiropractor. He now owns a clinic in Essex, near London, and gives chiropractic seminars. If the spirit of punk is rebellion, perhaps going from cracking beats to cracking backs is as punk as it gets? Even if not, it certainly takes some backbone.

Danny Lloyd

You’d think that the kid from Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, The Shining, would go on to lead a pretty wild lifestyle. But the reality couldn’t be more different. Danny Lloyd, the child actor who yelled ‘REDRUM ’, says that while the experience wasn’t bad for him, Hollywood life was never for him.

He retired from acting aged 10 after only 2 acting roles and never looked back. In college, he took on regular odd jobs like working at Wal-Mart or on a hog farm. Now, he’s a humble biology teacher at a community college in Kentucky.

He normally has to skirt around any mention of his famous role to avoid disrupting classes. However, he’s probably been tempted to go all “heeeeeere’s Danny” on unruly students from time to time.

Stephen Anthony Lawrence

If you were ever a fan of the Disney series Even Stevens, you’ll remember Beans, the persistent, bacon-loving next-door neighbor. Stephen Anthony Lawrence was certainly memorable as this character, and in similar roles in films like Cheaper by the Dozen and the Cat in the Hat.

Nowadays, his acting career isn’t so busy, but that hasn’t stopped him from sharing his acting knowledge. He’s now teaching other aspiring actors, delivering seminars at colleges throughout America. And around the holidays, he sometimes even works as Santa’s Little Helper at a shopping center in Northern California.

Fans always recognize him, because even though he strayed from his acting career and his hair seems to have divorced him, who could forget that face?

Jack Gleeson

Jack Gleeson, the Irish actor behind the Game of Thrones character everybody loves to hate, made an unusual choice after his stint on the show concluded. He retired from acting. Having been seen as the vengeful and venomous Joffrey, there was always the issue that faces many young actors: the fear of being typecast.

But while this may have been a factor, what most people didn’t know was that he actually just wanted to study. After leaving the show, the then-21-year-old Gleeson announced that he would be studying philosophy and theology at Dublin’s Trinity College.

Since graduating, he’s expressed an interest in becoming an academic and a philosophy lecturer, noting that acting was never meant to be more than a hobby for him. Maybe playing a sadist just makes you want to get in touch with your philosophical side?

Dylan Sprouse

Twins Dylan and Cole Sprouse have been working as actors since there were babies, with roles ranging from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody to 1999’s Big Daddy. While Cole continued his acting career into adult life, starring in the CW’s Riverdale, Dylan went into a very different type of entertainment: brewing mead.

Mead, for the record, is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey in water, and its popularity has dropped off quite a bit in the last few hundred years. So why did Dylan Sprouse open his own brewery, All-Wise Meadery, in 2018?

Well, Cole’s interest in the ancient drink spans from an obsession with history, and a love of brewing mead that began when he was 16. After graduating from NYU in 2015, he spotted an opportunity to turn his hobby into a career.

Now, he commutes to a regular job like the rest of us, showing up for hands-on brewing, tastings and leading distribution deals. With his mead retailing for $30 a bottle, and a growing market, it’s becoming a surprising source of stable income for the Suite Life star.

Hayden Christensen

Not long after playing the iconic role of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, Hayden Christensen made the unconventional choice to reject the celebrity lifestyle. Feeling that his career had become a powerful wave that was destined to crash, he stepped back from the limelight, only occasionally acting in independent films here and there.

In 2007, Christensen bought a farm, and has spent years renovating it, learning how to grow crops and raise livestock along the way. With a passion for design, he also launched a clothing line in collaboration with RW&CO in 2013.

The same year, he also established a small-budget production company called Glacier Films with his sibling Tove Christensen. With a selection of ventures ranging from the extraordinary to the (quite literally) down-to-earth, Anakin is certainly keeping himself busy and, hopefully, free from the evil thoughts of a Sith.

Shaquille O’Neal

Is there nothing Shaq can’t do? He can play basketball, he can rap, and he sells Icy Hot. But as of now, he can arrest you too. After an extremely successful career on and off the basketball court, in 2016, he was sworn in as an honorary deputy sheriff in Clayton County, Georgia.

Having already received police training in the decade prior, it was really a simple matter of titles, which included being the tallest deputy in the history of the Clayton County office. In 2019, he also became an auxiliary deputy for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, and now regularly attends discussions on how to make communities safer.

On top of that, he’s also been given the title of honorary US Deputy Marshall and reserve officer with other agencies in California, Arizona and Florida. He even announced his plans to run for sheriff in Henry County, Georgia. If all police were Shaq’s size, criminals would be slam-dunked left, right and center.

Vanilla Ice

If you thought Vanilla Ice melted off the face of the earth, you may be surprised to hear he’s been raking in around $300,000 in profit on each of his new projects. But I don’t mean new albums. While “Ice Ice Baby” was a mega hit, it proved difficult for Vanilla, real name Robert Van Winkle, to repeat his success.

After struggling with drug addiction, he slowed down on music and found something more solid than ice: real estate. Vanilla has something of a gift for renovating dilapidated homes and makes a fortune reselling them! His skills even launched a show called the Vanilla Ice Project, which features tips that people can use to renovate their own homes.

Today, Vanilla Ice has a net worth of around $10 million, so he’s still far from your average guy, even if his job is notably more conventional. But while flipping houses isn’t quite as glamourous as topping THE charts, it’s something Van Winkle can do much more consistently. For Vanilla, there’s no shame in trying to “Flip that house, house, baby!”

I hope you were amazed at these celebrities who now work normal jobs. Thanks for reading!