Rick Moranis, the actor who left Hollywood to raise his children: ‘I took a break, which turned into a longer break’

One of the first lines that comes to mind when thinking of Ghostbusters (1984) is: “I am Vinz, Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer. Volguus Zildrohar, Lord of the Sebouillia. Are you the Gatekeeper?” Then come others — many of them also delivered by Rick Moranis, 72. Despite acting alongside comedy heavyweights like Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray, Moranis managed to steal every scene he appeared in in Ivan Reitman’s classic. The Canadian comedian was one of the biggest comedy stars in U.S. film for a decade — and then, suddenly, his career came to a standstill.

It’s a story most people know: after the death of his wife, he decided to focus on raising his young children. Yet he has never seen it as a retirement. He has even said he’d like to change the line on his Wikipedia page that describes him as “virtually retired,” but he doesn’t know how. He’s never been particularly interested in the internet, and even less in social media.

During this long hiatus, in which he took on small, low-profile projects, rumors about his return kept surfacing — mostly fueled by fans’ hopes rather than actual news. Now, that wish is coming true, along with a long-held dream of one of his most successful directors. Mel Brooks said back in 2014 that he wanted to make a sequel to Spaceballs — but only if Moranis joined the cast. “Without Rick, I wouldn’t do it,” he told Parade. “I’ve got the helmet in storage, just waiting for him. It’ll fit nobody else. Rick is five-five-and-a-half. It’s a perfect fit for the big helmet. He was such a genius." Now Spaceballs 2 is confirmed for a release in 2027.

Moranis’s career began as a radio disc jockey in his native Canada. There, he formed a comedy duo with his friend Rob Cowan, whiich was so successful, it caught the attention of Second City Television, the popular Canadian comedy show that launched stars such as John Candy, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O’Hara. The show became so popular that it later aired in the United States and even served as a substitute for Saturday Night Live.

His character — a parody of Canadian stereotypes, always dressed in heavy clothing with a beer in hand — started as filler material but was so popular with audiences that he ended up starring in his own film, Strange Brew (1983), alongside Swedish actor Max Von Sydow in an unusual pairing. He also appeared in Walter Hill’s cult musical Streets of Fire (1984) with Michael Paré and Diane Lane. After that came his big break: playing Louis Tully in Ghostbusters.

Although it’s hard to imagine the accountant with any other traits now, Louis Tully was originally written for John Candy. It was inspired by one of Candy’s characters on Second City and was radically different from the one that eventually appeared on screen. Candy turned down the role, and director Ivan Reitman then thought of Moranis, another member of Second City. “He read it in like one hour, called me up, and said, “Wow, please thank Candy for me. This is the greatest thing I ever read,’” Reitman recalled in Ghostbusters: An Oral History.

From the moment they saw him at his first audition, it was clear he was perfect for the role: he made Louis completely his own, to the point of rewriting lines and turning him into the perfect nerd — something that wasn’t in the script. He charmed the entire crew.

“He had incredible talent,” said Richard Edlund, head of special effects. “He could do Johnny Carson doing Tarzan. He could do an actor doing another actor, and see both of them.”

Moranis also impressed actresss Sigourney Weaver, who had come from the Yale drama school. “Talk about improvising. I know a lot of it was in the script, but Rick was just a genius.” In the article, she admitted that in some takes you can see her laughing because she couldn’t contain herself in Moranis’s presence.

He quickly became a familiar face, and it wasn’t long before he landed a role with more substance: Seymour, the florist tasked with caring for a strange extraterrestrial plant with cannibalistic habits, in Little Shop of Horrors (1986). The musical comedy was the big-screen adaptation of the 1982 off-Broadway musical, which in turn was adapted from Roger Corman’s B-movie The Little Shop of Horrors. Director Frank Oz, who was working in England at the time, didn’t know Moranis; the actor had been highly recommended by producer David Geffen. Oz was not only impressed by his acting but also went on to become his lifelong friend.

The film, done mostly with practical effects, required enormous effort from the entire crew. There was no CGI. Fifty-five puppeteers were needed to operate the plant, and Moranis had to sing and move in slow motion to sync with Audrey (the plant), repeating each take more than 30 times, as explained in a report on the shoot by The Hollywood Reporter.

Moranis doesn’t like to single out any one film in his career, but he admits that Little Shop of Horrors holds a special place in his heart. “I’m the luckiest guy to get that,” he said. Little Shop of Horrors became a cult phenomenon, though not a major box-office hit. His next film would succeed on both fronts.

Mel Brooks considers Moranis a “brilliant casting choice” and a “uniquely gifted and hilarious” actor who also had perfect chemistry with John Candy. In Spaceballs (1987), Candy played Barf, a sort of Chewbacca, while Moranis was Dark Helmet, a wacky take on Darth Vader. “Because Rick was short, we decided to literally encase him in a huge black helmet.,” Brooks confessed years later. “Rick was hysterically funny in the role. He cost me a lot of money because I ruined so many takes he was in by helplessly breaking into loud laughter.” Once again, Moranis put his own stamp on the character: according to the director, one of the film’s most famous scenes, in which Dark Helmet and Princess Vespa play with action figures, was improvised by Moranis.

It’s impossible to find anyone who has worked with Moranis who doesn’t praise him as an outstanding professional and colleague. His on-screen daughter in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), actress Amy O’Neill, said that he wasn’t just a father figure in the film, but in real life as well. “Rick was always warm but respectful, always kind, professional and on his game. I’m so proud to have called him Dad,” she told People on the film’s 35th anniversary. Paternal to the point that one day he scolded her when he found her and another child actor trying to order a cocktail at the hotel where they were holding a press event to promote the movie.

The role of Wayne Szalinski, the absent-minded scientist father, had also originally been intended for John Candy — but it was Candy himself who recommended his friend Moranis. A perfect choice: it became one of his most beloved characters and, thanks to its success and that of its sequels, allowed him to take a break from his career years later.

Before that, he enjoyed another success: he played Barney Rubble in The Flintstones (1994), and again he was the second choice (Danny DeVito had been the first). Moranis describes his experience with the live-action version of the animated series as “one of those scripts that had about 18 writers.” It wasn’t the kind of filmmaking he enjoyed. “On the last couple of movies I made — big-budget Hollywood movies — I really missed being able to create my own material," he told Vanity Fair. “In the early movies I did, I was brought in to basically rewrite my stuff, whether it was Ghostbusters or Spaceballs. By the time I got to the point where I was ‘starring’ in movies, and I had executives telling me what lines to say, that wasn’t for me. I’m really not an actor. I’m a guy who comes out of comedy, and my impetus was always to rewrite the line to make it funnier, not to try to make somebody’s precious words work."

Moranis doesn’t have an extensive filmography, but his few movies have made him a very recognizable face. Equally notable are the roles he never ended up filming. He was nearly cast as the janitor in The Breakfast Club, but he tried to play the character with an unnecessary Russian accent, according to John Hughes, and left the set after a week of shooting. He also turned down the role in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, which made Jim Carrey a star, and was originally chosen to star in City Slickers alongside Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby, but left that production to care for his wife, who had just been diagnosed with cancer.

In 1986, he married makeup artist Ann Belsky, with whom he had two children; they were happily married until 1991, when she passed away from cancer, leaving him devastated. From that point on, acting took a backseat in his life. “I’m a single parent, and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn’t miss it,” he told USA Today in 2005.

He didn’t actually stop acting completely — only the on-screen roles. Moranis continued to voice animated characters, record music (his great passion), and even write humorous articles for The New Yorker, all of which allowed him to stay in Manhattan with his children. “I was working with really interesting people, wonderful people,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, in one of his rare interviews during these years. “I went from that to being at home with a couple of little kids, which is a very different lifestyle. But it was important to me. I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever. My life is wonderful.”

Moranis made the same choice as stars like Cameron Diaz or Josh Hartnett: putting his career on hold to focus on raising his children — an unusual move in Hollywood, but he doesn’t make a big deal of it. “I took a break, which turned into a longer break,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “People have things happen all the time, and they adapt, change careers, move to another city. That’s actually what I did.”

Since then, there has been a steady stream of rumors about his possible return to major roles. He was nearly set to appear in a new Honey, I Shrunk the Kids sequel, but COVID-19 halted those plans. What he never considered was returning for the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, even though all his former co-stars joined the project. He hadn’t been satisfied with the original sequel, and the script for the reboot didn’t interest him either. “I wish them well,” he said. “I hope it’s terrific. But it just makes no sense to me.”

The public admiration for Moranis, who has become a cult figure much like some of his films, was evident in 2020 when he was assaulted on the street. It was a random attack — the assailant didn’t know who he was hitting — but as soon as footage of the incident leaked, people took to social media to rally in support of him, including Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America. “The guy that attacked Rick Moranis needs to get his ass whipped,” Evans posted on Twitter.

Moranis’ return to leading roles will allow his many fans to reconnect with an actor who never needed an extensive filmography to hold an important place in their hearts.

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