Jonah Hill 'hit pause' on acting career to pursue directing dream
Jonah Hill "hit pause" on his acting career after he turned 30 so he could pursue his dream of being a director.
The 37-year-old sat down with his Don't Look Up director Adam McKay for GQ Style to talk about slowing down in his 30s after his overnight success with the 2007 teen comedy Superbad.
"It was very overnight for me. (Co-star) Michael Cera and I talk about it all the time. We just had this really rare experience: One day life was one way, and then one day life was a different way," he said.
Hill, who was 23 at the time, dropped out of college following the success of the film and other opportunities that came rushing at him. At the time, the decision to drop out seemed like the right thing to do, as he saw university as a way to "idle for four years," but in retrospect, he regrets the decision.
"I didn't realise until I turned 30 that what those four years gave all my friends was this wobbling period of how to be a person," he explained. "I was really advanced professionally but really behind personally. All my 20s, I wasn't really looking inward. I was just running toward success. Or trying to find success."
And once he turned 30, he decided to "hit pause" on his acting career to focus on his goal of becoming a director, which he achieved in 2018 with his skater film Mid90s.
"I took three or four years to reshape things. I was like, I could just do this (acting) for 10 more years and I'm not going to evolve as a person," he shared.
