Matthew Fox reveals why he retired from acting for nearly a decade

This isn’t something I particularly noticed but Lost star Matthew Fox has not acted in nearly a decade. The actor has decided to put that on pause with Peacock’s upcoming apocalyptic series, Last Night and while discussing the show, Matthew Fox revealed why he retired from acting for close to a decade.

According to Fox during a chat at the Monte-Carlo Film Festival, via TVLine, he had certain things in mind to cap off his career. He wanted to do a western and he did so with the 2014 film Bone Tomahawk, which crossed that off the bucket list for Fox. The actor said, “I kind of had a bucket list in my mind of things I wanted to accomplish in the business, and after I did [the movie] Bone Tomahawk in 2014 that had kind of completed the bucket list. I wanted to do a Western. It’s a very odd Western, but it’s a Western. And so that sort of completed the bucket list”

Like most actors who are busy in the business but also have families, Fox says that more time with them played a factor in his decision:

“At that time in my life, our kids were at an age where I felt like I needed to really reengage. I had been focused on work for some time, and [my wife] Margherita had been running the family so beautifully, but I felt like it was time to be home, and I really felt like I was retiring from the business, and working on other creative elements that are really personal to me — some music and writing.”

Matthew Fox originally rose to fame as a part of the ensemble cast of Fox’s family drama, Party of Five, which ran from 1994-2000. After a bit of a break, the actor was propelled into the pop culture stratosphere as a part of the cast of Lost. Fox played Dr. Jack Shephard in the series from 2004-2010 and it earned him a Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award nominations. During this time period, the actor also appeared in films such as Smokin’ Aces, We Are Marshall, Vantage Point, and Speed Racer.

There are some that believe that Fox’s retirement was also tied to troubles in his personal life. Back in 2011, Fox was accused of assaulting a female bus driver in Cleveland, Ohio. He denied the allegations at the time and prosecutors opted not to charge him but his former Lost co-star, Dominic Monaghan, tweeted in May 2012 that Fox “beats women. Not isolated incidents. Often.” It should be noted that a subsequent civil suit filed was withdrawn by the bus driver.

2022 seems to be the right time for Fox to step back into the business a bit. The Peacock series Last Night, which also stars Downton Abbey’s, Joanne Froggatt, has the actor returning to TV for the first time since Lost ended in 2010. Fox also serves as an executive producer on the series, which is a thriller that imagines a world plunged into crisis when oil suppliers are jeopardized. Here is what Fox had to say about returning to acting for the show:

“I kind of got to a point where I thought that maybe the bucket list included executive producing. I’d never done that before. The opportunity to be involved in Last Light came along, and so I wanted to give it a shot. And it felt like the right time.”

As of now, Peacock has not set a premiere date for Last Night. What are YOUR thoughts on Matthew Fox coming out of his retired phase?