Jonathan Taylor Thomas walked away from Hollywood when his career was at its peak.
In a new interview, Tim Allen reveals what's really holding back a Home Improvement reboot, and it's not what fans might expect. "They keep talking about how it could move forward, but they get stuck [because] there are some personality problems right now with the boys," the Toy Story 5 star told Us Weekly. "They've got their own issues."
Thomas left the hit ABC sitcom in 1998 at just 16. Now 44, he had decided long before reunion talk began that he wanted something other than fame: a normal teenage life.
"I wanted to go back to school," Thomas explained on Late Night With Conan O'Brien after his departure. "Go to the football games on the weekend. That kind of stuff." As a young teen, he was direct about the risks of child stardom. "Most [fallen child stars] weren't prepared for the end," he told Premiere magazine in 1996. "You can't base your life around one thing."
The man who voiced young Simba in The Lion King and became a teen heartthrob as brainy Randy Taylor grasped what his peers did not: the work has an expiration date. And when it ends, who are you without it?
"You are a part of their life, and there is a lot that is owed them," Thomas told the New York Times in 1997, speaking about his fanbase. "But it's difficult because you want to make everyone happy, but if you try to do that, you're setting yourself up for failure."
These days, when the paparazzi spot him out grabbing coffee or walking around town, it's treated like a major event. Thomas now lives quietly on his own terms, far removed from the industry that made him famous.
