John Corbett Regrets 'Unfulfilling' Acting Career, Wishes He'd Had More Creative Input
John Corbett made legions of fans swoon with his performances in the “Sex and the City” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” franchises, but he now believes a professional detour might have been to his benefit.
Appearing on the “Fly on the Wall” podcast last week, the actor deemed the bulk of his work in Hollywood “unfulfilling,” and suggested he’d have opted for a different career path entirely if he’d known how things would turn out.
“Look, I’m at the fourth quarter of the football game now, in life and in show biz ― it’s just a fact,” Corbett, 63, told hosts Dana Carvey and David Spade. “So I can reveal now I picked the fucking wrong thing to do with my life.”
Though the actor acknowledged he’s “made a lot of money” and now lives “in a beautiful home,” he wishes he’d had more creative input on the film and TV projects he was a part of.
“As far as a fulfilling creative work life, I didn’t write one fucking line,” he said. “I didn’t write one joke to make people laugh. So it’s been unfulfilling on that level.”
He went on to note: “Anybody listening that’s never been on a movie set, if you came to visit any one of us for two days ― just two of those 14-hour days ― you’d say: ’I never wanna be here ever, ever again. This is like watching paint dry.’”
Corbett, a West Virginia native, landed his first on-camera role in 1988, when he appeared on “The Wonder Years” as Louis, the hippie boyfriend of Karen Arnold (Olivia d’Abo). His professional breakout came two years later, when he starred as Chris Stevens, an ex-convict turned free-spirited radio DJ, on the smash CBS series “Northern Exposure.”
At one point in his “Fly on the Wall” chat, Corbett pointed to two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone as an example of an actor whose career has afforded her the type of opportunities, as a producer and creative collaborator, that he would have liked to be offered.
“I’m not a fucking movie actor ... I’m really a television actor, and so that thing has to move quick, and that guy’s got to make a million decisions,” he said. “And we’re not shucking and jiving and going out for wine after.”
Interestingly, Corbett’s remarks come on the heels of a professional resurgence. Last year, he reprised two of his most famous roles ― Ian Miller in the third installment of the “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” franchise, and Aidan Shaw in “And Just Like That,” Max’s “Sex and the City” revival series. It looks like he’ll be back on the small screen when “And Just Like That” returns for its third season next year, as he and co-star Sarah Jessica Parker have recently been spotted on the show’s New York set.
As to how Corbett selects his projects these days, he told Carvey and Spade: “If something seems really, really fucking fun, I’ll say yes.”
Listen to John Corbett’s “Fly on the Wall” interview below. His remarks about his career regrets begin about an hour and 10 minutes in.
