Jonah Hill has spoken about his decision to leave his hometown of Los Angeles after he had children.
The 42-year-old actor — who shares two children with his wife Olivia Millar — revealed the news of his move during a SmartLess podcast live show in L.A. alongside hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett.
“So I live in a very small town in San Diego, and it’s amazing, and my neighbors are incredible people. And when we had our first kid, we moved out there three years ago,” he said onstage Saturday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“I wanted to leave L.A. and raise a family outside of Los Angeles,” Hill continued.
The Wolf of Wall Street star went on to rave about how “cool” his neighbors are.
“They never treat me weird or ask me about my job or anything. And my neighbor is one of my great friends, Dr. Sean,” he added. “He’s here tonight. He never bothered me or was like, ‘Oh, what’s this person like?’”
The conversation comes amid Hill’s return to the spotlight following a three-year hiatus. In his 2022 documentary about his psychiatrist, Stutz, he announced that he was taking a step back from promoting his movies due to anxiety attacks he faced throughout his career.
“I’ve been gone for a while, so I’m kind of coming back and I’m like excited because I got all, like, serious for a while and I wasn’t as happy,” he said during the Smartless appearance. “And then I had my family and I got happy, and now all I want to do is be funny again. That’s why I said yes [to being on Smartless]. I’m, like, ‘I want to go f***ing be funny in front of a crowd and that’d be awesome.’”
He credited his wife and their two young children, whose names and genders have not been publicly revealed, for his change in perspective about comedy.
“If you’re bummed, you don’t feel like being that funny, right? The first thing I thought about when I had my kids and was so stoked, it was like I connected to back when I was just like 12 and I was just being funny for fun,” Hill added. “That’s the thing I fell in love with my whole life.”
Hill broke out in Hollywood with his comedy roles in hit films like Superbad and 21 Jump Street. A year after he announced his break from the public eye, his ex-girlfriend, surfer Sarah Brady, accused him of emotional abuse. Brady shared screenshots of texts allegedly from Hill showing controlling behavior before they broke up in 2022. Hill has not publicly responded to the accusations.
Hill’s new film, Outcome, co-written by Ezra Woods, marks his first return to the screen since the accusations. His last on-screen appearances came in 2023’s You People with Eddie Murphy and the controversial 2021 apocalypse film Don’t Look Up.
Outcome, released April 10, is the third project directed by Hill after his 2018 directorial debut, Mid90s, and Stutz.
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