Joan Cusack has opened up about attending her first Hollywood red carpet event in nearly a decade.
The Oscar-nominated actor, 63, returns to voice Jessie in Toy Story 5 — her first major film role since the franchise’s 2019 fourth installment — and recently celebrated at the film’s U.K. and Los Angeles premieres with her family.
“In my life, I haven’t really done that many of those things,” Cusack said of red carpets in the latest issue of People. “I think I turned the corner with my husband and was like, ‘Whoa. What’s going on here?’ And then those guns popped the confetti out and I was like, ‘Whoa. What’s happening?’”
“But I’ve been in Chicago raising my kids, which there’s nothing more important to me than that,” she continued. “And it’s been kind of crazy to be part of it, a red carpet thing. It’s just not what I do.
“I don’t even dress up that much.”
Cusack transitioned from a breakout cast member on Saturday Night Live to an acclaimed, Oscar-nominated fixture of 1980s cinema — earning nods in the Best Supporting Actress category for comedies In & Out and Working Girl —and starred in several notable films in the 1990s and 2000s, including Addams Family Values and School of Rock.
Since 1999’s Toy Story 2, Cusack has voiced Jessie — opposite Tom Hanks’s Woody — in the franchise, but has largely distanced herself from acting in the years since.
In the weeks following her red carpet appearances at the Toy Story 5 premieres, Cusack has opened up about choosing to live her life out of the spotlight and why such events are a rarity for her.
“I think because I’ve worked for a long time and I’m so honored to be able to work in this industry for a long time, but it’s also great to live your life and raise your kids and be in Chicago and be a normal person,” she told Variety. “It’s kind of priceless.”
The interviewer told Cusack that people get “so excited” when seeing her on the red carpet, to which she responded: “Aw. Well, it’s kinda cool ’cause there’s not that many movies that do huge red carpets unless you’re doing like an action, superhero [film], so it’s cool.”
Despite her successful career, Cusack hasn’t ever strayed from her Chicago roots.
“I never lived anywhere else,” she told People. “I think a couple times I tried to go out to LA and I’d be in a coffee shop and the waitress would be like, ‘Oh my God, I just got a part doing blah-blah-blah.’”
“Everyone’s so beautiful. It’s too sunny. I don’t even like the sun, so I couldn’t do it.”
Toy Story 5 is out in theaters now.
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