My Girl child star fled Hollywood after ‘out-of-body moment’ but ‘sign’ brought her back

My Girl star Anna Chlumsky was just 11 years old when she was cast as the lead in the 1991 coming-of-age classic that catapulted her to fame.

The heartbreaking film saw her starring alongside fellow child star Macaulay Culkin, who’d already made a name for himself in Hollywood after filming Home Alone the year before. But for Anna, it marked her first ever major motion picture and it was a huge success, grossing nearly $60million in the US alone.

Anna’s normal childhood soon seemed worlds away as she became instantly famous and the film was such a hit she was re-cast in the 1994 sequel My Girl 2, which made another $5million in its opening week. But despite the promising start to her career, the young star fled Hollywood just a few years later — disappearing for nearly a decade.

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The actress, now 42, suddenly quit acting after heading to college. Explaining the decision, she told PEOPLE: “As a kid, you’re just along for the ride, but it can be extremely damaging. [In college] I had this out-of-body moment where I realized, ‘I don’t have to do this anymore.'”

Opening up about her experiences as a child star last year, Anna said being catapulted to fame at such a young age was traumatic. She told the Independent: “I was lucky because I didn’t have any other huge traumas at the time. I’m the baseline of [child stardom] going relatively well. Yet it was only as an adult that I discovered any sense of reliability or security. When I was a child those did not exist, because I was for sale.”

During her time at the University of Chicago, she met her non-showbiz husband Shaun So and after graduating with a degree in International Studies in 2002, Anna continued to reject Hollywood. She returned to the normal world of work, securing a job as a fact-checker for the restaurant guide Zagat followed by a stint as an editorial assistant for publisher HarperCollins.

But Anna eventually started to feel like something was missing and recalled how she started seeing “signs” telling her to return to acting. “A lot of angels I was meeting, inspiring me to get back into show business,” she said.

One of those meetings was a chance run-in with singer Roberta Flack at a nail salon, who told her to “keep doing it”. So Anna started classes at the Atlantic Acting School and made guest appearances on TV shows including 30 Rock and Law & Order.

In 2012, she got her second big acting break when she landed the role of Amy Brookheimer in the HBO political comedy Veep. The series ran for seven seasons before coming to a close in 2019 and since then Anna has continued to act.

One of her most recent roles saw her playing reporter Vivian Kent in Netflix’s Inventing Anna — a drama based on the real story of fake heiress Anna Delvey. She’s also set to star alongside Rebel Wilson in the upcoming comedy Bride Hard.

But despite her return to acting, Anna revealed she hasn’t kept in touch with her My Girl co-star Macauley Culkin. “I don’t have his number,” she said.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk