Catherine Zeta-Jones on Leaving Hollywood: Impact on Her Career

1 week ago 15

Published Feb 2, 2026, 8:34 PM EST

Based in Los Angeles, Mona began her entertainment career in 2015, building experience across digital media and journalism. She has worked with major entertainment brands including iHeartMedia, E! News, Entertainment Tonight, and TMZ/TooFab, contributing to interviews, source development, and editorial production. Her writing even helped her team earn an Emmy Award at Entertainment Tonight. She has been an Entertainment & People News Reporter at ScreenRant since 2026.

For Catherine Zeta-Jones, leaving Hollywood wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

The Wednesday actress, who is based in New York with husband Michael Douglas, opened up about moving away from Hollywood in a February 2 interview with People, where she revealed if being based on the East Coast impacted her career as an actress.

It's funny. I’ve lived on the East Coast for many, many years with Michael, and it's interesting whether it's been detrimental to my career. I never quite know because I've never been in L.A. schmoozing.

The couple currently live 40 minutes outside of New York City after selling their home in Westchester County in 2024, but being outside the Big Apple doesn't mean they haven't kept an active social life. Their circle just looks a little different than it did during their days in Hollywood.

In fact, I spend more time with New York business people, Wall Street people, art people. Our friends and our people we bump into are different than I would be if I was in L.A. And that's not detrimental to L.A. and people who live there at all; it's just I swing in a few different roundabouts here in the city.

Zeta-Jones and Douglas, who have been married for more than two decades, moved to New York in 2013, after a brief separation. The couple reconciled in 2014, making the East Coast home base, before later settling down in their former Westchester dwelling with their two children, son, Dylan, now 25, and daughter Carys, now 22. Douglas is also a dad to son Cameron Douglas, 47, whom he shares with ex-wife, Diandra Luker.

With their kids all grown up, the couple decided to sell the $12 million New York estate, telling The Wall Street Journal in a 2024 interview that it was "the right time" to sell.

When I purchased our Irvington home, I knew our family would share many happy times here, and we have. Now that both our son and daughter have left the nest, it seems like the right time to sell.

Now, Zeta-Jones, 56, and Douglas, 81, mainly divvy up their time between Bermuda and Europe, though they've owned property all over, including in the actress' native Wales in the UK, Spain, and of course, California.

But it seems like no matter where in the world the longtime screen star is, work has followed, with the release of The Gallerist late last month, and another season of Wednesday ordered at Netflix. Zeta-Jones announced the happy news in a July 2025 post on Instagram ahead of the show's season 2 release.

When Wednesday becomes a better day🖤Wednesday season 3🖤it’s official…. We shall return🖤