Holly Marie Combs is setting the record straight about her career, as the Charmed actor explains what led her to step away from Hollywood and take on new roles.
The 1998 WB series was Combs’s breakthrough role after having originally started her career in the CBS series Picket Fences in 1992. While having become a pop culture sensation in the role of Piper Halliwell for Charmed, Combs revealed she had “retired” from acting.
Her decision to put a halt on her acting career was discussed on her rewatch podcast, The House of Halliwell , on Tuesday, where she admits her children were a big factor. Combs had three children with her ex-husband and former Charmed key-grip David Donoho before they divorced in 2011. She later married restaurateur Mike Ryan and is a stepmother to his daughter.
“It was a lot of family,” she said. “During COVID, we had three teenagers. Well, it was three teenagers and a preteen in the house, and it was just mayhem and chaos.”
Taking care of her family wasn’t the only reason the Charmed star decided that her acting career wasn’t where it used to be. She admits that the roles she was being offered weren’t impressing her and were being more tailored to her age.
“The stuff that I was getting and coming across my desk was just nothing that I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is really great. I need to do this,’” she recalled. “And being in, you know, that 40 to 50 range, the job pool gets even smaller and smaller. And I feel like the roles get a little less interesting.”
Combs adds that, despite the roles offered being better suited to an older actor, the industry is “not as bad with the ageism as it used to be.” Many of her friends in the industry tried to pull her out of retirement, but she says she’s enjoying her life in Washington state and is “running 15 businesses.”
Is Combs closing the door entirely on never acting? It doesn’t appear so, as she teased that maybe once her middle child graduates, she will reconsider returning. The Pretty Little Liars star adds that she still loves her craft and even misses it from time to time.
“I miss it occasionally because, like you said, there’s those moments when you’re involved and you’re acting and you’re working that are just, I think it’s like being present,” she explained.
“That’s what escapism is. And we get to escape into this different character with a different set of situations than our own life. And there is something about being in that moment that is quite peaceful, even if you’re doing something highly dramatic.”
Combs’ last on-screen TV role was in 2019, when she appeared as a guest character for one episode of Grey’s Anatomy. She also produced the Sharkwater Extinction documentary a year earlier, and when it comes to the big screen, her last credited on-screen role was in Ocean’s Eleven in 2001, and her last narrator cameo was in Corky in 2022.
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