You’d be hard-pressed to name a Daniel Stern movie from this century, but the guy was all over in the ‘80s and ‘90s. From Diner to Hannah and Her Sisters to Home Alone to City Slickers, Stern starred in some of the defining movies of many of our upbringings. And now, those are just wonder years because Stern is living well outside of Hollywood and enjoying his life as a different kind of artist.
While he still lives in California, Daniel Stern has retreated to a ranch. Despite being far away from the studio system, he does see similarities between that and both working a ranch and creating sculptures, an art he took up. “It takes all these people. So I love living in all these different worlds. It’s the same in my sculpture world. I make these fun sculptures, but I’m dealing with a city and the city council who has commissioned the piece, and I’m going to tell them their story. And then I deal with the city engineer, and then I deal with the foundry and the mold makers. So I’ve got all these other people in my life outside of show business, and I think it makes my show business stuff deeper because I’m living my real life.” Stern continuously shares looks into this “real life” on social media, with an Instagram that shows him enjoying his land, shooting hoops, squeezing grapefruits, and more.
Daniel Stern hasn’t been completely absent from the screen, turning up most recently on season four of Apple TV+’s For All Mankind and Hulu’s Shrill. And while my personal favorite performance of his is as the LP-loving Shrevie in Diner, this time of year who isn’t watching the first two Home Alone movies?
As Daniel Stern puts it, he didn’t want to stay in the business if he never had to. “I made enough money that I didn’t have to work. I made enough money and I’m kind of frugal…I bought the house in cash. I bought the cars in cash. I bought everything straight up because as an artist, I never knew if [I was] going to make any more bread…What am I going to do with it? Am I going to keep chasing another part or that?”
Despite very few new parts, we have to respect Daniel Stern for finding a genuine passion outside of acting and committing to it fully.
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