Jonathan Taylor Thomas Is 43! Inside His Quiet Life Since Stepping Away from the Spotlight

The actor was last photographed publicly in 2021

When a host of original Lion King stars came together in July to celebrate the iconic Disney film's 30th anniversary, castmate Jonathan Taylor Thomas was nowhere to be found.

The actor — who rose to fame in the 1990s with his voice work in the film and the TV series Home Improvement, among other big projects — was last photographed publicly in 2021 while walking his dogs.

After getting his start in 1990 at 9 years old on the series The Bradys, Thomas was suddenly everywhere, voicing young Simba in The Lion King, starring in family-friendly films Man of the House and Tom and Huck and landing the role of middle Taylor child Randy on Home Improvement in 1991, a part he'd play for nearly 200 episodes. He was also on the cover of just about every tween magazine, from Bop to Tiger Beat.

But by the early 2000s, he pulled way back, leaving Home Improvement early and winding down his acting roles.

“I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,” he told PEOPLE in 2013. “I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.”

He attended Harvard, Columbia and St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, and relished his time as a student.

“To sit in a big library amongst books and students, that was pretty cool,” said Thomas. “It was a novel experience for me.”

Returning to Los Angeles, he focused on directing, writing scripts and taking advantage of his free time. “I watch a lot of movies, I hike, I stay up on shows and theater," he shared at the time, adding that he had "no regrets" about stepping away.

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He did return to the small screen a handful of times between 2013 and 2015 on former Home Improvement costar Tim Allen's series, Last Man Standing, reuniting with his '90s TV dad and mom, Patricia Richardson.

Related: Jonathan Taylor Thomas Compared Himself to Simba in a Sweet 1994 Interview About His Lion King Role

In a 2024 interview on the Back to the Best podcast, Richardson said she is still in touch with Thomas, but reiterated that "he's not really interested in acting. He wants to direct and write."

Born on Sept. 8, 1981, in Bethlehem, Pa., Thomas was not yet 5 when he moved to Sacramento with mom Claudine Weiss, dad Stephen Weiss (who was divorced from Claudine in 1991) and older brother Joel.

After beginning in modeling, Thomas landed a Burger King commercial in L.A. when he was 8 and found the prospect of a career in show business "pretty cool," he told PEOPLE in 1994. "So I asked my mom and got signed up for acting lessons. I just thought the whole idea of being on TV, being recognized and having a good time was interesting."

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Related: The Cast of Home Improvement: Where Are They Now?

In that 1994 interview, Claudine told PEOPLE that her son's charisma was evident from an early age, "even when he was 18 months old. He seemed older than his age, and he was really outgoing," she recalled. "Everyone kept saying, 'Wow! Why don't you get him on television.' "

But by the time he'd walked away from Home Improvement and graduated college, he seemed at peace with putting that chapter behind him.

“I never took the fame too seriously,” he told PEOPLE in his 2013 chat. “It was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me. When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink. I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers.”

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