Only a few years ago, it seemed like Portia de Rossi was always on TV, but where has she
been lately?
Here's why you don't see her in acting roles anymore.
There's a lot of overlap in today's Hollywood, but there are still some people from previous
generations that can be categorized as "movie actors" or "TV stars."
Those who came up in one world and had success in that environment are forever linked with
it.
Portia de Rossi is very much an actor associated with television.
She got her big break on American television when she joined the cast of the white-hot
legal dramedy Ally McBeal in 1998, playing inscrutable lawyer Nelle Porter until the
series wrapped in 2002.
With 89 episodes completed, that's the longest and most successful TV gig in de Rossi's career.
She was also on three seasons of Scandal, Shonda Rhimes’' acclaimed political drama.
Among de Rossi's TV misfires are the 10-episode wonder Mister Sterling, and the slacker sitcom
New York Daze.
Hollywood casting agents may think twice about giving a major role to de Rossi, as she doesn't
have a proven track record as someone who will instantly deliver big audiences.
If there's one thing that Portia de Rossi's better known television projects have in common,
it's that they were all critically acclaimed and masterminded by unique, visionary creators.
In 2003, de Rossi joined the cast of Arrested Development, playing Lindsay Bluth, an extraordinarily
self-absorbed daughter of a corrupt housing magnate.
One of the first single-camera comedies on American television, the layered, lightning-fast,
reference-filled Fox comedy became a hit amongst comedy nerds, TV critics, and awards voters.
Its first season scored 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and won the Emmy for Outstanding
Comedy Series.
The show hung on at Fox for two more shortened seasons, despite abysmal ratings, and was
revived on Netflix years later.
In the meantime, de Rossi found a role on another edgy TV series, as soulless executive
Veronica Palmer on ABC's surreal, low-rated, corporate satire Better Off Ted.
Unfortunately, many of de Rossi's shows didn't find big audiences and were quickly cancelled.
"Look, I'm not going to play the blame game with you."
In addition to working with David E. Kelly on Ally McBeal, Ryan Murphy on Nip/Tuck, and
Shonda Rhimes on Scandal, de Rossi teamed up with Bryan Fuller for Mockingbird Lane.
Fuller has brought some of the most innovative, beloved, and also short-lived shows to TV,
including Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal.
In 2012, just before the TV reboot and revival craze would grip the small-screen industry,
Fuller got the go-ahead from NBC to develop a modern-day retelling of the 1960s sitcom
The Munsters.
While that show was a silly and goofy high-concept comedy in which the family members were monsters,
Fuller's Mockingbird Lane was dark, bloody, and twisted.
Opposite Jerry O'Connell as Herman Munster, de Rossi played Lily Munster.
Despite the star power, familiar material, and a pilot episode budget of around $10 million,
NBC decided not to move forward with Mockingbird Lane.
While Portia de Rossi possesses the dynamic and unbeatable combination of striking good
looks and excellent comic timing, her brand just didn't seem transferrable to the big
screen.
Try as she might, this star of multiple TV shows couldn't seem to get her movie career
off the ground.
De Rossi landed small parts in indie movies before Ally McBeal, but after, she could only
find work in a small string of ignored, forgettable, and mostly independently produced movies.
Films like Dead & Breakfast, Cursed, and Now Add Honey probably don't sound familiar because
they weren't blockbuster hits and none rated very highly with critics either.
"Well I loved the script, Now Add Honey, so much."
According to Us Weekly, Portia de Rossi met comedian and daytime talk show host Ellen
DeGeneres in 2000, but they connected romantically for the first time in 2004, just after VH1's
Big in '04 awards ceremony.
De Rossi credits the solid relationship and DeGeneres' support with helping her publicly
come out as a gay woman, something that was not terribly common in the early 2000s.
De Rossi and DeGeneres wed in 2008, and ever since, they've been viewed as one of showbiz's
most rock solid marriages.
She stood by and supported DeGeneres when stories began to leak that backstage at her
talk show, the "Queen of Nice" was actually temperamental, petty, mean, rude, and an all-around
difficult boss.
The backlash kicked up in 2020, when according to Variety, sources said employees were mistreated
and underpaid amidst the coronavirus pandemic and a production shutdown.
There was an internal investigation, DeGeneres issued an apology, and de Rossi stood by her
wife throughout the scandal, which can't have been easy.
Even if Hollywood casting agents, prominent television series creators, or movie studio
executives do want to cast Portia de Rossi in their next big project, they probably aren't
likely to secure her acting services, because she's done with acting.
During a May 2018 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, de Rossi revealed that she'd
quietly retired about 18 months earlier during a recurring stint on Scandal and between seasons
of the revived Arrested Development.
She recalled,
"Shonda Rhimes wrote me off Scandal.
It was fine.
[...] I called Mitch Hurwitz, who created Arrested Development, and I said, 'If there
is a season five, I won't be doing it because I quit acting.'"
Hurwitz supported de Rossi's decision but still put her character in five episodes of
the show's fifth and final season.
True to her word, those few Arrested Development episodes are the final acting projects on
de Rossi's resume.
Portia de Rossi may have walked away from Hollywood in 2018, but she didn't retire from
all work.
De Rossi said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2018,
"So I was approaching 45 [...] and I just kind of was wondering, is there something
that I could tackle now that I've never done before that would be really challenging and
different [...] So I decided to quit and start a business."
De Rossi teamed up with Fujifilm to create a 3-D technology called Synograph, which is
then used to print recreations of paintings through a company called General Public.
In addition to her high-end art printing business, de Rossi spends a lot of time pursuing charitable
causes.
The former actor favors animal welfare organizations including Best Friends Animal Society, the
Humane Society, and The Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund.
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