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When Joan Cusack stepped out for the Toy Story 5 <\/em>premiere on Thursday evening, the internet quickly settled on the story: that after 11 years away from the red carpet, the beloved actor had returned to the limelight.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an irresistible narrative. After all, Cusack\u2019s a true Hollywood great, with a resume to prove it. As the daughter of actor Dick Cusack and the sister of John Cusack, she may be from a show-business family, but she became famous on the strength of her own work. Her distinctive comic presence \u2014 and voice \u2014 has led to her being nominated for Academy Awards twice (for her roles in Working Girl<\/em> and In and Out<\/em>) and she has appeared in a number of films that have either won or been nominated for Academy Awards, including Klaus<\/em> and, of course, the Toy Story<\/em> franchise.<\/p>\n It was a\u00a0Saturday Night Live<\/em>\u00a0season in the mid-1980s that put Cusack in front of a mainstream American TV audience, but her Hollywood breakthrough came a few years later, when she landed the role of Cyn \u2014 alongside Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, and Sigourney Weaver \u2014 in\u00a0Working Girl<\/em>. Cusack quickly showed audiences that you don\u2019t need to be the lead in a production to be indispensable.<\/p>\n Instead, Cusack\u2019s built a career out of making every role she\u2019s played \u2014 from the best friend in Runaway Bride<\/em> to the love interest in School of Rock<\/em> \u2014 her own, and entirely unforgettable.<\/p>\n So, when she appeared at the London premiere on Thursday night to promote her return as Jessie, it was easy to frame the moment as a comeback. But the truth, we hate to break it to you, looks to be far less dramatic. An actor can stop appearing at photographed events without vanishing \u2013 they can work selectively or pick up more voice roles, do television and still be very present.<\/p>\n Rather than intentionally swerving red carpets, Cusack has simply been building a life away from the demands of film and television. While raising her two (now adult) children and working on Shameless <\/em>in Chicago in 2011, Cusack opened a lifestyle shop, Judy Maxwell Home, in the city. \u201cMy kids were young, and I didn\u2019t really want to take acting work, because I always had to go away,\u201d she told The New Yorker<\/a> in 2019. \u201cI was trying to think of something to do, because I\u2019m not really a big cooking person.\u201d<\/p>\n In the same interview, Cusack admitted that acting \u201cisn\u2019t that fun\u201d compared to running her shop. \u201cIt\u2019s just not that great of a world, except for being exposed to cool sets and talented, interesting people. But this is so fun.\u201d<\/p>\n While Cusack\u2019s last red carpet appearance was at the Showtime 2015 Emmy Eve Party, her acting work quietly continued. Toy Story 4<\/em> was released in 2019, nine years after the previous installment, and so was Klaus<\/em>. Another Netflix<\/a> film, Let It Snow, <\/em>also came out in 2019. Other TV and film work included guest-starring roles on Season 2 of Homecoming<\/em> in 2020 and on A Series of Unfortunate Events<\/em> from 2017 to 2019. IMDB cites seven additional roles for Cusack<\/a> since 2015.<\/p>\nWhat Joan Cusack has been doing<\/h2>\n