Rachel McAdams Reveals the Surprising Way She Feels 'Empowered' as an Actress in Hollywood

Rachel McAdams is not a celebrity who loves the spotlight all of the time. She prefers to be the actress who comes and goes from Hollywood, which is a part of her strategic self-care plan. 

The Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret star has made it a point to live outside of the Los Angeles bubble and retreat to her home in the South with her boyfriend Jamie Linden and their two kids. The 44-year-old actress doesn’t get too worked up about not living in the heart of the entertainment industry. “I guess I always had a sense that it would be OK; either it’s going to work out or it’s not,” she told Bustle.

She believes that her self-imposed exile from her acting career allowed her to “feel empowered” over the years. “It helped me feel like I was taking back some control. And I think it sort of allowed me to come in from a different doorway,” McAdams added. Fans might be surprised to learn about the star-making roles she turned down over the years, including The Devil Wears Prada, Casino Royale, and Mission: Impossible III — and yes, she has some regrets. 

McAdams is human after all. She said, “There’s certainly things like ‘I wish I’d done that.’” At the end of the day, she knows that the “right person” got the role, so her gut instinct to turn down the movie was the correct move. Her breaks on and off from Hollywood have “taken years to understand what [she] intuitively was doing,” but at the end of the day, it was about keeping herself “sane” and happy.

Before you go, click here to see more celeb moms who put their careers on hold to stay home with their kids.