Jonah Hill has spoken out on the reason why he “hit pause” on Hollywood after becoming famous “overnight”.
Speaking to director Adam McKay for GQ Style, Hill explained, “It was very overnight for me.
“Michael Cera and I talk about it all the time. We just had this really rare experience: One day life was one way, and then one day life was a different way.
“Right after Superbad, I took a writing job on Brüno [with Sacha Baron Cohen].”
He continued, “I was 23, and they asked me to host SNL for the first time,” Hill continued.
“And I didn’t want to leave the writers room. I was like, ‘Guys, I don’t know what to do. It was my first job working for Sacha. And Sacha was like, ‘Dude, you should go host SNL.’
“To me, having a writing job for Sacha Baron Cohen was as rad as hosting SNL.”
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He went on to explain that he felt he had “too much power” at a young age and felt the need to step back from Hollywood.
“I was a kid. I had probably too much power for a young person, and too much autonomy, and not enough life skills,” he said. “I dropped out of college, and I used to not get why people would go to college.
“Because if you’re ambitious, why would you spend four years just idling? And then I didn’t realise until I turned 30 that what those four years gave all my friends was this wobbling period of how to be a person.”
“I was really advanced professionally but really behind personally.
“All my 20s, I wasn’t really looking inward. I was just running toward success. Or trying to find success. And when I was 30, I was like, I’ve always wanted to be a director, but if I don’t get off this train now and write Mid90s, I’m not going to do it,” Hill added.
“And I hit pause,” he continued.
“I took three or four years to reshape things. I was like, I could just do this for 10 more years and I’m not going to evolve as a person.”
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