Jonathan Lipnicki insists he didn’t retire from acting

Jonathan Lipnicki has insisted that he didn’t retire from acting.
The former child star, best known for his roles in 1996’s Jerry Maguire and 1999’s Stuart Little, has explained that he never intentionally “stepped away” from his Hollywood career.
In a new interview with E! News, Jonathan said that he was just preoccupied with being a teenager.
“Really, it was kind of just going to high school,” the now 34-year-old said of the slowdown in his acting career. “I wasn’t, like, ‘I’m stepping away.’ I still had my agent, I’d audition here and there.”
“I played water polo in high school. I went to prom, I did all the normal stuff. I played youth league sports,” he continued. “So, yeah, (acting) wasn’t the only fixture in my life.”
The Like Mike actor then admitted that he auditioned for roles, but struggled to land them.
“I auditioned for a lot and I just didn’t get things,” he told the outlet. “I think that’s OK to say, right?”
He continued, “Acting is this thing that I’ve always loved, and sometimes it just doesn’t love you back. And there was a span where I didn’t work for a while and I was pursuing it.”
Jonathan’s latest projects include The Joe Schmo Show, a fake reality competition show hosted by Cat Deeley, which premiered on Tuesday.
Elsewhere in the interview, the actor shared that he is “always grateful” for the early start to his career, explaining, “I got to find out from a young age what I wanted to spend the rest of my life pursuing, so I can never be mad at it.”