Devon Sawa Remembers Rick Moranis ‘Going Through Some Family Stuff’

Devon Sawa is recalling what it was like to work alongside beloved, retired actor Rick Moranis.

“He would come in and he would do his scenes, and he was a very kind man,” Sawa told People in an interview published on Saturday, February 8. “I think that he was dealing with some stuff during the shooting of that movie, so we didn’t see a lot of him.”

In 1994, Sawa — who at the time was a teenage heartthrob — starred alongside Moranis in the film Little Giants. The film happened to be one of Moranis’ final live-action roles after his wife, makeup artist Ann Belsky, passed away of breast cancer in February 1991. After Little Giants debuted in October 1994, Moranis famously walked away from acting to focus on being a single father to his daughter, Rachel, and his son, Mitchell.

“He would come in and he would do his scenes, and he was a very kind man,” Sawa continued. “I think that he was dealing with some stuff during the shooting of that movie, so we didn’t see a lot of him. [The child cast] were told that he was going through some family stuff. And so we were respectful of that.”

In a 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Moranis — best known for his roles in Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids — opened up about his decision to step out of the spotlight for the sake of his family.

“I took a break, which turned into a longer break,” he told the outlet at the time. “Stuff happens to people all the time, and people make adjustments, change careers, move to another city. Really, that’s all I did.”

He added, “I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever. My life is wonderful.”

Moranis went on to explain that at the time he was “working with really interesting people, wonderful people” when he decided to walk away from Hollywood.

“I went from that to being at home with a couple of little kids, which is a very different lifestyle,” he continued. “But it was important to me.”

In 2020, The Hollywood Reporter announced Moranis was making his long-awaited return to acting for a reboot of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, titled Shrunk.

“To say it is a dream come true to once again see #RickMoranis on the big screen is the understatement of the decade,” Josh Gad, who was scheduled to costar in the film, wrote via X at the time. “But to say, I get an up seat view of him returning to play one of his most iconic roles is the understatement of the Century. Welcome back hero!”

In 2023, Gad announced that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, scheduling issues and budgetary problems, the project was postponed indefinitely.