Angelina Jolie
"[My career is] not the most important thing in my life," Jolie tells Vanity Fair this month. "Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I'm very, very grateful, it's a fun job. It's a luxury. Look, I'm at work today in the middle of Venice. But I don't think I'll do it much longer."
VERDICT: She's got at least a few more years to reverse that opinion, as Jolie's already attached to a Kay Scarpetta franchise, the Tim Burton-helmed Maleficent, and a new Cleopatra film, among others.
Joaquin Phoenix
"I want to take this opportunity... also to give you the exclusive and just talk a little bit about the fact that this will be my last performance as an actor," Phoenix told Extra in October 2008. "I'm not doing films anymore....I'm working on my music. I'm done. I've been through that."
VERDICT: Though Phoenix hasn't booked a film since, his decision to quit acting for music is commonly assumed to be a ruse for the upcoming, Casey Affleck-directed mockumentary on Phoenix's rap career. After that gets a small release, most expect Phoenix to come back into the fold.
Evangeline Lilly
"Acting is something I appreciate, and I think it's been an amazing experience," Lilly told E! in February, as Lost geared up for its final run of episodes. "But I'm not passionate about acting the way you probably should be to call yourself an actor...I want to have some quiet space. [I want to] drop off the radar a little bit and enjoy a little bit of normalcy again."
VERDICT: Lilly didn't even wait until the Lost finale had aired to immediately go back on her word -- she booked the female lead in the Hugh Jackman movie Real Steel last month.
Alec Baldwin
"I'm done in 2012," Baldwin told Playboy last June. "In March 2012 I'll wake up and say, 'What am I going to do now? Am I done?' I think I will be done. I may finish a play or something, but I'm retiring at the [30 Rock] wrap party."
VERDICT: It remains to be seen if Baldwin's 2012 proclamation will come true (or whether the Mayans' will, rendering his rather moot).
Viggo Mortensen
"In the past week I've been from Los Angeles to Japan to Korea to Poland to the UK," Mortensen complained to The Times last spring. "It's ridiculous and it's not a healthy way to be. But, as it happens, I'm taking measures to change that. No more movies. I haven't said yes to one in over a year. I've been in all these well-received movies and it seems like I should be doing some more, but there's other things I want to do."
VERDICT: Mortensen spent much of 2009 reiterating that claim -- then signed on to star in David Cronenberg's The Talking Cure, opposite Keira Knightley. He's also expected to reteam with Cronenberg soon for a sequel to Eastern Promises.
Amanda Bynes
"I've never written the movies & tv shows I've been apart of I've only acted like the characters the producers or directors wanted me to play," Bynes tweeted almost two weeks ago. "Being an actress isn't as fun as it may seem. If I don't love something anymore I stop doing it...I don't love acting anymore so I've stopped doing it. I know 24 is a young age to retire but you heard it here first I've #retired."
VERDICT: Despite a report in The Daily Beast that says Bynes was fired from her new movie Hall Pass for being a paranoid wreck, she tweeted this past weekend, "I'm happier than ever."
Robert Downey Jr.
"I have no set plans for my future," Downey Jr. told EW last November. "I've never had it this good -- this is my day in the sun -- and I certainly don't want to look a gift horse in the molars. But [my wife] Susan and I want to begin to be in our lives as much as we are in our jobs. I'd love just to sit here and say, 'What movie's playing tonight?' I'd love to finish the new book about D-day I'm reading. I love painting, I love music...I can only be a guy on a call sheet probably, I don't know, maybe a couple more times."
VERDICT: If he was telling the truth, he's sure in a hurry to cash in those last few chips: Downey Jr. is currently set for a ton of upcoming movies, including Due Date, Sherlock Holmes 2, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Yucatan, Gravity, and The Great and Powerful Oz.
Emma Watson
"There's not, like, a burning passion in me that I have to act and I don't care what I do," the Harry Potter star recently told Teen Vogue. "Until something comes along that I feel as strongly about as I did Hermione -- like, I felt that it was life or death -- I don't want to act again."
VERDICT: Since she gave the interview, Watson booked her first major, post-Potter role: the female lead in Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Life-or-death decisions are apparently not that hard to come by.
Nicole Kidman
"I have to say I'm not that interested in making films any more," Kidman told the Telegraph in December 2008. "I know I'm not meant to say that, but that's where it is for me now. I'm 41 years old and very happy being in Tennessee with my baby and with my husband.I obviously have creative blood in me and it needs to come out in some way but I just don't have that burning desire any more."
VERDICT: Apparently, making an Adam Sandler movie can relight an actor's flame. Kidman will appear in his upcoming Just Go With It, and she also has Rabbit Hole, Hemingway & Gellhorn, The Danish Girl and Trespass on the way.