Portia de Rossi made a stop at her wife Ellen DeGeneres' show this week, to talk about her brand new business venture and why she decided to leave acting after her recent stint on Scandal.
With an acting career spanning three decades, de Rossi says she was curious what else might be out there for her professionally. "I was approaching 45"—("aging out", they joked)—and I was just kind of was wondering, 'Is there something that I could tackle now that I've never done before that would be really challenging and different?" she said. "I kind of knew what acting would look like for me for the next 10, 20 years, so I decided to quit and start a business."
This might come as a surprise to some, especially considering that the trailer for Arrested Development season 5 features de Rossi reprising her role as Lindsay Bluth, which is good news for fans of the show. "I made this decision about 18 months ago. Shonda Rhimes wrote me off Scandal, it was fine. I called Mitch Horowitz who's the creator of Arrested Development and I said 'If there is a season 5, I won't be doing it because I quit acting,'" she explained. "He seemed really understanding, totally got it we had a great conversation...and then he wrote me into five episodes."
De Rossi also went on to explain more about the art-based venture that's pulled her away from Hollywood. "I thought that I would start an art curation and publishing company that I call General Public and we print paintings, basically. Rather than the traditional flat print that kind of looks like a poster, we print with all the texture and articulation that's in the original painting," she explained. "The painter spends so much time on one piece and then they sell it to one person so this kind of enables them to make more sales."
Watch the full clips above.
