Joan Cusack hit the red carpet for the first time in 11 years to attend the London premiere of Toy Story 5.
Cusack, 63, rose to fame in the Eighties, transitioning from a breakout cast member on Saturday Night Live to an acclaimed, Oscar-nominated fixture of the decade’s cinema.
She continued her run into the Nineties and Noughties, starring in films like Toys (1992), Addams Family Values (1993), Nine Months (1995), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), School of Rock (2003), and Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008).
Since 1999’s Toy Story 2, she has voiced Jessie — opposite Tom Hanks’s Woody — in the beloved Disney–Pixar franchise.
Although she’s avoided the red carpet over the last decade — and was last seen at Showtime’s Emmy Eve event in 2015 — Cusack returned to the public eye Thursday for the U.K. premiere of Toy Story 5 at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square.
For the occasion, she wore a white dress shirt tucked into a long black skirt and black rimmed glasses. The School of Rock star, who had her hair styled in a bob, was accompanied by her husband, Richard Burke, 63, with whom she shares two sons, Miles, 28, and Dylan, 25.
Of course, Cusack was photographed with her fellowToy Star co-stars, Hanks and Tim Allen, who reprised the roles of Woody and Buzz Lightyear, respectively.
When Cusack stepped away from Hollywood, she and her family moved to Chicago, where the actor has been running her own gift shop, Judy Maxwell Home, since 2011.
“As my kids would say, ‘Chicago is awesome!’ It has rich culture and history, as well as some of the best museums, architecture and restaurants in the world,” she told The Huffington Post in 2019. “Plus, it prevents our family life from revolving around TV and the movies. In L.A., it’s easy to get caught up in what you look like or how much money you have, and those aren’t values I want my kids to adopt.”
Toy Story 5, which hits U.S. theaters June 19, sees the toys’ owner, Bonnie, being gifted a digital Lilypad tablet that slowly consumes more and more of her time, leaving the original group of action figures alone. The film explores a question many parents are grappling with: Is technology replacing traditional toys?
At the end of Toy Story 4, released in June 2019, fans saw Woody leave with Bo Peep to help lost toys, prompting Jessie and Buzz to take his place as the new leaders of Bonnie’s toys. That storyline appears to carry over into Toy Story 5, with the trailer showing Jessie leading the toys through the upheaval sparked by the arrival of the Lilypad — while also scheming to win back Bonnie’s attention.
