Jessica Biel is returning to feature films after a nine-year absence, and her explanation puts motherhood firmly in the frame. Speaking at the San Diego Comic-Con in California on 25 July, the The Sinner star said having two young children was among the factors she considered before signing on for Matchbox The Movie, her first film since Shock and Awe in 2017. The action adventure, co-starring John Cena, arrives on Apple TV on 9 October 2026.
The 44-year-old actor and producer shares sons Silas, 11, and Phineas, 5, with husband Justin Timberlake. 'I have little kids, you know, there's a lot of elements that go into a decision, for me at least,' Biel said while discussing her return at Comic-Con. Her comments arrive against a measurable divide in how motherhood and fatherhood intersect with working life in the US.
Nine Years Away From Movies, Not Acting
Biel was not absent from Hollywood during those nine years. She earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for The Sinner and subsequently appeared in Limetown, Candy and 2025 thriller The Better Sister, while also building producing credits through Iron Ocean Productions. Her absence was specifically from feature films, making Matchbox The Movie a big-screen comeback rather than a return to acting itself.
For Biel, choosing another film meant finding a project that worked creatively and practically. 'Getting back into the film industry has been something that I've been really excited about doing,' she said at Comic-Con, adding: 'It has to be right timing, it has to be the right thing.' She said the cast, the nostalgia surrounding Matchbox toys and the chance to return to action ultimately made the project appealing.
Biel Is Not the Only Actress To Step Back
Biel is hardly the first actress to reshape her career around motherhood. Hitch star Eva Mendes stepped away from acting after welcoming daughters Esmeralda and Amada with Ryan Gosling, later explaining that motherhood changed the kinds of roles she was willing to accept.
Mendes has said acting often requires travelling and time away from home, while writing on Instagram that becoming a mother meant there were 'many roles I won't do' because she wanted to 'set an example for my girls'.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar also stepped back from screen work while raising daughter Charlotte and son Rocky with Freddie Prinze Jr. After working from childhood, Gellar has said her priorities shifted once she became a mother and that she wanted to be present while her children were young.
Her screen appearances became far less frequent for much of the 2010s before she began taking on regular acting roles again as her children got older.
The experiences are different, but Biel, Mendes and Gellar all describe motherhood becoming part of the calculation around when, where and how they worked. That pattern exists outside Hollywood too.
In 2025, US mothers with children under 6 spent an average 2.8 hours a day on primary childcare compared with 1.7 hours for men, while 68% of mothers with children under 6 participated in the labour force compared with 95.3% of fathers.
Motherhood Still Carries a Career Cost
Care responsibilities can affect careers long after children leave infancy. A US Department of Labor analysis estimated that mothers providing unpaid care can lose an average of $295,000 in employment-related earnings over a lifetime, including lost wages and retirement income. The estimate covers caregiving more broadly, but researchers found women disproportionately absorb those financial effects.
Biel's nine-year feature-film gap cannot be attributed to motherhood alone, and she has never framed it that way. What her comments do document is that her children became part of the calculation when deciding whether a film was worth taking. The latest US labour data shows that, beyond Hollywood, mothers are still spending more time on childcare and participating in paid work at lower rates than fathers when children are young.
