UPDATE 8/19/2026: Krumholtz says he is “very well” and never used the words “retiring” or “quitting,” clarifying in a lengthy Instagram statement Wednesday that his career is on hold, not over.
“There’s still more work to come. Stuff to be seen,” he wrote, adding, “Just… gimme a sec.” Jamie Lee Curtis, Rachel Zegler, Brie Larson, and a wave of Hollywood names rallied around him.
Read his full statement and the celebrity reactions here.
The original article continues below.
David Krumholtz played Zor-El in Supergirl earlier this year. Now he says he is stepping away from the job entirely.
The veteran actor announced an “indefinite break” from acting in a series of posts on Threads, per Deadline, saying he finally sent the email he had been afraid to send for years.
His words: “Frustrated, fed up, fried.”
‘I Sent The Definitive Email’
“I kinda sorta put my acting career on hold the other day. It’s been something I’ve been petrified to do for years,” Krumholtz wrote, explaining that the fear was going broke and not being able to handle life outside the game.
What followed the email, he says, was relief rather than panic.
“Not sure what I’m going to do for money instead, or how I’m going to do it, but I just removed a humongous burden,” he posted, adding that he never grasped the weight of it until it was gone.
Replying to fans, he drew a hard line between acting and the acting business.
“Acting professionally is a very different concept than the exercise of acting itself,” Krumholtz wrote. He says he has enjoyed every minute of the craft and the fanfare, but that being competitive and self-involved stopped serving him.
“For me, the profession has lost its gleam.”
From A Best Picture Winner To The Lowest-Grossing DC Movie Ever
Krumholtz has been working since he was a teenager, and the resume is deep.
He was Joel Glicker in 1993’s Addams Family Values and Bernard the head elf in The Santa Clause, a role he carried through two sequels and the Disney+ series The Santa Clauses. He turned up in Slums of Beverly Hills, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Mexican, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Ray, Serenity, and Superbad, then anchored five seasons of CBS drama Numb3rs as Charlie Eppes. He also voiced Fletcher Demming in the Batman: Caped Crusader series.
In 2023 he played physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which went on to win Best Picture.
Then, earlier this year, he played Zor-El in Supergirl.
The Craig Gillespie film starring Milly Alcock finished its theatrical run in 40 days with $125.9 million worldwide, making it the lowest-grossing DC movie of all time, against a net cost around $170 million and a projected theatrical loss near $244 million.
Three years, an Oscar winner and a DC tentpole, and the guy in both of them is telling you the profession is no longer worth the stress.
He Laid All Of This Out Two Years Ago
None of this came out of nowhere. Two years ago, Krumholtz sat down with Michael Rosenbaum on Inside of You and mapped the whole thing out in advance.
The health story dominated that conversation. He was diagnosed with thyroid cancer after a masseuse felt a lump in his neck during what was supposed to be a relaxation massage, a woman he credits with saving his life and still keeps in touch with. Surgeons took the thyroid out entirely, his metabolism collapsed, and his weight climbed to 232 pounds at 5-foot-6.
He was also one of the first working actors to say out loud that he used Ozempic to take the weight back off, at a time when nobody in town would admit it.
But the part worth revisiting now is why the weight bothered him at all.
“If I wasn’t an actor I guess I wouldn’t care that much,” he told Rosenbaum. The offers kept coming, just with a catch. He described scripts that wanted him for the chunky guy and then built the joke into the page, the ribbing about the fat guy already written in before he showed up.
Then there was the breakdown.
It hit when Numb3rs ended and he got married inside the same stretch of months. “I didn’t know who I was anymore,” he said. “I didn’t know what my career was.”
A Lanterns Actor Was First To Reply
Among the first responses was Garret Dillahunt, currently seen on HBO Max’s Lanterns.
“This is sad news for me. But I am happy for you. I understand completely,” Dillahunt wrote.
Krumholtz answered him directly.
“Ain’t over, rather, redefining my terms. Hoping to find a new, more rewarding passion,” he wrote. “Me, my product, and I mentality is not working anymore. I want to try to be of service.”
