Reese Witherspoon to Take Time Off to Have Baby, Other Actresses Who Took a Break for Their Kids

Actress Reese Witherspoon spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times while in town to receive the Gene Siskel Film Center's Renaissance Award and revealed she will take some time off from acting after finishing her current movie. She is presently shooting the West Memphis Three movie, "Devil's Knot."

"After I finish that, I'm going to take a little time off -- and go have a baby," Witherspoon said.

While Witherspoon is not expected to take a lot of time off from work, there are a number of actresses who did take an extended break to work on raising their children.

Demi Moore

Demi Moore was one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood. She was married to Bruce Willis and the two were a Hollywood super couple, with two children at home. Moore had also just received the biggest payday of any female actress at the time for "Striptease" but then she disappeared.

Moore chose to take a break from Hollywood and acting in order to raise her family. In a world where studios were always looking for the next big thing, Moore decided her family was more important than the next paycheck. After 1997, Moore was MIA from mainstream movies until she returned! in 2003 for "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle."

Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow had a solid movie career going in the '90s with a number of supporting roles in popular movies such as "Se7en." She really began to see her career take off with starring roles in films like "Emma" and "Sliding Doors" before exploding onto the scene with a head turning performance in "Shakespeare in Love," a movie which won the starlet an Oscar.

However, after a few career flops, Paltrow took some time off from Hollywood to raise her family. Paltrow married Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin and the couple had two children, which she began to devote more time to. She did not disappear completely, still taking small roles here and there, but she was no longer working as a star in her own movies until making her big return in the "Iron Man" franchise.

Liv Tyler

Liv Tyler had ascended up the Hollywood ladder quickly. She went from being known as the daughter of the lead singer of Aerosmith to one of the actresses in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. After she finished shooting the trilogy, she made a movie with Kevin Smith called "Jersey Girl" and one with Steve Buscemi called "Lonesome Jim" and then took two years off.

In 2004, Tyler and her husband at the time, Royston Langdon, had their only child, Milo William. She began to have problems in her marriage and just wanted to take time off to focus on her son and get her life in order again.

"I just had a rough couple of years, having Milo and then getting divorced and trying to rebuild my life again," Tyler said.

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