Matthew Fox explained why he took a reprieve from acting following the massive success of Lost.

“I felt like it was time to engage really intensely with my family,” the Madison star, 59, said in an interview with Variety published on Monday, March 9. “I had missed some of their childhood because I was on set all the time with Lost and doing films and promoting everything.”

Before becoming a household name after the 2004 premiere of Lost, Fox married wife Margherita Ronchi. The couple went on to welcome sons Kyle, now 28, and Byron, now 25.

Fox earned numerous Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his portrayal of Jack Shepard on the hit ABC series, which aired for six seasons before ultimately coming to an end in 2010.

Following his time on the drama, Fox went on to star in multiple movies, including Alex Cross, Emperor and Bone Tomahawk. In 2014, Fox decided to take a step back from the spotlight to focus on his family.

“It was the right moment for me to step back and take a moment and engage with the people that I love and care about the most in the world,” he continued.

After making up for lost time, Fox admitted that he had a desire to return to acting.

“I kind of missed storytelling,” he shared of his reasoning to return to Hollywood.

When producer Taylor Sheridan approached Fox with an opportunity to join The Madison, a spinoff of his hit show Yellowstone, the actor was instantly sold.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m in,” Fox said on Monday, adding that he has now found a way to “balance” his home life and work obligations.

This isn’t the first time Fox has come out of retirement for the right project. Fox ended his acting hiatus in 2021 to star in the apologetic thriller series Last Light.

“I kind of had a bucket list in my mind of things that I wanted to accomplish in the business, and after I did Bone Tomahawk in 2014 that had kind of completed the bucket list,” Fox said at a press conference at the 2022 Monte-Carlo Television Festival. “I wanted to do a Western. It’s a very odd Western, but it’s a Western. And so that sort of completed the bucket list.”

Fox added that in addition to being there for his family during his break, he also worked “on other creative elements” like “music and writing” that were “really personal” to him.

“I kind of got to a point where I thought that maybe the bucket list included executive producing,” he reflected. “I’d never done that before. The opportunity to be involved in Last Light came along, and so I wanted to give it a shot. And it felt like the right time.”