Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed firmly stand by their resolution to maneuver their household from Hollywood to a farm.
The couple began relationship in 2014 and bought engaged simply six months later. Two years after their 2015 nuptials, Somerhalder and Reed expanded their household with daughter Bodhi. After turning into a mom, Reed advised that she and Somerhalder transfer away from Hollywood.
“To be totally clear about it, I actually didn’t wish to be within the public eye anymore,” Reed, who rose to stardom for roles in films similar to 13 and Twilight, instructed Santa Barbara Journal in 2022. “California has the flexibility to supply seclusion, however you too can be in driving distance to those main cities on the drop of a hat.”
Reed, who welcomed a son with Somerhalder in June 2023, mentioned the pair’s joint love of animals and sustainability efforts. Their residence within the countryside featured rain barrels that catch extra water and hydroponic veggie gardens. Along with composting, Reed famous that she drinks water from her personal effectively when attainable and opted out of getting a automotive. The actress mentioned she prefers hand-me-downs as items for her daughter and recycles their clothes.
“If I may like let you know my dream,” she added on the time, “it will be to realize complete meals autonomy, to have zero connection to a grocery store, to metropolis water, to something like that — to have the ability to stay with out counting on any system. So, you understand, we’re not too far off from that.”
Somerhalder has additionally opened up about preferring to stay on a farm.
“[I love] strolling via the farm with youngsters and canines and household,” the actor, who is understood for taking part in Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries, instructed E! in November 2023. “Each cease, you’re pulling off of bushes or off of bushes, pulling up out of the bottom and feeding everybody as you’re shifting via the farm.”
Scroll on for Somerhalder and Reed’s quotes about selecting the countryside over their careers as actors in Hollywood:
Making Recollections
“A part of what we actually give attention to as a family is the concept of being actually related with nature,” Reed instructed Us Weekly whereas on the 2nd Annual Environmental Media Affiliation Honors Profit Gala in September 2019. “My dream can be for [our daughter] to be a farmer.”
Beginning One thing New
Throughout an interview in Might 2022, Reed mirrored on her love for the outside, telling Folks, “Nature is the very best type of remedy. And it’s immediate — you don’t should spend six months in nature earlier than you’re feeling it. Go on a hike and launch endorphins. Take a look at a tree as a substitute of the blue mild in your cellphone. All of our souls want a dose of that type of drugs.”
Reed confirmed that her life on the farm impressed a step again from appearing.
“It was a really scary pivot for me to go away the one profession I had ever recognized, that I had labored in since I used to be 13, to attempt one thing new,” she added. “However I realized so much about what’s vital to me. A variety of issues that got here with a Hollywood way of life, there isn’t synergy with the priorities I now have in my life and with the individuals I wish to encompass myself with.”
Discovering Pleasure in Their New Dwelling
That very same month, Somerhalder identified that his and Reed’s transfer to the countryside was a very long time coming for them.
“On the finish of the day, we’re farm individuals. Our vehicles and our boots are lined in mud, horsehair, and tack — and we adore it. The life that we now have each lived within the leisure trade and the life that we’re creating are vastly totally different,” he instructed New Magnificence. “The life we thrive in and the life we wish to create for our daughter is certainly one of peace, tranquility and nature. Or, not less than a pleasant stability. When mother and pa should work within the metropolis, the household makes metropolis life enjoyable.”
Somerhalder admitted the duo wanted a break from Hollywood after hustling for years.
“I’ve been on the highway since I used to be 16, so has my spouse. I believe we each have at all times yearned to stay off the land, in a spot that’s our land — and that’s precisely what we now have got down to do and we’re doing it,” he concluded. “Our shared love of this life brings us nearer collectively each day and, collectively, we’re constructing a regenerative and peaceable farm life.”
A New Outlook
In response to Somerhalder, the selection to have a quieter life allowed him and Reed to implement extra sustainable efforts.
“[It’s been] magic. It’s actually the best way it’s at all times imagined to have been,” he instructed Folks in August 2022. “I believe now you’re seeing lots of people who have been working in company workplaces, and you’ll see it now from a societal standpoint. Persons are having a extremely exhausting time getting again to work. Folks have realized that their time and the worth of their time and the worth proposition of time has shifted a bit. Be extra engaged, be outside extra, spend extra time with each other.”
The actor mentioned he didn’t “plan on being on display for a very long time” regardless of his profitable appearing profession.
“I believe what the pandemic form of did was present us that moments matter. Birthdays matter. Holidays matter. These small little granular moments with each other actually matter,” he added. “And that’s the reason Nikki and I discover that rural and even city/rural way of life — which I believe lots of people are moving into, whether or not it’s permaculture, constructing meals forests — we’re previous the purpose of simply considering that we’re going to cease all this by not utilizing plastic straws and driving electrical vehicles.”
Their New Regular
“I’m an aspiring farmer — actually. I want I may give all of it as much as stay in nature with the animals. I’m form of pulled between two worlds, which is the lifetime of a crazy-busy businesswoman, after which somebody who actually desires to create that quiet time,” Reed instructed New Magnificence in January 2023. “Animals and nature are my peace. That’s the place I thrive. … Proper now, elevating infants is a very powerful factor for me.”
No Regrets
After hinting at his departure from appearing, Somerhalder elaborated on the advantages, telling E! Information in January 2023, “I like what I did for a extremely very long time. I like making movies, I simply did it for thus lengthy. We had an incredible run. However that is our 2.0 model — about to be 3.0 model.”
A Arduous Days’ Work
“I begin my days at 5 [a.m.] and I often end them round midnight,” Reed completely instructed Us in Might 2024, revealing that the couple develop “over 40 various kinds of fruit and veggies” on their land. “It’s actually full on and full time,” she mentioned.
Reed confessed, “I don’t have quite a lot of time for myself proper now. That’s all proper. Sooner or later I’ll, however I’m working full time. I’m working, undoubtedly, 5 days every week, however generally six and 7.”
Engaged on the land is strictly what the actress desires her youngsters to recollect about her. “I believe that it’s superb for little individuals to see a mother who’s formidable, who’s working, who’s nonetheless round 24/7,” Reed added. “I’m working and elevating infants on the similar time and attempting to do all of that in one of the simplest ways that I can. And I’m in it proper now and it’s superior.”
No ‘Pull’ Again to Hollywood
“I’m actually creatively fulfilled within the artwork that I’m creating,” Reed completely instructed Us that very same month, noting that she doesn’t really feel a “pull” again to appearing. “Typically I really feel like extra of an artist in all of the hats that I’m carrying proper now.”
She admitted that the “door’s not closed in any respect” on Hollywood, noting that it will simply take the precise challenge to get her again into that area.
“It could come within the type most likely, of going again to my roots of writing and the place I began on this enterprise, which was with 13,” Reed mentioned, referring to the 2003 movie that she cowrote and starred in to start her profession. “[It needs to be] very private and really significant and really intentional.”