Why did Jeffrey Donovan leave Hollywood? ‘Burn Notice’ Star explains Colorado move

Jeffrey Donovan, who starred as Steve Forsing in Oscar-nominated filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's 2015 crime-drama Sicario, has recently shared his thoughts on quitting Hollywood and moving to Colorado, as per Us Weekly.

The 57-year-old Donovan, who gained major popularity after starring as Michael Westen in Matt Nix's USA Network spy-drama series Burn Notice, which also featured Bruce Campbell and Gabrielle Anwar, discussed that he is satisfied with raising his children in Colorado.

Jeffrey Donovan, who has also worked in other crime-action movies like Wrath of Man, Shot Caller, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, and Honest Thief, has been married to Colorado native Michelle Woods since 2012. Michelle, who is a model, shares three children: two sons, Ethan and Lucas, and a daughter, Claire, with Donovan. During an interview with Fox News Digital in March 2026, Jeffrey Donovan talked about how he left Hollywood to raise his kids and said:

"I met my future wife while I was finishing a job, and she was from Colorado, and once I started visiting there, I never stopped. It’s an incredible state, and I’m raising my children there, and we’re never leaving."

While speaking to Fox News Digital, Donovan, interestingly, shared that for him, raising their children in his wife's native state, Colorado, is a lot easier than doing the same in California, and that is one of the primary reasons he left Hollywood. The Extinction star added:

"I find it less challenging in Colorado, which plays to my talent level of raising kids. If it’s not hard raising kids in Colorado, then that’s where I wanna be."

Jeffrey Donovan says that "Colorado, secretly, is the sunshine state"

While Florida is officially called the Sunshine State in the US, the Shut Eye actor has a different opinion on the matter. While speaking about Colorado to Fox News Digital, Jeffrey Donovan said:

"Colorado, secretly, is the sunshine state. It’s a beautiful part of the country that gets more sunshine than maybe even Arizona and New Mexico. It’s incredible. So that’s why we’re there. And it’s really healthy living."

According to US Weekly, Jeffrey Donovan is not the first Hollywood celebrity to have left LA and moved to another state. Actors like Tom Welling, Ariel Winter, and Ty Burrell have done the same in the past. While Burrell moved to Utah, Welling moved to North Carolina following the COVID-19 pandemic. The Fog actor, Tom Welling, said:

"L.A. was wild at the time. There were no cars on the street, you couldn’t go anywhere. People weren’t leaving their homes. Our first son was starting to crawl and we only had this tiny deck for him to play on. There was this thought of, ‘We don’t know if we can be here anymore.’”

Welling further added:

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"We have American sport horses, jumpers, and we breed. I’m more than happy to help, but [my wife] is the captain of that ship. It’s peaceful. And it feels real."

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