10 Actors Who Have Also Published Novels

Most people know actors by their faces and voices. Plenty of them also spend quiet hours at a desk, building plots and characters on the page instead of on a set. Some of those books were ghostwritten or quickly forgotten, but a good number are real fiction written by the person whose name is on the cover.

The ten actors below all have , or in a couple of cases close relatives of the form, such as novellas. Each entry sticks to what the books are and when they appeared.

Tom Hanks

Hanks first reached bookshelves with Uncommon Type in 2017, a collection of short stories that each feature a typewriter. His first full novel came in 2023 with The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece. It follows the chaotic production of a big budget superhero film.

The setting is familiar territory for him, which gives the book its insider flavor. Hanks has long collected typewriters, so his move into fiction felt less like a stunt than a natural extension of a hobby. The novel was published by Knopf.

Ethan Hawke

Hawke published his debut novel, The Hottest State, in 1996, when he was in his twenties. It tells a young actor’s story of first love in New York. He later directed a film adaptation of it himself, released in 2006.

His second novel, Ash Wednesday, appeared in 2002. It follows a young couple on the run, and it showed he wasn’t a one book dabbler. He has kept writing since, including a book about the artist’s life titled A Bright Ray of Darkness, which was published in 2021.

Steve Martin

Martin came to comedy before film, but his fiction is surprisingly restrained. Shopgirl, a novella published in 2000, centers on a lonely young woman working a glove counter in Beverly Hills. It was adapted into a 2005 film in which Martin starred and for which he wrote the screenplay.

He followed it with An Object of Beauty in 2010, a novel set in the New York art world. It traces the rise of an ambitious dealer and reflects Martin’s well known interest in art collecting. Both books show a quieter side of a performer best known for wild humor.

Carrie Fisher

Fisher was a writer long before many fans realized it. Her debut novel, Postcards from the Edge, came out in 1987 and drew loosely on her own experiences in Hollywood and recovery. Its dark humor became her trademark.

The book was adapted into a 1990 film with Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine, and Fisher wrote the screenplay. She published more novels afterward, including Surrender the Pink and Delusions of Grandma. Her sharp, self aware voice made her a respected author in her own right.

Molly Ringwald

Best known for 1980s teen films, Ringwald turned to fiction later in life. When It Happens to You, released in 2012, is a novel told in linked stories about a marriage shaken by infidelity. Critics noted how far it sat from her teen movie image.

In 2021 she published Get Ready for Me, a novel about a woman navigating life and love. She has also written essays and nonfiction, so books are now a steady part of her career, not a side project.

Lauren Graham

Graham, who starred in Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, published Someday, Someday, Maybe in 2013. The novel follows a young woman trying to make it as an actress in New York in the mid 1990s. It draws on Graham’s own early years chasing roles in the city.

Because she knows that world from the inside, the audition rooms and survival jobs feel believable. The book was a New York Times bestseller and led to further writing, including nonfiction collections.

Gillian Anderson

Anderson, famous for The X Files and The Crown, entered fiction with A Vision of Fire in 2014. She wrote it with Jeff Rovin, and it launched a series called the Earthend Saga. The story follows a child psychologist who is drawn into a mystery involving a young girl and unexplained events.

Anderson has described the book as a project she cared about, and the series continued with further volumes. It’s a straight genre thriller with a supernatural edge, which suits the actress who made Dana Scully iconic.

Stephen Fry

Fry is an actor, comedian and presenter, but fiction has long been central to his work. His first novel, The Liar, was published in 1991, and it was followed by The Hippopotamus in 1994 and Making History in 1996. These books mix wit, farce and sharp observation.

He has since moved into retellings of Greek myth, with bestselling titles such as Mythos. That puts him among the most prolific novelists and storytellers on this list. His fiction is quick, playful and full of wordplay.

Keanu Reeves

Reeves made one of the more recent entries on this list. The Book of Elsewhere appeared in 2024, written with the acclaimed novelist China Miéville. It grew out of Reeves’s comic series BRZRKR and follows an immortal warrior known as B.

The book lets Reeves explore ideas he has been developing about an ageless fighter haunted by his past. Having a seasoned fantasy author as a partner helped it reach readers beyond Reeves’s film fans. It was published by Del Rey.

Hilary Duff

Duff, who rose to fame in Lizzie McGuire, launched a young adult fantasy series with Elixir in 2010. The novel follows a young photographer who discovers a link between the mysterious deaths around her and a secret about immortality. A sequel, Devoted, followed in 2011.

The books were written with a co author, as is common in celebrity fiction, and they pitched her toward teenage readers who grew up with her screen work. They are a clear example of an actor moving into the YA market.