‘CSI’ Star William Petersen Says He Is Happily Retired (Exclusive)

After a long and thriving Hollywood career highlighted by his nine-season-plus stint as Gil Grissom on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, William Petersen insists he’s happily retired and not actively looking for more screen work.

“I have an agent now that he hasn’t done anything in 15 years, the poor guy. Because I’m like, ‘No – I’m not doing anything. I’m not going to do it,'” he says.

Speaking with PEOPLE before a 40th anniversary screening of his breakout Hollywood film, To Live and Die in L.A., at Beyond Fest at the American Cinematheque, Petersen, 72, admits that he’s absolutely content to have wrapped up his acting career with one last 10-episode turn as Grissom in the 2023 franchise spinoff series, CSI: Vegas.

“I don’t really want to do anything!” he laughs. “Because at a certain point you realize…I’ve done 40 plays or whatever, I’ve done movies, I’ve done television. I managed to participate in all three mediums, in terms of what you can do as an actor.” 

Instead, Petersen is happily ensconced back in Chicago, where he first launched his career as a theater actor. There, he’s put his focus squarely on his family and his close circle of friends. “I’ve still got kids, and I’ve got grandkids older than my younger kids,” he notes, speaking of a daughter from his first marriage, and teenage twins, a son and daughter, with wife Gina Cirone.

“And it’s kind of getting ready: a lot of my friends are older, and a lot of my family has gotten older,” he explains. “So it’s kind of monitoring the end of lives around me, and I’m kind of just in that thing. I just don’t have the ego to go get in front of cameras anymore.”

Petersen explains that he never expected to have any sort of Hollywood acting career until a chance referral by his friend and colleague, Gary Sinise, led to his casting in William Friedkin’s beloved crime thriller To Live and Die in L.A.

The 1985 hit launched a significant film and TV career for Petersen that included filmmaker Michael Mann’s Manhunter, Amazing Grace, Chuck, the political drama The Contender, as well as the franchise-launching CSI.

“My first four movies, I didn’t have an agent,” he admits. “We were just making deals as we went along. We had no idea – but of course, I wouldn’t have the house that I have. My kids wouldn’t have gone to the schools that they went to without them.”

“It’s funny, one of those things where if you’re not looking for it, maybe it comes in the door, because I had no intention of living in Los Angeles, ever, or being in the movies or having a television show or any of those things,” Petersen insists.

“They were all byproducts of just trying to be a theater actor, just trying to be a good actor,” he continues. “So I was incredibly lucky. Obviously, I tell young actors this when they ask me about it. I’m like, ‘Look, it can’t be duplicated, what happened to me. These are one in a million.’ ”

And despite his string of unexpected Hollywood successes, Petersen determinedly kept his roots in Chicago – especially the Windy City’s theater scene – firmly planted. “I never stayed out here,” he says. “I would go back to Chicago, because I never had any intention of making movies. My intention was to be in the theater.”

“For me, it’s just been a lark, really,” he admits. “It’s been fun. Because I never cared whether I got something or didn’t get something, because none of it was planned. It’s one of those things where if you don’t have great expectations, you don’t have disappointments.”

“I’ve just been lucky and I’ve been able to do what I wanted, and that’s really remarkable in this…well, not just in this business, but in this current world we live in, just to be able to do what you want to do whenever you want to do it,” he adds. “Yeah, I couldn’t be more fortunate as a human being, quite frankly.”