There are a few stars who are big enough that they don’t have to live in Hollywood. Matt Damon, Thomas Hayden Church, the late Patrick Swayze, and Johnny Depp come to mind. I don’t blame them. How can you just be a person if you’re never not watched? Many of the stars who live out of town, or have access to a retreat out of town, do it so that they can spend time with their kids and go about outdoors as a family without being hounded by photographers and autograph seekers.

I’m just daydreaming here, really. But I like to imagine them outdoors, relaxing, maybe barbecuing instead of eating catered on-set meals. I can see wide patios and solid wood decks, maybe one of those woodhaven firewood racks lining one side of the deck. They’ll need that, because in my daydream, they go out onto their several hundred acres and chop some firewood for themselves, and then they snuggle up in front of a fire at night with a significant other or with their kids. Nobody is shouting at them to smile for a camera, nobody is slathering irritating makeup on their faces, nobody is shining blistering hot lights in their eyes, nobody is asking them to make out with someone they may or may not like, and their kids aren’t being put to bed by the nanny.

I follow Peter Facinelli on Twitter, and he was recently tweeting about how he had several days of filming Eclipse, several days of filming Nurse Jackie, and then he had to get home to go to his daughter’s soccer game. Now there’s a guy who doesn’t have to even have a retreat or vacation home in order to have that deck, that firewood rack, that barbecue grill. He’s a star, but he’s just a dad and husband whose job is acting. He can afford to get what he needs (like a really nice 8-foot long woodhaven firewood rack, like this one from Outdora), but what he cares about is his home and family.

I like to think of actors as just people with very visible jobs. That’s what they are, down to the barbecue on the deck, the kids’ soccer games, and the woodhaven fire rack full of firewood.