Jonathan Taylor Thomas Seen in Rare Photo as He Reunites with “Home Improvement” Costars Patricia Richardson, Taran Noah Smith

“My other boys,” Richardson captioned the snap, which showed her smiling in between her two onscreen sons

NEED TO KNOW

• Patricia Richardson reunited with two of her onscreen Home Improvement sons, Taran Noah Smith and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, in a nostalgic Instagram photo
• Thomas, 44, is rarely photographed publicly these days after stepping back from acting in the early 2000s
• “My other boys,” Richardson, 75, captioned the photo, adding a love heart

Home Improvement’s Taylor family is having a mini reunion!

On Wednesday, July 29, Patricia Richardson, 75 — who played Jill, the wife of Tim Allen‘s character, Tim Taylor, in the beloved 1990s sitcom — posted a photo on Instagram alongside two of her onscreen sons, Taran Noah Smith and Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

Thomas, now 44, who hasn’t been photographed publicly for years, played the couple’s son, Randy, on the hit show — which aired from 1991 to 1999 — while Smith, 42, starred as Mark. 

Tim and Jill’s third son, Brad, was played by Zachery Ty Bryan, who is currently in jail serving a 16-month sentence in California after he was arrested in February 2024 and charged with felony DUI.

Richardson, who is a parent to three kids in real life, beamed proudly in between Smith and Thomas in the social media snap, which she captioned, “My other boys❤️”

Thomas took a step back from the limelight after getting his start in 1990 at 9 years old on the series The Bradys. He went on to voice young Simba in The Lion King, as well as starring in family-friendly films Man of the House and Tom and Huck.

He landed the role of middle Taylor child Randy on Home Improvement in 1991, a part he played for nearly 200 episodes, before making the decision to pull back in the early 2000s.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Thomas left Home Improvement early and wound down his acting roles. “I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,” he told PEOPLE in 2013. “I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.”

Thomas attended Harvard, Columbia and St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, and relished his time as a student.

“To sit in a big library amongst books and students, that was pretty cool,” he shared at the time. “It was a novel experience for me.”

The star ended up returning to Los Angeles, where he focused on directing, writing scripts and taking advantage of his free time. “I watch a lot of movies, I hike, I stay up on shows and theater,” he continued, adding that he had “no regrets” about stepping away.

Through the years, Thomas did return to the small screen a handful of times between 2013 and 2015 on former Home Improvement costar Tim Allen’s series, Last Man Standing, which saw him reunite with Richardson.

Thomas told PEOPLE in his 2013 chat, “I never took the fame too seriously,” adding, “It was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me. When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink. I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers.”

In a 2024 interview on the Back to the Best podcast, Richardson said she was still in touch with Thomas, but reiterated that “he’s not really interested in acting. He wants to direct and write.”

The actress also shot down the idea of a Home Improvement reboot during the podcast appearance.

“It’s not the same – it’s not gonna be the show. At all,” Richardson said of the series at the time. “And people think we can just magically go right back to who we were 30 years ago and do a show that was 30 years ago, and we’ve all changed quite a bit, I think, since then. And the show would just be … It would be very weird. It makes me sad to think about it. I think — We did it. We did it well. We quit at the right time before it got really bad. And it should just stay as it is.”

Read the full article here