Daniel Stern traded in his former one Home alone Wet Bandit identity for something much more in keeping with his life today: “Citrus Bandit.”

The actor-turned-writer, farmer and philanthropist tells PEOPLE that it’s “overwhelming” the amount of support he’s received recently on both TikTok and Instagram, as fans have discovered that he’s now living a peaceful life on his purchased ranch in California with the money he saved from his time in Hollywood – growing tangerines and creating passionate project art that he describes as an “expansion of the human condition.”

“What I love about social media is that you can tell your story,” says Stern, 67, of the recent influx of new and old fans on his pages, “and it feels good to tell it. And that’s kind of the final step.” The thing about any artistic creation is getting it out to an audience, and I’m so excited that people there have discovered some of my stuff through the TikTok thing.

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In fact, Stern has lived his “real life,” as he puts it: hiking, raising livestock, growing vegetables and creating sculptures in bronze, which is a far cry from rubbing elbows with Joe Pesci Home alonenarrative The Wonder Years and appears in more recent series including Shrill.

Despite the distance, both literal and figurative, from Hollywood’s backyards, Stern’s ranch and pottery studio make him feel like he’s working “on a film crew,” he says.

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“The cameraman and the props department fascinate me. It takes all these people. That’s why I love living in all these different worlds. The same applies to my sculpture world. I make these fun sculptures, but I’m dealing with a city and the city council that commissioned the piece, and I’m going to tell them their story. And then I take care of the city engineer, and then I take care of the foundry and the mold makers. So I have all different people in my life outside of show business, and I think it deepens my show business because I live my real life,” he shares.

Stern’s decision to buy a ranch and distance himself from the public eye was based on a desire to break away from the “overwhelming” reality of being a big star.

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“I made so much money that I didn’t have to work,” he says. “I made enough money and I’m pretty frugal… I bought the house in cash. I bought the cars in cash. I bought everything straight away because as an artist I never knew if I would make something.” More bread. And I said to my wife, “How much money do I have to put in the bank so we can live off the interest and I don’t have to work?” She said, “We did it.” It was like, “Okay, Dan , now you will put your words into action” … “What should I do with this? Am I going to continue to chase another role or something?” “Instead, he chose the path of pursuing his passion projects full-time – and hasn’t looked back since.

Ultimately, Stern says, “At this point… I love being in nature.”

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