Mega Ryan is certainly a concept. With classics like When Harry met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, the actress received widespread critical acclaim for her performances and a significant fan base. From the 1980s to the early 2010s, the decades when the popularity of romantic comedies was at its peak, Meg Ryan was one of several actresses to once reign as the queen of the genre. While her name is still largely synonymous with romantic comedies, her body of work spans a wide variety of projects that showcase her real acting chops. Anyway, her career has somewhat faded to a relative lull, at least by the amount of online buzz and discussion. Does this reflect a real decline in the quantity and quality of her work, or is it the result of unfortunate career moves that failed to captivate the press? So where is the one-time America’s Sweetheart these days?
Early Roles and Rise to Fame
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Born Maragret Hyra, Meg Ryan started acting in 1981 with her debut film appearance in The rich and famous, and then worked its way up to a household name. Hailing from Fairfield, Connecticut, Meg Ryan was born to two humble teachers, and her mother had a passion for acting herself. While working on her journalism major at New York University, Ryan launched her acting career with small roles in soap operas and commercials. Her early work included the former Top gun movie, in which her performance became relevant again after 2022’s release Top gun: Maverick. On the set of her early projects, she met husband Dennis Quaid, with whom she would remain for ten years.
Meg Ryan’s career took a turn in favor of more recognition when she starred as the titular lead of When Harry met Sally alongside Billy Crystal as Harry. The movie produced one of the most iconic scenes in a romantic comedy, as Harry and Sally argue about women faking orgasms. At the diner where the conversation takes place, Sally makes a show of loud moaning at the table to prove her point to Harry, resulting in the unforgettable line with a perk, “I’ll have what she’s got”. From then on, she established a moderate reign over the romantic comedy genre, appearing in the classic Sleepless in Seattle opposite Tom Hanks, and the underrated one Kate & Leopold. The previous film revolves around the unlikely connection between the characters of Hanks and Ryan, a widower and a committed journalist who live on different coasts.
Sleepless in Seattle produced a scene almost as iconic as the dinner scene in When Harry met Sally (both written by Nora Ephron), with the couple having a romantic moment atop the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day. Kate & Leopold was only a moderate success, telling the story of a 19th century duke (Hugh Jackman) who finds himself in modern New York, where he meets Kate (Ryan) and falls in love. Ryan worked with Hanks on several projects including Joe vs the Volcano and You’ve got Mail. Despite roles that free her from the sometimes restrictive romantic genre, such as the critically acclaimed film When a man loves a woman. Granted, this movie wasn’t far off track as it was basically a romantic drama.
The peaks and valleys of Meg Ryan’s career
Ryan had established herself as something of an “America’s Sweetheart”, whose expectations could have ultimately limited her career. In the Cut turned out to be a failure for Meg Ryan and the rest of the cast, with the film receiving poor reviews and meager low box office numbers. The film revolved around Ryan’s character, Fannie, and an English teacher who become involved in an escalating murder investigation and a sexual relationship with the lead detective. When her own sister falls victim, Fannie becomes increasingly passionate about catching the killer, whom she eventually kills at the end of the film. Despite its subversive approach to sexual and psychological themes, the film received rather unfavorable or apathetic reviews from critics and audiences alike. The streak continued and worsened with the release of Against the ropes, a fictionalized story of Jackie Kallen, a pioneering figure in athletics, as a successful female boxing manager. The film only grossed $6 million at the box office, a devastatingly low figure for any production.
The reception of these projects led to a three-year hiatus for Meg Ryan, and her return came in the 2007 indie drama. In the land of women. Although the film only grossed $17.5 million, it was a minor success for the independent project filming on a budget of only $10 million. Either way, this wasn’t the career resurgence that Meg Ryan might have hoped for, despite critics praising Ryan’s performance. Her next projects, the Sundance Film Festival Feature The agreement and the DVD release of My mom’s new boyfriend, adding further to the now long succession of lukewarm work. From then on, Ryan’s career continued to decline.
Where is she now
As an icon of the romantic comedy, Meg Ryan has enjoyed great relevance even among younger audiences despite dry spells in her career and underperforming projects. Perhaps a resurgence is in the works for Ryan, who will direct and star in the upcoming romantic comedy What happens next. Based on the play by Steven Dietz, it follows two former lovers who happen to be reunited due to a weather delay to their travel plans at the same airport. The film is expected to be released in 2023.
In the 1990s, Ryan was married to fellow actor and sometime co-star Dennis Quaid, with whom she shared son Jack Quaid. The couple divorced in 2001, and Jack grew up to follow in his parents’ footsteps as an actor. Jack Quaid recently had a conversation as one of the topics of The New Yorkers‘s controversial issue dedicated to the so-called fake babies”, the children of prominent Hollywood figures who then break into Hollywood themselves.