Thanks to the spectacular super success she experienced with her first leading role in When Harry Met Sally in 1989, Meg Ryan became the queen of the romantic comedy during the nineties and at the same time a symbol of the american woman That beautiful photo of the blonde girl who has everything was completed by her relationship with another big star of those days, Dennis Quaid, with whom she was happily married and between films she shared the upbringing of her son Jack.
Hollywood knew how to make good use of that perfect image, and who was dubbed by the press as “America’s girlfriend” enjoyed hits like Something to Remember in 1993, Cuando un hombre ama a una mujer in 1994 or You have an e-mail in 1998, which helped him to accumulate a fortune that today is estimated at around 80 million euros.
The idyll with the public was broken towards the end of the decade, when an affair with Russell Crowe on the set of Proof of Life and her daring scenes in In the Flesh, by Jane Campion, showed her a different way, which no longer had the same support from the audience. Although in 2008 she shone again in Diane English’s The women, a year later she had her last leading role in the independent film Trapped by Love. It was then that he completely disappeared from the map.
In 2015, she returned with her directorial debut, Ithaca, an independent period film in which she reserved a supporting role and had the luxury of reuniting in a scene with Tom Hanks, who agree to visit the set as a favor to a friend. His son Jack, then an up-and-coming actor, also worked there, long before he succeeded with his participation in The boys. With a cost of 5 million euros, the film passed without regret or glory on the screens of the United States and in Spain it could only be seen on DVD.
In an interview she then gave to the website of the Golden Globes, Meg Ryan tried to explain her disappearance from the screens: “It was not a plan. Sometimes when you work so hard, it’s good to do other things. Discover your life in a different way. What I bring away from Hollywood is very interesting and vibrant, and to me, that’s what’s really important. I didn’t have a master plan to get away from acting, it just happened.” However, he really enjoyed the experience of directing, which is why he has been trying to get a new project off the ground ever since.
Delia Ephron, Nora’s sister, director of her two big hits with Tom Hanks, wrote a screenplay for her called The Book, a drama she couldn’t move forward, and also developed a romantic comedy for Netflix, A lady’s guide to selling out (Guide for ladies on how to sell out in the system), based on Sally Franson’s novel, which has been left in a drawer. “Now I know that each of my films was like a miracle. Getting financing and actors is a very long and complicated process. Directing made me acquire a new respect not only for the films in which I had been involved, but for anyone who manages to come to fruition”, he commented in that interview.
But he who insists gets what he sets out to do, and that’s how Meg was finally able to satisfy the desire to direct again. At the beginning of November, what happens later will arrive in cinemas in the United States, another independent film but with an ambitious exhibition plan with which the distributor Bleecker Street intends to take advantage of the nostalgia fashion that has brought back many forgotten icons. In the new film, Ryan is once again the protagonist, sharing every scene with another legend, David Duchovny. In the story, two graduates who have already passed the age of 60 meet at an airport by chance. But when a storm cancels their flights and forces them to wait together, the connection that had brought them together is reborn.
Ryan revealed in an interview with Carol Burnett for Interview magazine that he had only ever crossed paths with Duchovny two decades ago and that he simply sent him the script because he thought he was the ideal actor for the role. In the interview, who will be 62 in the month of the premiere, explained that during the pandemic the producers sent him an early version of the script written by playwright Steven Dietz, based on his own play, and then together with Dietz and Kirk Lynn developed in long Zoom sessions the version that ended up being filmed at night in an Arkansas museum with a modest total budget of 3 million dollars.
