Meg Ryan

Meg Ryan (born November 19, 1961, Fairfield, Connecticut, U.S.) is an American actress known especially for her roles as the plucky leading lady in such romantic comedies as When Harry Met Sally… (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and You’ve Got Mail (1998). She later pursued roles behind the camera as well, directing the films Ithaca (2015) and What Happens Later (2023).

Early life

Ryan was born Margaret Hyra to Susan (née Duggan) and Harry Hyra. Both were elementary school teachers and divorced when Meg Hyra was a teen. After graduating from high school, Hyra attended New York University (NYU) to study journalism and appeared in TV commercials to make extra money. By her final year at NYU she had so many opportunities that she left school to focus on acting. She began using the name Ryan, her grandmother’s maiden name, as her last name.

Early roles and marriage to Dennis Quaid

At age 20 Ryan appeared in her first movie, Rich and Famous (1981), playing the teenage daughter of a homemaker and novelist (played by Candice Bergen). In 1982 she joined the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns, where she remained for two years. She also had guest roles on the sitcoms One of the Boys, featuring Mickey Rooney, Nathan Lane, and Dana Carvey, in 1982 and Charles in Charge in 1984 and 1985. Ryan first registered with the movie-going public in 1986, when she appeared in the hit movie Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise. The next year she had starring roles in Promised Land and Innerspace. She began dating her Innerspace costar Dennis Quaid, and in 1988 they both starred in D.O.A. They wedded in 1991 and had their only child, Jack Quaid, the following year. (Jack Quaid became an actor and is known for roles in The Hunger Games movies [2012 and 2013] and the TV series The Boys [2019– ]).

Breakthrough with When Harry Met Sally…

Ryan broke through and became a star in 1989 when she was cast as Sally opposite Billy Crystal as Harry in the hit romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally…. Written by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner, the film explores the age-old question of whether a man and woman can truly be only friends. One of the most famous scenes called for the lead actors to discuss the likelihood that women fake orgasms, but it was Ryan’s idea to actually fake an orgasm in a crowded deli.

Reign as rom-com queen of the 1990s

Ryan followed up that success with the romantic comedy Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), opposite Tom Hanks. Throughout the 1990s, she continued to star as the romantic lead in such movies as the fantasy Prelude to a Kiss (1992), alongside Alec Baldwin; the Ephron-penned and -directed Sleepless in Seattle (1993) with Hanks; and the period comedy I.Q. (1994), in which she played the fictional niece of Albert Einstein. She also played a wife struggling with alcohol addiction in When a Man Loves a Woman (1994); the love interest of a disgraced physician (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) in the period comedy Restoration (1995); a woman who teams up with a criminal (Kevin Kline) to win back her cheating fiancé in French Kiss (1995); an eccentric who works with a broken-hearted man (Matthew Broderick) to take revenge on their exes in Addicted to Love (1997); and a doctor who falls in love with an angel (Nicolas Cage) in the drama City of Angels (1998). She interspersed these romantic films with a diverse set of roles, including the common-law wife of Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer) in Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991); a woman whose family was killed when she was a child in the thriller Flesh and Bone (1993); a helicopter pilot in the war drama Courage Under Fire (1996); and a sex worker in Hurlyburly (1998). She also lent her voice to the title character in the animated feature Anastasia (1997).

Early 2000s and divorce from Quaid

By the time Ryan teamed back up with Hanks and Ephron for You’ve Got Mail (1998), she had been dubbed “America’s Sweetheart.” In the early 2000s she continued playing likeable heroines in Hanging Up (2000), which was directed by Diane Keaton and written by Ephron and her sister Delia Ephron, as well as in the romantic comedy Kate & Leopold (2001). Her reputation, however, took a hit when she was romantically linked to Russell Crowe during the production of their 2000 movie, Proof of Life. Tabloids implied that the actors were having an extramarital affair, but Ryan later suggested she and Quaid had been separated, and she told Oprah Winfrey on her show in 2006, “I didn’t leave my marriage for Russell Crowe, I left my marriage.” Her divorce from Quaid was finalized in 2001.

Turning point with In the Cut

Ryan’s 2003 movie, In the Cut, an erotic thriller written and directed by Jane Campion, further alienated audiences. In it Ryan went against type, playing “a sexually hungry lonely girl,” as movie critic Roger Ebert described her character in his review. The film was a commercial flop, and, when Ryan spoke with The New York Times Magazine in 2019, she reflected that the movie, combined with her divorce, was a turning point in her career. She pointed out, “Carrie Fisher was the one who said: ‘No, no, no. When you betray your archetype by doing a movie like that and by getting divorced—you can’t.’ ” After starring in another flop, Against the Ropes, in 2004, Ryan took a few years off from movies. In 2006 she adopted her daughter, Daisy True Ryan.

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Later work

In 2007 Ryan returned to acting with In the Land of Women. She then starred in three movies in 2008, The Women, My Mom’s New Boyfriend, and The Deal, as well as the 2009 film Serious Moonlight. Ryan also appeared on TV, including Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2009 and Lisa Kudrow’s Web Therapy in 2013. For most of the 2010s and early 2020s, however, she acted only occasionally. In 2015 Ryan directed her first movie, Ithaca, a World War II drama about a telegram messenger. She also had a role in the film, as did Tom Hanks and her son, Jack Quaid. Ryan returned from another hiatus in 2023 with the film What Happens Later, which she directed, cowrote, and starred in opposite David Duchovny.