LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Meg Ryan, America's Sweetheart, known for her roles in '90s romantic comedies like 'You've Got Mail', is making a long-awaited comeback to the silver screen after an absence of eight years. She is not married, and is not publicly dating anyone.
Once married to Dennis Quaid before splitting after nearly a decade, Ryan dated John Mellencamp on and off for 8 years with a brief engagement in 2018.
Now, Ryan is returning to acting and embracing her romantic comedy roots with her self-directed film 'What Happens Later,' a project she co-wrote.
Is Meg Ryan in a new movie?
In this movie, Ryan takes on the role of Willa, who unexpectedly finds herself stranded at an airport overnight with her former lover, played by David Duchovny. The 'Sleepless in Seattle' star provided a glimpse into the film's storyline, hinting at the evolving nature of the romantic comedy genre in this movie.
"Sometimes there's a question of: Will they be together? Will they not be together? [What Happens Later] sort of evolves the rom-com genre just a little bit. It's also about old people, and it's still romantic and sexy," she told Entertainment Weekly.
This upcoming project marks Ryan's first appearance on the screen since her 2015 film 'Ithaca,' which she also directed. While Ryan gained recognition for her romantic comedies, she also achieved success in dramatic roles.
However, she largely stepped away from the spotlight more than a decade ago, leaving fans wondering about her absence.
Why did Meg Ryan leave Hollywood?
In a rare public appearance in 2018, Ryan shared insights about her departure from Hollywood during the In Goop Health wellness summit. She discussed how she had been very reactive instead of proactive" when it came to her career decisions.
"I didn't really aim to be an actor. I was a journalism major at school, and a curious person, and I wanted to go back out into the world and figure out who I was, am, in relation to other things and other people and other environments."
Ryan further elaborated on her journey during a conversation with Gwyneth Paltrow, admitting that she never aspired to be an actress.
She expressed the challenges of fame as she felt she had to be "this jiu-jitsu master to figure out what mirror you should actually be looking in."
Addressing the label of "America's sweetheart," Ryan shared, "When you get labeled anything like 'America’s sweetheart,' I didn’t even know what that meant."
"Nora Ephron's parents wrote scripts in old Hollywood and there was such a thing as America's Sweetheart in the '40s and she decided to say that about me one day and I remember thinking, 'Is that good?'"
In another candid interview from 2019, Ryan offered a straightforward explanation for her absence from the industry.
"I felt in a crazy way that, as an actor, I was burning through life experiences. Somehow I was a helicopter pilot or a journalist or an alcoholic," she explained.
"I didn't feel like I knew enough anymore about myself or the world to reflect it as an actor. I felt isolated," she continued, noting she felt isolated both in fame and in Hollywood.
"Ever get in a car — maybe it’s a superexpensive car — and the inside's lovely, you can't complain about it, but you can't hear anything outside, because there's so much metal? There's so much between you and everything else," reported The New York Times.
