Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra (born November 19, 1961 in Fairfield, Connecticut), better known as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and producer.
She's best known for her starring roles in Romantic Comedy films in The '90s such as Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally..., and You've Got Mail.
For a time she was married to Dennis Quaid, and this marriage produced one son who is also an actor, Jack Quaid. She also has an adopted daughter, Daisy.
Films she has appeared in with pages on TV Tropes:
- Amityville 3-D (1983)
- Top Gun (1986)
- Armed and Dangerous (1986)
- Innerspace (1987)
- The Presidio (1988)
- When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
- Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
- The Doors (1991)
- Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
- Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
- When a Man Loves a Woman (1994)
- IQ (1994)
- French Kiss (1995)
- Restoration (1995)
- Courage Under Fire (1996)
- Addicted to Love (1997)
- Anastasia (1997)
- City of Angels (1998)
- You've Got Mail (1998)
- Proof of Life (2000)
- Kate & Leopold (2001)
- In the Cut (2003)
- Against the Ropes (2004)
- In the Land of Women (2007)
- The Deal (2008)
- The Women (2008)
TV series she has appeared in with pages on TV Tropes:
- As the World Turns (1982–84)
- Captain Planet (1990–91)
- Curb Your Enthusiasm (2009)
This actress' roles provide examples of:
- Actor-Inspired Element: Nora Ephron claims that it was Meg's idea to have the famous orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally... set in the middle of a restaurant. The script just called for Sally to talk about faking one, but Meg suggested she actually do it.
- Actor Leaves, Character Dies: She didn't return for Top Gun: Maverick, with the result that Carole is said to have died from cancer between the two films.
- Boyish Short Hair: From the mid 90s to the early 2000s, her short hair was known as 'the Meg Ryan cut'.
- Celebrity Voice Actor: As the voice of the titular Anastasia.
- Creator-Chosen Casting: The part of Annie in Sleepless in Seattle was written for her. Even though loads of other actresses were considered, she was always the first choice.
- Method Acting: Actually quite fond of this.
- To play a surgeon in City of Angels, she sat in on operations and practiced stitching up a pig's heart.
- For You've Got Mail, she worked at a New York bookstore for a week.
- She took three weeks of lessons to portray a boxer for Against the Ropes.
- Non-Singing Voice: Liz Callaway dubs her singing for Anastasia.
- Playing Against Type: At the height of her popularity in romantic comedies, playing down to earth good girls, she starred in In the Cut, a neo noir thriller where she appeared nude and played a repressed school teacher. And, even more outside of her type was her role as a badass medevac pilot in Courage Under Fire, right at the peak of her typecast as a rom-com lead.
- Produced by Cast Member: She produced French Kiss.
- Production Posse: She's worked with Nora Ephron famously in When Harry Met Sally..., Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail
- Star-Derailing Role: 2000's Hanging Up is often regarded as this, but the movie that really seems to have pushed Ryan's career off the rails is Jane Campion's 2003 film In the Cut, a subversive thriller in which Ryan plays an English professor who gets involved with a NY cop played by Mark Ruffalo, notable for its dark themes as well as explicit sex scenes. Critic David Thomson
noted that although the film isn't a masterpiece, it was a brave and imaginative one for Ryan to do, and her subsequent low profile can't be explained by the quality of her acting in it, but more likely by the movie industry punishing her for wanting to do something vastly different from romantic comedies.note - Those Two Actors: She stars alongside Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail and Joe Versus the Volcano.
- Typecasting: She was the romantic female lead of the 90s and the first person to go to when making a rom-com, eventually becoming both a jab towards her and her personal point of resentment. Attempts to get out of the mould by the turn of the millennium eventually ended with an infamous fight with a few different producers, essentially ending her career overnight, as she was given a choice: continue with the type, or not get new parts.[Common meme about Ryan's typecasting from early 00s] "Meg Ryan and X get together in the end."
- Unkempt Beauty: Ryan's characters typically sported her own artfully tussled, short, blond hair.
