American actress

Meg Ryan ( yield Margaret Mary Emily Hyra ; November 19, 1961 ) [ 1 ] is an american actress. She began her acting career in 1981 in minor roles before joining the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982. subsequently, she began to appear in supporting roles in films during the mid 1980s like box office hit Top Gun, achieving recognition in independent films such as Promised Land ( 1987 ) before her performance in the Rob Reiner -directed amatory drollery When Harry Met Sally… ( 1989 ) brought her far-flung attention and her first gear Golden Globe nomination. Ryan subsequently established herself, both nationally and internationally, [ 2 ] as one of the most successful actresses in the 1990s and early 2000s, peculiarly in quixotic drollery films such as Sleepless in Seattle ( 1993 ), French Kiss ( 1995 ), You’ve Got Mail ( 1998 ), and Kate & Leopold ( 2001 ). Her early films include The Doors ( 1991 ), Anastasia ( 1997 ), When a Man Loves a Woman ( 1994 ), Courage Under Fire ( 1996 ), Addicted to Love ( 1997 ), City of Angels ( 1998 ), Proof of Life ( 2000 ), and The Women ( 2008 ). In 2015, she made her directorial debut with Ithaca, a film in which she besides acted.

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early life [edit ]

Ryan was born and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, the daughter of Susan Jordan ( née Duggan ), a former actress and English teacher, and Harry Hyra, a mathematics teacher. Her don has polish lineage. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] She was raised Catholic [ 6 ] and attended St. Pius X Elementary School in Fairfield. She has two sisters, Dana and Annie, and a brother, musician Andrew Hyra, a penis of the band Billy Pilgrim. Her parents divorced in 1976 when she was 15 years old. [ 7 ] Ryan graduated from Bethel High School in 1979. [ 8 ] She studied journalism as an undergraduate, beginning at the University of Connecticut and then at New York University. During college, she acted in television commercials and the soap opera As the World Turns to earn extra money. Her success as an actress led her to leave college a semester before she planned to graduate. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] When she joined the Screen Actors Guild, she used the surname “ Ryan ”, her grandma ‘s inaugural name. [ 5 ]

career [edit ]

early exercise [edit ]

After her film debut in George Cukor ‘s Rich and Famous, Ryan played Betsy Stewart in the day drama As the World Turns, from 1982 to 1984, and her character was featured in a popular romantic history arch. She besides appeared in some television commercials during the early 1980s for Burger King and Aim toothpaste, among others. several television receiver films and smaller film roles followed, including appearances in Charles in Charge, Armed and Dangerous, Amityville 3-D and Promised Land ; for her role in the lattermost she received her first Independent Spirit Award nominating speech. In 1986, she played Carole Bradshaw, the wife of naval Flight Officer Nick “ Goose ” Bradshaw ( played by Anthony Edwards ) in Top Gun. Ryan appeared in the movie Innerspace ( 1987 ) with her future conserve Dennis Quaid, and belated in the remake of D.O.A. ( 1988 ) and Flesh and Bone ( 1993 ). besides in 1988, she played at the english of Sean Connery and Mark Harmon in The Presidio .

1989–1999 : commercial discovery [edit ]

Her inaugural run character was the romantic comedy film When Harry Met Sally… ( 1989 ), which paired her with comedic leading man Billy Crystal and earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Her portrayal of Sally Albright includes an oft-recounted scenery in which her character, lunching with Crystal in Katz ‘s Delicatessen in Manhattan, theatrically demonstrates for him how easy it is for a woman to fake an orgasm. [ 11 ] Ryan adjacent starred in The Doors, which was moderately successful, and Prelude to a Kiss, which flopped. [ 12 ] The year 1993 saw the unblock of the enormously successful quixotic drollery Sleepless in Seattle, which paired Ryan for a second prison term with Tom Hanks. They had previously been paired as romanticist leads in the film Joe Versus the Volcano —a commercial disappointment which belated developed a cult following. Hanks and Ryan were to be paired for a third time in the movie You’ve Got Mail. [ 13 ] She was offered the character of the protagonist Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs ( 1991 ), but rejected it due to its ghastly and violent themes. In 1994, Ryan took a function that differed from the romantic-comedy ingenue character for which she had become celebrated. In Luis Mandoki ‘s When a Man Loves a Woman ( 1994 ), a quixotic social drama film besides starring Andy Garcia, she played an alcoholic high-school steering advocate. The movie and her performance were both well received by critics. [ 14 ] One critic called the film “ a excellent production, accentuated by fine performances and an unblinking script ”, [ 15 ] and another praise Ryan for her “ roller-coaster character ”. [ 15 ] The film was a celebrated achiever in its domestic operate, grossing $ 50 million in the United States alone, [ 16 ] and garnered the actress her first filmdom Actors Guild Award nomination. [ 17 ] The same year, Ryan returned to type, starring aboard Tim Robbins in Fred Schepisi ‘s romanticist comedy I.Q. The film centers on a mechanic and a Princeton doctoral candidate who fall in beloved, with the care of the alumnus student ‘s uncle, Albert Einstein ( played by Walter Matthau ). Ryan by and by won Harvard ‘s Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year award, and People Magazine dubbed her one of “ the 50 most beautiful people in the world ”. In 1995, critic Richard Corliss called her “ the current soul of romantic comedy ”. That same year, she appeared opposite Kevin Kline in Lawrence Kasdan ‘s French Kiss, a quixotic comedy that catered to her “ America ‘s Sweetheart ” persona, and Ryan was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award. ( This award is given to “ outstanding women who, through their survival and the excellence of their make, have helped to expand the character of women within the entertainment industry ”. ) [ 18 ] In 1996, Ryan starred in the film Courage Under Fire aboard Denzel Washington and Matt Damon. The keep up year, she voiced the lead role in the animated film Anastasia, which garnered good reviews and enjoyed box office success. She besides appeared antonym Matthew Broderick in Addicted to Love playing a female spark advance at least superficially different from her usual direction, as one of a match of jilt lovers bent on retaliation. In 1998, she starred in two films. City of Angels drew positive reviews and became a fiscal success, topping about $ 200 million cosmopolitan. You’ve Got Mail once again pair Ryan with Hanks, earning her a third Golden Globe nomination and making over $ 250 million worldwide. She besides appeared in 1998 ‘s Hurlyburly with Sean Penn .

2000–2006 : Breaking aside from common roles [edit ]

Ryan ‘s first film of the 2000s was Hanging Up, a Diane Keaton -directed family comedy-drama about a trio of sisters who adhere over the approaching death of their crusty don. besides starring Keaton, Lisa Kudrow and Walter Matthau, the film adaptation of Delia Ephron ‘s 1995 novel received poor reviews from critics. The same year, Ryan was cast in the action thriller Proof of Life with Russell Crowe, directed by Taylor Hackford. In the film, she portrayed the distraught wife of a kidnapped engineer, played by David Morse, while relying on a resourceful troubleshooter who makes a profession of dealing with international bandits. While the movie became a halfhearted critical and commercial success, grossing $ 63 million global, it garnered much coverage in the yellow journalism press in association with Ryan and Crowe ‘s affair. [ 19 ] Stephen Holden, film critic for The New York Times, did not think the film worked well and opined that the actors did not connect. [ 20 ]
Ryan in September 2006 A year late, she once again hark back to her romantic drollery roots with Kate & Leopold ( 2001 ), aboard Hugh Jackman. A movie about a british Duke who travels through time from New York in 1876 to the stage and falls in sexual love with a successful marketplace research worker in the mod New York, the James Mangold -directed film received a mixed-to-positive reply, [ 14 ] with Lael Loewenstein of Variety summing it as “ a by and large capture and diverting narrative ”. [ 21 ] At a total gross of $ 70 million, it would be Ryan ‘s highest-grossing film of the ten. [ 22 ] In 2003, Ryan broke away from her usual roles, starring aboard Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Jane Campion ‘s erotic thriller film In the Cut. Co-producer Nicole Kidman had primitively been cast in the lead, but the actress finally dropped out after five years of development, leaving the function to Ryan, who appeared nude in a drawn-out and preferably graphic love scene for the beginning clock time in her career. Although her image-conflicting depiction earned Ryan and the film much media attention, the film failed with critics and grossed entirely $ 23 million in theaters. [ 23 ] She continued the scheme of acting against type with a leading function in Charles S. Dutton ‘s directorial debut Against the Ropes ( 2004 ), a fictionalize mutant drama about american box coach Jackie Kallen, the first woman to become a success in the sport. The film grossed less than $ 6 million in the U.S. and was panned by critics, in region because of its resemblance to early boxing films, such as the Rocky serial .

2007–2009 : autonomous films [edit ]

Following a three-year foramen, Ryan returned to movie with Jon Kasdan ‘s 2007 autonomous film In the Land of Women. Starring aboard Kristen Stewart and Olympia Dukakis, she played Sarah Hardwicke, a mother and wife facing breast cancer, who connects with her neighbor ‘s much younger grandson, played by Adam Brody. Released to mix reviews by critics, [ 24 ] the film grossed $ 17.5 million global, [ 25 ] exceeding its budget of $ 10 million. [ 26 ] Ryan received a positivist response for her operation, with Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times noting it “ the best work [ she ] has done in forever ”. [ 27 ] Ryan ‘s first film release of 2008 was The Deal, a satirical drollery film based on Peter Lefcourt ‘s 1991 novel of the same title about Hollywood. Directed by Steven Schachter and co-star William H. Macy, the film was shot in Cape Town and other South african locations and celebrated its earth premier at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Garnering by and large mix to negative reviews, it failed to draw interest among film studios, resulting in a straight-to-DVD let go of in January 2009. [ 28 ] In his reappraisal for Variety, Peter Debruge said, “ The characters seem to be doing all the laugh, while the general public has nothing to cling to but the horndog flirt between mismatched leads William H. Macy and Meg Ryan—hardly ideal ingredients for mainstream success. ” [ 29 ] Ryan besides starred in George Gallo ‘s My Mom’s New Boyfriend, shoot in 2006 but released direct-to-DVD in 2008. [ 30 ] Co-starring Colin Hanks, Selma Blair and Antonio Banderas, the carry through comedy received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with David Nusair of Reel Film noting it “ an unmitigated catastrophe about from its opening frames ”. [ 30 ]

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Ryan ‘s last film of 2008 was The Women, a remake of the 1939 production. The all-female vomit comprises Annette Bening, Debra Messing, and Jada Pinkett Smith. [ 31 ] Written, produced and directed by Diane English, the film centers on a group of four female Manhattan socialites whose primary interest is baseless gossip, with Ryan portraying a affluent woman whose conserve is cheating on her with a workshop girl, played by Eva Mendes. Ryan was the beginning actress to join the long-delayed production, which had struggled to find finance since the early 1990s, resulting in an independent production budgeted at $ 18 million. [ 31 ] Upon its release, The Women received a black reply from critics, with Richard Schickel of Time calling it “ one of the worst movies I ‘ve ever seen ”. [ 32 ] The film was a fiscal success, however, becoming Ryan ‘s most successful movie since 2001 ‘s Kate & Leopold with a global crude of $ 50 million. [ 33 ] In 2009, Ryan starred aboard Kristen Bell and Justin Long in the independent drollery film Serious Moonlight. In this film, directed by actress Cheryl Hines and based on a screenplay by late writer Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered a year anterior to filming, Ryan portrayed a high-powered female lawyer who learns that her conserve, played by Timothy Hutton, is about to leave their perturb marriage, and decides to hold him captive by duct-taping him to a toilet. [ 34 ] Picked up by Magnolia Pictures, the output received a express release throughout North America only and grossed less than $ 150,000 cosmopolitan. [ 35 ] Critical reaction to the film was by and large mixed-to-negative, [ 36 ] although Ryan was praised for her “ fantastic ” operation. [ 37 ] besides in 2009, Ryan guest-starred on the one-seventh season of Curb Your Enthusiasm .
Ryan was attached to several productions in the early 2010s—including the corps de ballet play Lives of The Saints opposite Kat Dennings, Kevin Zegers, and John Lithgow, [ 38 ] and Long Time Gone, a film adaptation of the April Stevens novel Angel Angel, [ 39 ] [ 40 ] —all of which failed to materialize. In April 2011, it was announced that Ryan would make her feature of speech film directing introduction with a film titled Into the Beautiful, described as “ a contemporary Big Chill with longtime friends reconnecting ”, but it besides was never made. [ 41 ] In October 2012, Ryan was featured in the PBS objective Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. The serial introduces women and girls living under difficult circumstances and fighting to challenge them. [ 42 ] The lapp calendar month, Ryan ‘s audiobook record of William Saroyan ‘s The Human Comedy was released. In October 2013, it was reported that Ryan would be returning to television to produce and star in a modern comedy for NBC revolving around a erstwhile ace New York editor, for which it again failed to get output blessing. [ 43 ] Following another four-year foramen, Ryan re-teamed with Lisa Kudrow on her improvisational drollery series Web Therapy, for which she filmed five episodes in 2013. The succeed year, she provided the future part of Greta Gerwig ‘s character in the navigate of How I Met Your Dad, a woman-centric mutant of the CBS situation comedy How I Met Your Mother. [ 44 ] CBS later passed on the undertaking. [ 45 ] Ryan ‘s following feature movie was the ABC Family film Fan Girl, an mugwump comedy about a 15-year-old girl, played by Kiernan Shipka, with a heat for filmmaking sets out to make a movie about her darling band, All Time Low. [ 46 ] It premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June 2015. [ 46 ] besides in 2015, Ryan made her direct debut with Ithaca, a drama film based on the 1943 fresh The Human Comedy by William Saroyan. [ 47 ] Filmed in Petersburg, Virginia, [ 48 ] it starred Ryan and had its global premiere at the Middleburg Film Festival in October. [ 49 ] In August 2018, Ryan was honored with the Leopard Club Award at the 71st Locarno Festival as an picture of romantic comedy, stating that “ No one could portray sarcasm, kindness, brain and fragility like Meg Ryan did. ”

personal life [edit ]

Ryan married actor Dennis Quaid on February 14, 1991. They have one child together, Jack Quaid, born April 24, 1992. [ 50 ] [ 51 ] She and Quaid announced their separation in June 2000, [ 52 ] and their divorce became final in July 2001. [ 53 ] In 2000, Ryan became romantically involved with New Zealand actor Russell Crowe while working on their film Proof of Life. [ 54 ] In January 2006, Ryan adopted a 14-month-old girlfriend from China whom she named Daisy True. [ 55 ] [ 56 ] From 2010 to 2014, Ryan was in a relationship with american singer-songwriter John Mellencamp. [ 57 ] [ 58 ] [ 59 ] They reunited in 2017, [ 60 ] and Ryan announced their date on November 8, 2018. [ 61 ] In October 2019, it was reported that Ryan had ended their engagement. [ 62 ] Ryan supports the democratic Party, particularly its environmental auspices programs and initiatives. [ 63 ] [ 64 ] In 2003, she supported Wesley Clark ‘s campaign for U.S. president of the united states. [ 65 ] She supported John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election. [ 66 ]

Filmography [edit ]

Awards and nominations [edit ]

Ryan has received multiple awards and nominations throughout her career including three Golden Globe award nominations for Best Lead Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical for her performance in such romantic comedies as When Harry Met Sally… ( 1989 ), Sleepless in Seattle ( 1993 ) and You’ve Got Mail ( 1998 ) .

Honors [edit ]

Accolades [edit ]

References [edit ]