Meg Ryan (born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra on November 19, 1961) is an American actress who specializes in romantic comedies, but has also worked in other film genres.
Ryan was born in Fairfield, Connecticut, and after graduating from Bethel High School in 1979, she studied journalism at New York University. She acted in televison commercials to earn extra money while in school. After her first role in a the feature film Rich and Famous (1981), Ryan (now using her screen name) played Betsy Stewart on the daytime drama As the World Turns from 1982 to 1984. Directors for this show especially liked working with her because she could cry on cue.
After several TV film and smaller movie roles, her first full blown hit in a leading role was the romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally.... It was favorably received and typecast Ryan as a bubbly, charming, feisty, but incurable romantic. She made several attempts to break away from this stereotype, and garnered some critical acclaim for her work in When a Man Loves a Woman (in which she played an alcoholic) and Courage Under Fire (in which she played a military officer killed in combat). Many of her films of the 1990s were hits not only in North America, but also abroad. She had a very popular on-screen pairing with Tom Hanks: some compared their chemistry to Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. They starred in three films together, and their last, (1998's You've Got Mail), was Ryan's last major box office success for some years to come.
Ryan married actor Dennis Quaid on Valentine's Day in 1991, after starring in two films with him. Ryan only agreed to marry him after he kicked his drug and alcohol addiction. Quaid and Ryan have one child together, Jack Henry, born April 24, 1992. The couple divorced on July 16, 2001. Although Ryan had a relationship with actor Russell Crowe, with whom she was working on a movie, both she and Quaid deny it was a factor in their divorce. Ryan indicated in 2006 in an interview with Allure that Quaid had not been faithful to her during their marriage.
In January 2006, Ryan brought her newly adopted daughter, one year old Daisy True, home from China.
In 2003, she broke away from her usual roles and starred in In the Cut, an erotic crime/thriller/mystery which was popular with neither critics nor the public. While promoting this film in the UK, Ryan drew the ire of a part of the British press and public when she appeared on Parkinson, the long-running talk show hosted by veteran presenter Michael Parkinson. Parkinson, who has interviewed over 1,000 of the world's most famous people, confessed that Ms. Ryan's interview was his "most difficult TV moment", adding, "I should have closed it. But listen, it happens. She was an unhappy woman. I felt sorry for her. What I couldn't forgive her for was that she was rude to the other guests."
In response, via an interview with Marie Claire magazine in 2006, Ryan blamed Parkinson's perceived paternal manner, saying:
"I don't even know the man. That guy was like some disapproving father! It's crazy. I don't know what he is to you guys, but he's a nut. I felt like he was berating me for being naked in the movie. He said something like: 'You should go back to doing what you were doing'. And I thought, are you like a disapproving dad right now? I'm not even related to you. Back off, buddy. I was so offended by him."
The episode also brought into sharp focus the difference between the UK's publicly funded BBC, which has no advertisements, and US commercial networks:
"I realized it's not like an American talk show where it's seven minutes and then there's a commercial break. I had to do 20 minutes straight with this guy, and I could either walk off — which wouldn't be good — or try to disagree with him very respectfully."
