Meg Ryan

The Business of the Perfect Smile

Margaret Hyra changed her name so it would fit better on theater marquees. She studied journalism at New York University and started acting just to pay her college bills. In 1981, she made her debut in Ricas y famosas under the direction of George Cukor. No one on that set could imagine that this blonde girl would end up earning millions of dollars for every gesture in front of the camera.

And the gamble paid off.

In 1989, she filmed When Harry Met Sally... and her life was turned upside down. The faked orgasm scene at Katz's restaurant wasn't in the original script in such an explicit form. She was the one who pitched the idea to Rob Reiner to prove that men have no clue what goes on in a woman's head. That scene earned her the title of America's Sweetheart (a label that became a golden cage that was very hard to escape).

Throughout the nineties, her name was synonymous with box office success. She formed an unbeatable partnership with Tom Hanks in Algo para recordar in 1993 and repeated the formula in 1998 with Tienes un e-mail. Those were the days when she earned 15 million dollars per movie and studios fought over her schedule. But audiences always wanted her the same way: sweet and always predictable.

The Price of Breaking the Mold

In 2003, she decided she was tired of being the nice girl in romantic comedies. She took the lead role in In the Cut, an erotic thriller directed by Jane Campion that included full nudity and a murky atmosphere. Critics were merciless toward her. They didn't forgive her for wanting to age or for seeking out characters with dark edges. It marked the start of a professional drought that would last for years.

Because Hollywood harshly punishes women who step outside their assigned lane, tabloids stopped talking about her talent and became obsessed with her cosmetic procedures. She became an easy target for a press that couldn't stand watching the face of their favorite star change over the decades.

That was a full-blown media lynching.

So Meg Ryan voluntarily stepped away from the spotlight. She focused on raising her children and looking for projects where she had full creative control over the story. In 2015, she stepped behind the camera to direct Ithaca, a World War II story in which she also took a small role. It was a modest production that quietly passed through commercial theaters.

A refuge behind the camera

But the movies were still there. In 2023, she wrote, directed and starred in Lo que sucede después, a film shot almost entirely in an airport during a snowstorm. She shared the screen with David Duchovny in an exercise in nostalgia that aimed to recapture the spirit of the fast-paced dialogue of her early career. The film was shot in just 21 days with a small crew.

The project grew out of a script she revised herself during the global lockdown. She was no longer chasing the applause of the masses or the box office numbers of the nineties. At this stage, she prefers the independence of small production companies and the peace of not having to explain her private life on every red carpet.

The film had a budget of 3 million dollars and had a limited theatrical release before moving to digital platforms.