Acting all grown up

Once America8217;s sweetheart, Meg Ryan is back after a hiatus with a transitional role in The Women, in which she plays an upper-crust wife and mother

Once America8217;s sweetheart, Meg Ryan is back after a hiatus with a transitional role in The Women, in which she plays an upper-crust wife and mother
What8217;s life like after fame? It8217;s hard not to wonder that while sitting in a hotel room talking to Meg Ryan, who in 2000 earned about 15 million a movie and stood tall at the top of the list of actresses with the most box office clout. Then came the breakup with husband Dennis Quaid, amid her public fling with Proof of Life costar Russell Crowe, and a few poor career choices and then time off. Public sentiment seemed to curdle for the woman who once was dubbed 8220;America8217;s sweetheart8221;, mostly because she had the temerity to break from the stereotype that moviegoers had projected on her after her adorable turns in When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle.

Eight years later, Ryan stars in The Women. At 46, thin and lithe in what appears to be a gold lace Prada dress and in curls, she doesn8217;t look exactly as she did in her heyday, but she8217;s still gorgeous.

Until the last year, when she made four independent movies, Ryan hadn8217;t been working much. She adopted her second child, Daisy True, from China in 2006 and spends a lot of time with her and teenage son Jack. 8220;I8217;ve been famous since I was a teenager. There are a lot of empty spaces in that,8221; she says, elusively. 8220;I8217;ve been filling in the cracks a little bit. I feel very fortunate, very free. I haven8217;t had any big desire to work.8221;

The Women is a film Ryan has been attached to for 14 years. In 1994, she and Julia Roberts were going to team up to star in and produce the movie, a poison-pen letter about upper-crust wife and mother Mary Haines, whose life implodes when she discovers her husband is having an affair with the perfume girl at a high-end department store. Murphy Brown creator Diane English wrote the script and directed the film that was made after many a pitfall. 8220;There was a fear that an all-female cast would never be able to make any money at the box office,8221; says English.

The director believes that Mary Haines is a great 8220;transitional8221; role for Ryan. 8220;She brings a certain maturity to the role now,8221; English says. 8220;She gets to play an adult and she plays a mom.8221; English says it was Ryan who suggested a line for Mary Haines: 8220;I8217;ve spent a lifetime trying to be all things to all people, and somehow somebody is always disappointed.8221;

8220;I definitely had my time with that, without knowing I was doing it,8221; Ryan says. On a public level, she incited hostility when she abandoned her sweetheart persona. But she also tried to please the people in her private life. 8220;I did that in my marriage. I definitely had that feeling for a long time that I was running around being a reactive person instead of a proactive person. It8217;s not a fun way to live and I determined that I didn8217;t want to live that way anymore.8221;

Ryan describes herself repeatedly as 8220;a seeker8221;, the Catholic-raised girl who read Herman Hesse8217;s Siddhartha in seventh grade and was transformed. 8220;I was recently in India for the consecration of a temple. It was scary8212;750,000 people ended up amassing, and they were expecting 100,000.8221;
But nothing animates Ryan like talking about her children. Ryan says she never felt as if she was rescuing her daughter. 8220;I just saw that face and I knew we were related. It taught me a lot about any expectations you have in life. Just toss them away.8221;, Rachel Abramowitz, LATWP