Meg Ryan reveals why Hollywood is on hiatus

As she approaches her long-awaited romantic comedy comeback, Meg Ryan is opening up about why she took an eight-year hiatus from Hollywood.

to talk For people in an interview The “Sleepless in Seattle” actress said that she simply wanted to focus on other things, including motherhood.

“I took a big break because I felt like there were a lot of other parts of my experience as a human being that I wanted to develop,” Ryan said, noting that she was able to spend more time with her son, Jack Quaid, with whom she shares. Ex-husband Dennis Quaid and daughter Daisy Ryan.

“It’s nice to think of it as a job rather than a lifestyle,” she added. This is a great way to deal with it for me.”

According to People, Ryan received a pass from the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to talk about her new film What Happens Later during the Hollywood actors’ strike. Loosely based on Steven Dietz’s 2010 play “shooting starThis comedy follows Willa (played by Ryan) and Bill (David Duchovny), an ex-couple who unexpectedly reunites after being stranded at the airport during a snowstorm.

Ryan also co-wrote and directed “What Happens Later,” her first film since 2015’s “What Happens Later.”IthacaIt also marks her first romantic comedy since 2001’s “Kate & Leopold.”

Watch the trailer for “What Happens Later” below.

In a conversation with Carol Burnett published By Interview Magazine In August, Ryan said she first received an early copy of the What Happens Later script from Dietz shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic began. The unexpected downtime that followed “made me think about what was going on in the world, and how we were all being put under glass,” she explained.

“The story started to revolve around this question of how do we start to forgive ourselves and each other,” she said. “It’s a romantic comedy, so you often have to secretly ask those deeper questions and hope people feel them underneath everything.”

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Ryan vied with Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts as one of the film industry’s most bankable actresses, thanks to well-received roles in When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail.

In recent years, she has been open about her decision To get away From the spotlight, and like many women in her demographic, she faced an undue amount of scrutiny over her appearance.

Ryan cited Nora Ephron — the late screenwriter behind “When Harry Met Sally,” “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail” — as an influence on “What Happens Later,” which hits theaters Nov. 3.

“Nora Ephron used to say about romantic comedies that they were actually a secretly amazing delivery system for commenting on the era.” He told Entertainment Weekly in August, “And we do it in this movie.”