Meg Ryan said she’s “grateful” to have balance in her life after stepping away from the Hollywood spotlight to focus on motherhood.
The 61-year-old actress is ready to mount her comeback with the release of “What Happens Later” – her first romantic comedy in more than a decade.
“I’m grateful that I’m a mom, and I’m grateful that I have friends,” Ryan said. “I’m grateful that my life has so many different aspects to it. I traveled a lot. So, by now, I felt like, ‘Oh, I have some stuff to say with this movie.'”
Meg Ryan is back in the sparkling romantic-comedy #WhatHappensLater. She not only dazzles before the camera, but behind it as well, as director and co-writer.
Read our review: https://t.co/6tL4jIvCxy pic.twitter.com/5MNZIlYsXd
— Variety (@Variety) November 1, 2023
“I have a very charmed life,” she added. “People generally smile when they say hi to me, and they’re happy about some of the movies I’ve done, and that’s great.”
“I’m not saying anything bad about that,” Ryan continued. “I have a very charmed experience, I recognize that. But I wanted to sort of just extend out of that, move out of LA. Just change it up.”
The “Sleepless In Seattle” star, who took a hiatus from Hollywood for eight years, said she needed to know what life felt like outside of the Hollywood bubble.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP
“I’ve been working since I was a kid really,” she said. “When you start that young — like 19, 20 or something, I was on the soap opera.”
“And I just always felt a little bit like life was over, like, outside this little bubble, outside some sort of membrane,” she added. “And I remember cars closing — like, expensive cars — and then you don’t hear the outside anymore. You’re roped off in that part of thing, and I just knew it’s just not good for an artist or a creative person to have limited life, in a way, to draw from.”
Ryan recently told People magazine she disappeared because she wanted to expand her horizons after spending most of her life immersed in her career. She focused on being a mom to her two kids — Jack with ex-husband Dennis Quaid and adopted daughter Daisy.
“I took a giant break because I felt like there’s just so many other parts of my experience as a human being I wanted to develop,” she said. “It’s nice to think of it [acting] as a job and not a lifestyle. And that is a great way of navigating it for me.”
“What Happens Later” hit theaters on November 3.