The movie that ended Meg Ryan’s career

I thought it had more to go with the horrible face work she did around that time.. also that she was aging out of those roles

I love Meg Ryan in rom-coms. At least she got to see Mark Ruffalo totally naked. I think it was more her affair with Russell Crowe and perhaps in combination with the nudity in that movie with Ruffalo that hurt her career and image. The plastic surgery afterwards didn't help either. You know she had over 10 years at the top; she could always come back playing ditzy aunts, moms and grandmothers; she's really great in comedy.

In the Cut.

Meg Ryan topless.

No thanks.

She was great in When Harry Met Sally, my go to movie when I’m down.

R2 has a good summary, plus she was hitting the magical age of 40 which makes it harder for women to get the lead roles, esp. when they specialize in being cute and perky.

No, it was definitely the Russell Crowe affair, which was a huge pr catastrophe for her. That combined with aging out ended her, I think quite unfairly. Following that up with terrifying plastic surgery and she couldn’t come back.

That didn't end it. She had been around for years, she was aging, she was losing her interest. As long as she saved her money, she'll be fine. She was never really a brilliant actress. I liked her.

You always wonder how much of this kind of talk is sour grapes from actors whose careers cooled. “Yes I stopped working but it’s because *I* got tired of Hollywood bullshit, and I’m so much happier now doing nothing.”

In The Cut was an excellent book and she seemed totally wrong for the role. I remember being disappointed by their casting choices. Ruffalo was also really bad.

R9, yes, Ruffalo was terrible in the role, including that dreadful fake accent. However, he was handsome, hairy-chested and naked. Therefore, the movie gets 5/5 stars from me.

(Actually I kind of enjoyed it overall, quite aside from the then-dazzling Mr R, but the two leads were miscast.)

She was very charming during her rom-com run of films I think the kooky aunt roles will work out if she tries that route

It was that and the Crowe affair. Because the one thing a celebrity must NEVER EVER DO, is to behave in a way that shows their image is a pack of lies and they're not the person they seemed to be. Ryan had spent years and years playing ingenues and being the good girl who deserved to get the guy... and then she cheated on her husband in real life and played a slut in a movie. It's not that she did anything terrible, an actress with a sexy bad-girl image like Angelina Jolie would have been forgiven for the same thing, but when Ryan did it she showed the public she wasn't who they thought she was.

It's like when Anne Hathaway showed that she wasn't the good-natured girl she was in all those popular movies, she was humorless and ambitious in real life, and everyone decided they hated her... even though she hadn't actually done anything wrong. She just showed she wasn't who the public thought she was.

Russell Crowe had already revealed himself to be a hothead asshole with anger management problems so she couldn't have picked a worse guy to cheat with.

Mark Ruffalo so reminds me of that dumpy detective on Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

She lost our interest over here, when she went on Parkinson's chat show and just totally clammed up.

Parky is a national treasure. He's interviewed all of the greats, yet Meg Ryan will always be his worst interviewee.

This sums up what happened to her.

Um, she is a bitch. I've met her. Sweetheart is not a word I would use to describe her. And John Mellencamp is beyond retched. Chevy Chase awful.

She seems/seemed to think she was a major talent. She's not

The surgery killed her. That mouth alone is the thing of nightmares. She's just Sandra Bullock/Ashley Judd. Both are nice BTW.

Why do they always seem to kill a good thing?

[quote]I love Meg Ryan in rom-coms. At least she got to see Mark Ruffalo totally naked.

Are you a twelve year old girl?

Yes - with her image, it was kind of like when Ingrid Bergman had her affair, it hurt her more than it would have someone like Lana Turner, because many people really thought of her like a nun. It did not help that the cuckolded husband was Dennis Quaid who was pretty popular with the public. Now had it been Randy Quaid...

Her career was ended by a series of print and video interviews where she and her management either consciously or unconsciously tore apart her girl next door image.

For no reason whatsoever she became humorless and combative even though nobody was fighting with her. It really was inexplicable.

Except that she was for some reason sabotaging her own career. But that’s the crazy that has everyone slapping their forehead with the palm of their hand.

I remember an interview with Barbara Walters where they were talking about her relationship with Dennis Quaid.

Walters asked, "So he's Mr Right?" Ryan answered, "For right now." What a fucking cunt.

[quote]Parky is a national treasure.

Uh, no he isn't. He was actually raked over the coals for what he did to her, and a lot came out about him in the post #MeToo era that destroyed his reputation forever. He's a nasty alcoholic and a serial predator.

R15 Parkinson has always been a jerk to women. Here's his infamous interview with Helen Mirren (start watching at 1:30)

She was typecast as america’s sweetheart and was aging out. She thought the way to prolong her career was to knock down that image. And she did. It failed. I dont believe that she didnt plan this. She swung and missed.

R12, I have heard for a long time that Dennis Quaid cheated on Meg Ryan for years. Don't know why that wasn't exposed more. It's unfair that Meg was basically slut shamed out of her career.

r3 Topless? I remember seeing her pubic hair/nether regions.

That Parkinson’s disease is a tad haughty and even cunty, but I’m not seeing the scandal in either clip

Her affair with Russell Crowe ended her career, pretty much. Her PR spent 2 years spinning that and doing damage control. Not because of the affair, but because she couldn't land him/get him to marry her and she pretended that wasn't what she wanted. I remember the People magazine cover story claiming Crowe wanted to marry her but she was too good of a mom to relocate her son to Australia. It was such an obvious, reactionary spin job the letters section was scathing towards her. Crowe even pitched in (after the break up) and they put on a Goop-worthy display of PDA giggling and being "playful" in the window seat of a restaurant in the Grove, and then outside. The most important part of that event was she couldn't keep him (she was a couple years or more older), and she'd been the ingenue who could get anyone. She got Dennis Quaid when HE was the hottest thing. I don't know why she spun out over how that affair backfired - maybe vanity and ego.

I later read gossip about this whole thing that was presented as a blind item but was pretty obviously Quaid/Ryan. That the movie star husband had cheated on his blonde movie star wife throughout the marriage, often with women who looked like her. That she basically laid in wait, and then blindsided him with Crowe and a divorce action. Crowe did NOT want to be Richard Burton to her Elizabeth Taylor and slid out of the thing as soon as he decently could (plus he's a dog and she was pushing 40), with a lot of help from both their publicists, it looked like.

Maybe there was a latent hostility to Meg Ryan among the public waiting to emerge, because Quaid got ALL the sympathy and it seemed the public wasn't buying any spin from her side, no matter how some of the friendly gossip magazines tried. Looking back, I guess his career was still going strong and he might have had better PR people.

It wasn't just slut-shaming Ryan, it was also putting her in her place. It was sexist - like, hey Meg, aren't you a little uppity at 38 to pull this stunt with a younger movie star? Don't you know you don't have the same romantic and sexual power you did 10 years ago? I don't recall it being said blatantly but it was like this undercurrent. It WAS like she took a big swing, and people were almost waiting to pounce. I think part of it was she did a complete pap walk with Crowe at night wherever they had been shooting, and also that the media and the public wanted her to be more like Julia Roberts. Julia may have done exactly what she wanted off camera/behind the scenes but she bubbled it up for the media, showed the teeth, was cheerful on her junkets and quotable enough. Ryan always seemed to have a chip on her shoulder and not much of a sense of humor for a rom com queen.

Interesting, R17. I've never heard anyone describe Ashley Judd as nice. Did you have an experience with her that made you think that way? I know people who worked with her who said she's a bitch on wheels.

I agree with the above posters who point out that it was more than one thing that took Ryan down. The affair with Crowe and the fact that she was aging out of her type of rom-com role combined to take her down. I think she stepped out of the public eye when she realized Dennis Quaid was winning the PR battle, and all by doing nothing.

Then when she started to be seen more in public again (no doubt orchestrated by some PR machine), the awful plastic surgery that ruined her face was the final nail in the coffin. No more rom-coms for former-cute-and-perky-actress-turned-ghoulish-plastic-surgery-fail. When her name comes up in conversation, the first thing anyone ever says is, "Oh my God, can you believe what she did to her face?!?!?!?"

I read the article OP posted. Interesting that she says she was never really comfortable with fame. I do get the sense that after stepping away from the spotlight for years, she probably realized she didn't miss it all that much because she sure hasn't pushed to get acting roles. It must be exhausting to be always thinking about your next role or project, trying to maintain an image, etc. Character actors must be a happier lot than the superstars. I know I'd never want my every word or move constantly scrutinized. Sounds like she's now doing writing and maybe producing.

Let's face it, women in extra-marital relationships don't get the same slack as men do. Brad Pitt is still "poor Brad," even though he was married and Angelina Jolie was single.

I read the NYT article that's the topic of another DL thread (posted below). Meg Ryan said she never sought out fame and fortune, blah blah blah. Maybe she never appreciated what she had (career) as much as other actresses did. Because, apparently, it all fell into her lap.

Actually, Brad is "poor, dumb Brad." Not sure if I'd like to be "poor, dumb Brad."

I think Ryan had a reputation as a bitch as far back as when she was a teen-ager on As The World Turns. She got good reviews for a turn in a Jackie Bisset/Candace Bergen movie when she was eighteen or so.

She's one of the countless H'wood women who have problems with their ambitious mothers (Demi Moore (her mom is deceased now)), Jennifer Aniston (ditto); Drew Barrymore (seems to have made her peace). The aforementioned three stars came (or have achieved) some sort of rapprochement with their problem parent - gained compassion or perspective or something. Don't know if Ryan ever did.

Ryan really was dismantling her image. My favorite movie of hers is Harry Met Sally, because once they become friends, the two characters treat each other so well. There's great chemistry and warmth. Her two Nora Ephron movies with Tom Hanks I don't love. Felt so cynical, both of them (both movies). And Ryan had acquired a kind of edge that was souring her rom com queen thing - at least the types of scripts they had.

When the Russell Crowe thing backfried (and who would ever fucking believe Dennis Quaid was successfully positioned as the sinned against, mature, "classy" party in the whole thing) and backfired hard (in a really demeaning way, like "Girl, you are NOT going to keep that guy!") she and her pr tried really hard to lean into her sweetheart image for the first time I can ever remember. The People magazine cover with her grinning and beaming through a lens that looked like it was smeared with vaseline. All about her happiness. Inside it was like - she's so happy! Everything in her life was WONDERFUL. Russell Crowe really wanted to marry her but she couldn't relocate to Australia (he's SO attached to Australia, you know) because of Jack, who is Number 1!! But, there's no heartbreak because everything is going to well and she's so happy!

I couldn't believe she did that to her face. Goes to show. Girls like her, who promote the "wash 'n wear' style - Ryan was all clunky combat boots, oversized sweaters, baggy pants - are so much more calculated than they want to project. Turns out that effortless, "not even trying" style WAS calculated, and when she got insecure, she destroyed her face.

I thought she jumped the shark with that chopper film opposite the skeletal Matt Damon

It was over with 1998 You've Got Mail / over 20 years ago

The movie wasn't great, but make no mistake about it, she destroyed her face and it's taken at least 12 years for the damage to subside (settle in). That's the real reason she didn't work that much. Plus she had been trying to switch to drama movies and she wasn't good in them. She really was only good in comedies

She needs to admit it was the bad plastic surgery. She ended up looking older than most women her age anyway.

Why did she get such bad plastic surgery? Near as I can tell based on what she did, she always thought her face was too thin and her lips too thin or mouth too small. So when it was "time" to fix it, she got a bigger mouth and put stuff in her cheeks. But why did she go so hard core, so it couldn't be modified? I've read speculation she had a whole implant put in her lips, not just injections, and maybe removing it would make things worse.

You nailed the lip implant R39- It is clear that it is not filler as the shape has been the exact same since she did it- And it looks SO BAD, that she would have adjusted the filler or something.. Why the fuck she did a lip implant is BEYOND me. I think that is what Taylor Armstrong has from RHOBH, as well as Rinna. You cannot remove a lip implant without doing major damage

IT. WAS. THE. TERRIBLE. FACE. WORK.

The unraveling of her career was self-sabotage at its finest and it backfired. Nobody whose entire livelihood was dependent upon being the cute trustworthy girl next door would be stupid and sloppy enough to be caught cheating on her husband. (Quaid, btw, was a drunk serial cheater all through their marriage.)

Proof of Life was supposed to change her image. That affair with Crowe was either a PR stunt gone wrong or she intentionally got caught because she was sick of her nice girl image. They weren't even trying to hide the affair. Then she foolishly tried to change her image again with In The Cut and that bombed. That and the joker-ish lips were the final nails in the coffin. Women no longer trusted her.

Oh, the Crowe thing was a stunt - she absolutely flaunted it and then filed for divorce. But, I also think she believed she could get Crowe to marry her. Crowe was the hot new guy just as Quaid had been, so for the cheated upon wife to cuckhold her hot shot husband with an even hotter shot was the best revenge. But, it backfired on her. Quaid immediately got sympathy - it looked like Ryan blindsided him just out of malice, and for no good reason. Despite flaunting the affair for the paps, she wore a put upon bitch face the entire time, and she and Crowe would walk several feet apart. It just smelled bad, and nobody believed she had a good reason to dump Quaid (meaning, the public). Just thought she wanted to trade up.

Not only did it backfire on her with Quaid, it also blew up her sexual currency when Crowe started edging away. I am positive her game plan included marriage, because of how freaked out her PR got when she couldn't keep him. At that point I think the public thought she was punching above her weight - that at 38 she wasn't going to land 33 year old hottest guy in H'wood Crowe (at the time. Still can't believe he was EVER that.)

At some point Crowe's pr got on board with her pr and he either backed up her version (a big pap display at the Grove) or let her tell her story through "sources" or "friends" without contradicting her or putting out his version. In the fallout he attended the Oscars where he said he was wearing dog tags Ryan gave him but did not attend with Ryan. Or the story is something like that. I think Courtney Love took a run at him then - not sure if she scored or didn't - it was always unclear. And then all of a sudden his former girlfriend came back into the picture and he glommed himself onto her like she was his life raft. That's the woman he married (they're now divorced).

Also, Proof of Life just made things worse since the premise was Ryan's husband in the movie is abducted, Crowe is helping her look for him, and then the two are supposed to have an affair. The script was changed so they didn't, but everybody knew it was supposed to be about sexual tension between Crowe and Ryan while her character's husband was abducted. A pretty sour premise that just made things worse.

Oh, one more thing.

BTW - the Crowe thing wasn't sloppy - it was calculated as fuck .

That said, Ryan dumped Anthony Edwards for Dennis Quaid. Quaid had been charming and sexy in a string of hit movies around that time. Something about it seemed egocentric to me, as if Ryan was trying to show that everybody in Hollywood wanted this guy and she got him without even trying, or playing it off like she wasn't 100% on board, but he really wanted to marry her, so.... Crowe just seemed like a repeat of that routine 10 or so years later, but this time she failed to close the deal.

This is what happened to her career

It's not THAT bad, not compared to the horrors of today's plastic surgery.

And this

Her eyes are slits

[quote]She got good reviews for a turn in a Jackie Bisset/Candace Bergen movie when she was eighteen or so.

Uhm...THAT movie has a NAME!!

It is the indescribable and unequalled "Rich and Famous" I'll have you know!!!

"My next book's gonna be called "Home Cookin' "... and it's gonna be about MOMMA!"

Meg had a good run in Hollywood as "the girl". She replaced someone else on her way up and someone replaced her on her way down.

The thing with Crowe was obviously done as a revenge move against Quaid who had just been photographed dancing on a table with someone from the movie he was making (in Spain?)

Only nitwits though Crowe was going to permanently pair up with Ryan. His fame from Gladiator had him at the top of the "famous" pyramid and would give him access to the best scripts. Meg's career was clearly on the wane.

Add to that the fact that Crowe had always said through that time that Australia was and would always continue to be his home. (The years since then have shown that he meant what he said.) There was no way Ryan would move to Oz nor did anyone really think he wanted her to.

As the furor about the pair was winding down, in a TV publicity interview, when asked, Crowe said that he hadn't yet met the woman he wanted to marry. How could anyone fail to get his message as to his relationship with Ryan?

It was years, literally, before Ryan admitted in an interview that her marriage was over at the time of her romance with Crowe. When he was asked about her comments, he responded, "It would have been nice if she had said that years ago." Someone used someone and the user was not Crowe.

It’s fucking hilarious that anyone believes, or expects anyone to believe, that anything other than that horrific plastic surgery ended her career. If it was bad PR or one bad movie, she could’ve bounced back by now. Plenty of actors come back. Plenty of lesser actors than her have successfully overcome bad PR or a career slump.

She fucked up her face.

Agreed, it's the facial mutilation that destroyed her. She could have bounced back to play the goofy older version of herself and done very well. Once you make yourself look like a monster, it's over. She was always a cunt, and it always leaked through to me, in her cutesy-wootsy movies. That's why I liked her with Kevin Kline in "French Kiss," because they were both cunts being cunts, and it was fun.

It was her face, her was her cuntish behaviour and her being a cunt on set.

R41 the TERRIBLE FACE WORK was her overreaction to the tsunami of bad press that hit her and her career after the Crowe affair (and some bad films). Looking back, it's really clear that not only had Ryan been laying in wait to turn the tables on Quaid as publicly as she could, but there were people in the industry waiting to get back at Ryan. Why the hell would all the PR be in kind, forbearing, wronged husband Dennis Quaid (DENNIS QUAID's!!!) favor. Yes, the way she raised the stakes and kind of thought she'd emerged (grimly) triumphant with Crowe in tow left people a little askance, but I think the backlash must have been driven by bridges she burned in Hwood. The Hwood PR drove the auidence backlash - cued the public to turn on her.

R51 "Add to that the fact that Crowe had always said through that time that Australia was and would always continue to be his home. (The years since then have shown that he meant what he said.) There was no way Ryan would move to Oz nor did anyone really think he wanted her to." Of course not. But Meg wanted everyone to think he did and had People magazine report the same. I also believe she thought she could get him to marry her and then things would play her way, whatever that looked like. She was very mistaken in thinking she could get a guy who was, as you say, at the top of the Hwood pyramid at the time, but I believe she did, and she also didn't think her career was as on the wane as you describe, although it was.

Besides, Hwood stars, even from Australia, make all kinds of claims about what they really want and then turn around and do none of it.

Everyone in Hollywood ought to look back on the stories of Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan, and reflect on just how fast and far a celebrity's star can fall.

Both of them were riding at the top and threw it all away through being dumbasses who thought they could get away with anything, and when they fell they found that nobody was willing to stop their fall because they'd pissed off everyone they'd ever worked with. Crowe has managed a partial comeback and he works, but at least he had the sense not to ruin his face with bad plastic surgery.

Are you kidding me, the plastic surgery took the cuteness away-- she's done after that. Sorry, blame it on a movie, but it was the plastic surgery (and you can tell by the way she displays herself that she knows it). Mary!

Her romcoms sucked. Like most romcoms.

Bubbe Meg,

Why don't you just go back to your retirement condo in Boca and stop trying to analyze all the reasons your career is ovah!

Anyone know who the surgeon is? I hope she sued.

[quote]when she got insecure, she destroyed her face

My only beef with this is that she didn't destroy her face, she went to a plastic surgeon who destroyed it. That very first surgery made her nostrils lopsided and pulled her face too taut, giving the eyes and mouth an odd shape. A lot of the procedures she did afterwards were probably to try to correct the first one.

She destroyed her face and became unrecognizable, difficult to look at and impossible to imagine as the sweet girl next door she always played. Of course no journalist will explicitly write that, but it’s kind of shady to publish a story quoting Ryan saying a role ended her career when every reader familiar with her will snicker and think, “poor crazy deluded Meg.”

Agree R62, someone did it to her-- I guess it's luck of the draw which plastic surgeon you use (and whether or not they are having a good day)-- it's amazing how they can fuck up your face!