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Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra (born November 19, 1961), known professionally as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and filmmaker. Known for her leading roles as quirky, charismatic women since the late 1980s, Ryan is particularly recognized for her work in romantic comedies, a genre she dominated during the 1980s and 1990s. Dubbed "America's sweetheart" by the media, she became one of Hollywood's most bankable stars of the latter decade. She made her acting debut in 1981 in the drama film Rich and Famous. She joined the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982. In the 1980s, Ryan appeared in Top Gun, Promised Land, (1987) and the Rob Reiner-directed romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally... (1989), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination. A prolific actress through the 1990s and 2000s, Ryan appeared in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), The Doors (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), When a Man Loves a Woman (1994), French Kiss (1995), Courage Under Fire (1996), Anastasia (1997), Addicted to Love (1997), You've Got Mail (1998), City of Angels (1998), Proof of Life (2000), Kate & Leopold (2001), and The Women (2008). In 2015, she made her directorial debut with Ithaca, in which she also starred. Ryan returned to the screen in the romantic comedy What Happens Later (2023), which she also directed. Early life Ryan was born and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, to Susan Jordan (née Duggan), a former actress and English teacher, and Harry Hyra, a math teacher. Her father is of Polish descent. She was raised Catholic and attended St. Pius X Elementary School in Fairfield. She has two sisters, Dana (d. 2022) and Annie (d. 2019), and a brother, musician Andrew Hyra, a member of the band Billy Pilgrim. Her parents divorced in 1976 when she was 15. Ryan graduated from Bethel High School in 1979. She studied journalism as an undergraduate, first at the University of Connecticut and then at New York University. During college, she acted in television commercials and the soap opera As the World Turns to earn extra money. Her success as an actress led her to leave college a semester before she planned to graduate. When she joined the Screen Actors Guild, she used the surname "Ryan", her maternal grandmother's maiden name. Career Early work After her film debut in director George Cukor's final film, Rich and Famous, in 1981, Ryan played Betsy Stewart in the daytime drama As the World Turns from 1982 to 1984; her character was featured in a popular romantic story arc. She also appeared in some television commercials during the early 1980s for Burger King and Aim toothpaste, among others. Several television and smaller film roles followed, including appearances in Charles in Charge, Armed and Dangerous, and Amityville 3-D. Her role in Promised Land (1987) earned Ryan her first Independent Spirit Award nomination. In 1986, she played Carole Bradshaw, the wife of Anthony Edwards' character, naval flight officer Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, in Top Gun. Scenes with them were reprised in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick as flashbacks to illustrate the emotional conflicts between lead character Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and the Bradshaws' grown son, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller). Ryan appeared in the film Innerspace in 1987 with her future husband Dennis Quaid, and they subsequently costarred in the remake of D.O.A. (1988) and Flesh and Bone (1993). She also costarred in 1988 with Sean Connery and Mark Harmon in The Presidio. 1989–1999: Career breakthrough and stardom Ryan's first leading role was the romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally... (1989), which paired her with comic actor Billy Crystal and earned her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. Her portrayal of Sally Albright includes an oft-recounted scene in which her character, lunching with Crystal's character in Katz's Delicatessen in Manhattan, theatrically demonstrates for him how easy it is for a woman to fake an orgasm. Ryan next appeared in Oliver Stone's moderately successful film The Doors, and in Prelude to a Kiss, which flopped. In 1993, the hugely successful romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle paired Ryan for a second time with Tom Hanks. They had previously been the romantic leads, with Ryan playing three different women, in John Patrick Shanley's Joe Versus the Volcano in 1990 — a commercial disappointment which later developed a cult following. (Hanks and Ryan were once again paired in another box-office success, You've Got Mail, in 1998.) She earned her second nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for her performance in Sleepless in Seattle. She was offered the role of FBI agent Clarice Starling, the protagonist of The Silence of the Lambs (1991), but rejected it due to the film's gruesome and violent themes. In 1994, Ryan played an alcoholic high-school guidance counselor – far from the romantic-comedy ingenue roles for which she had become famous – in Luis Mandoki's social romantic drama When a Man Loves a Woman, also starring Andy Garcia. The film and her performance were both well received by critics. A critic for Variety called the film "a first-class production, accentuated by fine performances and an unflinching script," and another praised Ryan for her "roller-coaster role." The film was a notable success, grossing $50 million in the United States alone, and garnered Ryan a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. The same year, Ryan returned to type, starring alongside Tim Robbins in Fred Schepisi's romantic comedy I.Q. The film centers on a mechanic and a Princeton doctoral candidate who fall in love, with the aid of the graduate student's uncle, Albert Einstein (played by Walter Matthau). Ryan later won Harvard's Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year award, and People Magazine dubbed her one of "the 50 most beautiful people in the world." In 1995, critic Richard Corliss called Ryan "the current soul of romantic comedy". The same year she also starred opposite Kevin Kline in Lawrence Kasdan's French Kiss, a comedy catering to her "America's Sweetheart" image, and was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award – given to "outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry." In 1996, Ryan starred as a helicopter pilot in the war drama Courage Under Fire, a critical and commercial success. The following year, she voiced the lead role in the animated film Anastasia, which met with good reviews and box office success, and she and Matthew Broderick played a pair of jilted lovers bent on revenge in the black comedy Addicted to Love, giving Ryan a female lead at least superficially different from her usual roles. In 1998, she starred in two films. City of Angels (an American remake of Wim Wenders' Wings o.... Discover the Meg Benjamin popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Meg Benjamin books.