Meg Ryan stars in an upcoming remake of a popular 1939 film, The Women, which also features Annette Benning, Jada Pinkett Smith, Eva Mendes, and Debra Messing. The film is being compared to Sex and The City as it has a cast of well-to-do women in their 30s and 40s and focuses on their relationships. It’s out in the US on September 12 and I look forward to seeing it as the trailer makes it look like a lot of fun.
Ryan, 46, hasn’t had a lot of success in films in the past few years, and she told Hello! Magazine she made a decision to take a hiatus. She has a two year-old girl, Daisy True, she adopted as a baby from China along with a 15 year-old son from her marriage to Dennis Quaid. Ryan talked about growing older in Hollywood and how she hopes her new movie will help open doors for older actresses. She also discussed how many women try to have it all and how difficult that is to manage:
So where have you been, because we haven’t seen you in many movies recently?
“I just made a conscious decision to take a break. I just didn’t feel like working. It’s as simple as that.”Are you worried about The Women being compared to the Sex and The City movie?
“Not at all. If anything, the success of that movie will help us.”What message do you hope it will send out to women?
“We hope it will open doors – especially for the 40-plus set in Hollywood.”Do you think women are better off now than in the Thirties, when the original film was set?
“I think 50 years from now, when we look back on this generation of women who were told that we could have it all and tried to, people are going to go ‘What the hell were they doing?’ It’s so hard, and I think that you have to figrue out some way of keeping all of those capabilities and requirements in your life in balance.“It’s very hard to be a career person and have a relationship. I didn’t succeed at doing it all. It’s incredibly hard.”
How are you coping with life in your 40s?
“I’m very happy. Turning 40 in Hollywood was definitely something for me but it doesn’t feel like an ending. My interests have expanded and I have never felt more creative than I do right now…”A critic once said that you would struggle to have a movie career beyond 45. You’re 46 now, so what do you say to that?
“That’s a really old-fashioned idea. It’s so low for someone to have said that. They don’t say that about men, so it’s sexist and horribe.”So you’ve never been tempted to walk away from movies?
“I may one day, but it won’t be because someone told me to. I alsot think that the demographics of who sees movies have changed.“Women over 31 want movies that are about them, so there are a lot of big surprises left. The baby-boom generation is getting older and it wants something more satisfying than why the movie-makers expect.”
[From Hello! magazine, print edition, August 28, 2008]
Later in the interview, Ryan addressed how she’s not comfortable with being a celebrity when asked about it. She said “I’m not really comfortable with that level of attention. [as a celebrity]” She also said that she was “aware” that she had a “famous haircut” when asked about her status as an icon in the late 80s and early 90s.
It’s great news to a lot of women past 31 that there are films coming out that include older actresses and address some of the issues we have. We don’t want to keep seeing all those romantic comedies because we’re not in that place in our lives anymore. Good for Ryan for starring in a movie that shows older women and follows in the success of Sex and the City. Hopefully The Women won’t suck and will do well at the box office.
Meg Ryan is shown at the Crystal & Lucy Awards with Annette Bening on 6/17/08. Credit: GL / PR Photos
But she doesn’t let it interfere with her visits to the plastic surgeon or the getting lots of Botox and collagen injections 🙄
I will never forget her org@sm scene in “When Harry Met Sally’, priceless.
I think she looks better with the longer cut, softens her up a bit. Looks like my hair 8)
Dante, agree with your comment. Some of them do go overboard. But as we age, we need a little ‘help’. I miss being able to go out the door without as much as a glance in the mirror.
edit; Nikki there is no such thing as ‘aging gracefully’ for women, try it. Whether you fill wrinkles with Restalin, whiten your teeth, color your grey hair, it is maintenance.
Maybe I’d have respect for her standing up to the rampant hollywood ageism if she’d allowed herself to age gracefully and had respect for her body and the natural changes a woman goes through as she ages, instead of filling her face with chemicals. her actions speak louder than words here.
I wish I could afford to take time off from work because I felt like it. At the same time, to live under the stress of having to constantly look youthful in LA/Hollywood, NO THANK YOU.
I agree with the person who wrote about the orgasm scene. It’s once of the best scenes in film history.
Agree, Mr T. Seems to be those actresses who coast on their looks rather than real talent that come unstruck once they reach a certain age. Just thinking of people like eg. Toni Colette, Laura Linney and Renee Zellweger who are genuinely talented and versatile and busy actresses who continue to get really interesting work. All three also seem to have a distinct lack of on-screen vanity.
Meryl Streep is another actress who’s aging just fine. But she’s known for her talent, not her looks.
Older actresses with talent, personality, and beauty will be loved by all audiences, aka, Helen Mirren.
Note: Mr. T’s comment was accidentally deleted when I wanted to delete mine instead. It was a mistake, sorry! He said:
“It seems to me that actresses with talent and grit do well. Bette Davis for example, worked well into her later years. Yes, it’s sexism, ageism, etc. when it’s not a lack of real talent and reliance on appearance?”
Daisy424, that’s a good point, but somehow i still can’t see slicing open your skin or filling it with toxic liquid as routine maintenance. Is changing the colour of your hair (which will eventually grow out) the same as permanently disfiguring yourself?
I think that every woman has the right to do whatever they need to do in order to feel good about themselves- anyone with confidence or image issues can understand the desire to make yourself look better in your own eyes (and in others), but i don’t get the reasoning behind actress’s who get botox and painfully obvious surgery when their entire profession depends on their ability to express a range of genuine emotions. How can you do that convincingly with a frozen face?
During any given scene the audience should be focused on the story being told, not trying to figure out why meg’s lips are so messed up.
A couple of years ago there were some pictures that came out of her with really bad cosmetic enhancements. She looked really screwed up. I’m wondering if that isn’t why she took a couple of years off.
She looks almost normal now.
I just love Meg Ryan (and I’m so relieved the collagen seems to have vanished over time and that she didn’t have a refill). And I looove that trailer! Honestly, I’m twenty-eight and even at my age I’m bored to death of seeing twenty-somethings and twenty-somethings only in films. I’m starting to think about how I want my life to be in my thirties and fourties and – damn it! – I want rolemodels for that on screen!
the movie is mostly about women in their 40’s (eva and jada are the 2 in their 30’s) and that’s awesome.
these 40-somethings are giving us younger women a positive glimpse that you can still be sexy and happy and successful as you age.
hurrah!
and i agree with meg r. that we will look back at those who touted, “you can have it all” as bull-sh*t.
it’s impossible for me to balance everything but i wouldn’t have it any other way.
Agree with the plastic surgery, talent criticisms…
But I actually do believe Meg does not want the spotlight – she seems genuinely uncomfortable promoting her work.
Other than that… I just can’t believe they remade Cukor’s “The Women” – it is a seriously great film. That modern Hollywood is pissing on by casting Meg and Eva Mendes.
I agree that, while there are exceptions, the demand for women in Hollywood to be ‘young’ is enormous and very little is being done to create a niche for the 40-60 year age-group.
What they need is better writers with more ideas to make better movies. They need older Hollywood actresses to create a production company together designed to promote films with GOOD parts for women their age.
As for Meg Ryan…I still remember when she left Dennis Quaid for Russell Crowe–literlly walked out on her husband (and son) to go off with her younger, sexy co-star from that hostage movie they made (lots of making out in public, on planes, etc). Any woman willing to publicly humiliate her husband I have no respect for (by the way, that’s equal opportunity no respect–any man who would do that to his wife–Balthazar you pig!–I feel just the same about).
That’s when her movie career really started taking a dive. She had built up a reputation as the “good gir next door”-type. It wasn’t just that she broke up with Quaid, it was the totally insensitive, very public way she did it that shocked a lot of people and she stopped getting those kinds of roles, and never found anything to replace them.
I’m not surprised the movie is being compared to SATC; the trailer shows a number of visual (check out the Carrie hair on Meg Ryan!) and behavioral (check out the Charlotte-like vocal patterns of Debra Messing!) similarities.
Just saw the trailer, and it looks awful – forced, uncomfortable humor – although Eva Mendes seems well-suited to the Joan Crawford role.
The 1938 original is fun but has the distinct drawback that “The Women” spend all of their time talking about men. It’ll be interesting to hear if that’s changed in the 2008 version.
And in the trailer, Meg Ryan still looks pretty plastic surgery’d out. Yuk. I actually find it difficult to look at a face that’s had that much surgery.
Why on earth would you want to update “The Women?” It was re-done in the 50s and *that* movie wasn’t very good. “The Women” is so much of its time, to do a modern version will kill what made that film (based on a play by Clare Booth Luce) unique for its time.
The society that Luce based her play upon is pretty much gone. And though “The Women” was ground-breaking back then, I can’t imagine updating it without either losing what made the play/film so terrific or, worse, it’ll seem massively anachronistic.
Sigh.
Oh, and Meg Ryan talking about how Hollywood ageism is unfair while she’s got a trout pout and a Botoxed face is an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
O think she is using this as an excuse for the pumpkin carving she gave her face.
I am tired of hearing older actresses whine about how sexist and ageist that Hollywood is. Most of these actresses capitalized on their youth, blondness and thin bodies in order to get movie roles. They had little real talent. They didn’t complain about Hollywood “ageism” back then. Why are they whining now?
Then they whine because they get older and the roles they used to get are going to younger women. Well, tough. If they had any real talent, they might still be getting work.
Meg was a cute thing 20 years ago. All she knew how to do, was giggle and smile and show her dimples and blond hair. She never was a real actress. She needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
Certain people should not be allowed to get old, perhaps all of us. If I can remember my film history, that 1939 film was a vehicle for all the famous women then who themselves were getting on in years and were really at the top of their form. Hollywood is a cruel mistress. There are so many female players who we should be seeing just because they have honed their craft so well. But as it has always been, they must take the second or third banana positions as they get older if they want to keep working. It is the way of the world for all of us I am afraid, even all those young people who can not imagine getting older. Crap happens and then you die.
She’s had a lot more than collagen and botox. Looks like cheek implants that she now took out (thank goodness)-she only looks mostly fake now.
@ geronimo: i freakin’ love laura linney! and toni colette too. as for meg, her face looks somewhat normal now, not so chipmunkish.
TP,
Actually, the 30s was one of the great heydays for actresses in Hollywood. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Mary Astor, Nancy Carroll, Dolores Del Rio, Alice Faye, Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell, Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, and Jean Arthur to name but a few of the major stars of that decade.
The reason “The Women” was so big in 1939 wasn’t because those women were at the end of their careers by any stretch of the imagination, but rather because they were all at the top of their game.
I think the trailer is pretty funny. Some good one liners.
This is the best I’ve seen Meg look in a while, albeit with the botoxed face. I like her and cannot imagine the pressure there is in Hollywood to try and look young.
I’ve always loved Meg Ryan, and I guess I always will. Reading that little interview, I was suddenly reminded of that scene in When Harry met Sall when Harry comes over to Sally’s house, and she’s sitting in her bed surrounded by little puff-wads of Kleenex, sobbing uncontrollably, and he wants to know what’s wrong. “I’m gonna be FORTY!!” she wails. “Yeah – in eight years!” he responds. 😆
I do the same thing, freak out by myself once in a while that I’m gonna be 40 – even though it’s still a few years up the road from here.
I do love me some Meg Ryan. I’ll see this new film, just to watch her & Debra Messing, love Debra Messing, too.
I agree with Meg that there aren’t many truly good roles for older women in mainstream Hollywood movies. But I also agree with Cindy Kennedy that there are too many young actresses willing to succumb to the sexist Hollywood ideal of the vapid, supporting role in a silly romantic comedy or mindless “thriller”. Meg was one in her day; Jennifer Aniston is reaching the end of her run; and Kate Hudson is still in the throws (which is sad, because I think she has real talent but she keeps selling herself short). So then when they hit 40, and nobody wants to see them playing the doe-eyed-“girl”-who-can’t-find-love-but-who-falls-for-the-caddishly-confirmed-bachelor part anymore, they whine that there are no good roles for women of a certain age. But realistically, if they’d tried harder to stretch themselves, prove their range, and move away from the “little girl lost” routine — well, maybe they’d only be making one film a year, but it would probably be really interesting and very rewarding.
That’s true, Granger. Excellent points, I do agree.
I can’t believe “City of Angels” was made only 10 years ago, and what Meg has managed to do to her face in that decade. She was gorgeous in the mid and late 90s and was ageing just fine, until she started getting surgery. She’s practically unrecognizable.
okay botox and restylane are considered cosmetics not cosmetic surgery. You don’t have to be cut up to be injected and they aren’t permanent. Fillers and relaxers are simply advanced clinical skin care for the well heeled. And really when you break it down, no different to you or I buying a anti-wrinkle cream from the supermarket – depends on your budget.
If viewed in this light I don’t see how you can accuse Meg of desperately denying her age or trying to stay forever young. She’s just looking after herself as we all do, albeit with access to more expensive treatments than most.
I don’t see any evidence of her being over-surgerised or having had surgery at all for that matter. I think her good looks have as much to do with a good health and fitness routine (note the toned arms) as much as anything she does to her face.