by Paul Fischer
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Cranky Critic:
Do you put stuff from your own life into a characters like this?
Meg Ryan: I don't know. I find the romantic comedy genre difficult.
It's not drama so you can't play the thing for real. It's not a slapstick comedy
so you're not going for huge laughs. You're going for this fairy tale world in
between. This tightrope that you have to walk. Very often in romantic comedies
when people are upset, it's supposed to be funny. It's all sorts of contradictory
notions like that that you have to pay attention to but not think too much about
because then it gets too heavy and then the air goes out of the balloon. It's
like keeping a balloon up in the air all the time. The wrong idea pops it.
Cranky Critic:
Why do you think audiences respond to romantic comedy?
Meg Ryan: I don't know. It's the dream of love? it's
the dream of an ideal life. It's the dreaminess of the way those bookstores look
and the dreaminess of the clothes and how articulate everybody is. It's a dream
world That's what movies are good at. I feel like, as valuable as it is to go
to see a movie (like Saving Private Ryan or Savior or some of these films) there's
another side that a movie like this satisfies that's just as important.
Cranky Critic:
Doesn't it also build up expectations of what "it" should be like when
you fall in love?
Meg Ryan: Well, we're talking about why fairy tales and
myths are important to people. It's nice to have an ideal. Not that it's going
to happen, but it's nice to have it happen for an hour and a half.
Cranky Critic:
Comedy is good for 90 minutes. What about drama?
Meg Ryan: In a romantic drama you're looking for a whole
other kind of reality. It was really fun in City of Angels to do those heart surgery
scenes. I did them all. Those were my fingers tying things and I had to learn
to tie a one handed knot with those gloves on and the blood everywhere. That was
really fun. The other thing about this experience is that I'm a sucker for Tom
and Nora. I am. They call up and I'm back. I love being around them.
Cranky Critic:
Three times you've teamed with Tom Hanks and it comes off as ideal. Since you're
both married to other folk, I'll pry: what's your relationship like off the screen?
are you friends? do you double date?
Meg Ryan: [laughs] kinda. We don't' see each other all
that often. I've made a movie with him about every five years. That's when I hang
out with him. Every now and then I see him and his wife, in real life, we hang
out. But not often. Not that much.
Cranky Critic:
What's your take on Internet love?
Meg Ryan: I don't surf the net, but I do have a lot of
e-mail relationships. A lot of my friends are writers and I just love it when
someone can communicate really, really well. I find it just exciting that a friend
has decided to write a sentence "like that" and has taken the time to
tell me what she's thinking about or what he saw that day. I've got a lot of friends
who are moms like me and running around with the kids and one will sit down and
write a story about what she saw at the Third Street Promenade. It's a great way
to know people. I feel enamored of the thing. It's a whole new way of getting
to know people who I already know really well.
Cranky Critic:
But you're talking about people you know. You've Got Mail is about people
that you don't. Is the anonymity of the 'net scary to you?
Meg Ryan: Myself, I'm not that interested in an anonymous
relationship. Unless that person was a great writer [laughs]. I'm not that interested.
I really feel that you could cloak yourself so well on the Internet; the idea
of this movie is that their anonymity makes them able to be more honest. What
I like is when people that I know reveal something about themselves. I like to
feel "heard" y'know? I find that to be the exciting thing. I know a
lot of people flirt on the Internet but I'm not interested in that.
Cranky Critic:
I'd think that you, as a celeb who hasn't been anonymous in forever, would like
the 'net's cloak of anonymity.
Meg Ryan: Um, except for doing press (like this)
I don't feel like much of a celebrity. I travel a lot and I'm in baggage claim
like everybody else. I have a lot of spontaneous experiences with people. I wouldn't
be able to have a good time in this life if I didn't. So I don't need to find
it on the Internet.
Cranky
Critic: Now that you can look back on it, how did doing soaps
prep you for movie stardom?
Meg Ryan: I never wanted to be an actor until I
got off that soap. I was on it and I had so much fun with those actors, I felt
a weird sort of detachment when I was doing it 'cuz I was also in journalism school.
I'd be going to school at night and doing this soap during the day, for a year
of it. I had a lot of fun with those actors. You're in the trenches with these
people and there's something bout that experience that is great. A movie is usually
about three months long; right then you begin wishing it would never end because
you've just gotten to know everybody. The soap went on for two years and I got
to just love everybody. I played a hilarious character, always miserable about
everything. I didn't know what to do. I was in journalism school. I had to hit
marks and remember where the cameras were and the mics and they'd do like 16 takes!
They must of thought my god this girl's got to do 30 pages a day coming up here.
She's never gonna make it. I was a real novice when I started and I learned quite
a bit.
Cranky Critic:
Not to mention fan support . . .
Meg Ryan: Oh, God, yes. On the bus, on the street. They're
really into it. [laughs]
Cranky Critic:
What do you do on your off time?
Meg Ryan: Can you give me a suggestion? I'd just like
something to do for a leisure activity. Dennis is a fly fisherman. I write and
I read. I like a very leisurely, sedentary small life. I'm a mom, y'know. There's
not a lot of leisure time.