Meg Ryan is back!
The Queen of the Rom-Com has made her triumphant return after an eight-year hiatus.
On Wednesday the trailer for her newest movie, What Happens Later, in which she not only stars in but also directs, was released.
The trailer marks the first time Ryan has appeared in a movie since her directorial debut in the 2015 film Ithaca. Her last romantic comedy was the 2009 film Serious Moonlight.
What Happens Later follows two exes (Ryan and David Duchovny) who end up stuck at an airport overnight after their flights are delayed due to a snowstorm.
The couple “find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier,” the film’s synopsis states.
“Sometimes there’s a question of: Will they be together? Will they not be together?” Ryan teased to Entertainment Weekly. “For that reason, [What Happens Later] sort of evolves the rom-com genre just a little bit. It’s also about old people, and it’s still romantic and sexy.”
Ryan, who also co-wrote the film, said she was inspired by write and filmmaker Nora Ephron.
Ephron was responsible for Ryan’s most popular films: Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and When Harry Met Sally.
“It has a relationship to movies from the ‘40s, like Bringing Up Baby, in terms of the banter and the rhythm of things and a lot of that era of filmmaking,” the actress said. “Nora Ephron used to say about rom-coms that they were really a secretly incredible delivery system to comment on the times, and we do that in this movie.”
In 2018, Ryan admitted she “didn’t really aim to be an actor” and that being named America’s sweetheart weighed on her.
“Nora Ephron’s parents wrote scripts in old Hollywood and there was such a thing as America’s Sweetheart in the ’40s and she decided to say that about me one day and I remember thinking, ‘Is that good?'”
After taking a break from Hollywood to spend more time with family, Ryan said she was finally “happy.”
“Most of all, what I’m ambitious for in the 12 hours a day that I’m awake is my kids’ happiness,” she shared. “I just am. I’m either figuring out how to provide for them, figuring out how to say it right, figuring out all those mom things. I want them to be happy.”
READ MORE:
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- Look inside the $7.6 million New York apartment Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid once lived
We’re so glad Meg Ryan is back! We used to love watching her in all the romantic comedies of the ’90s.
Share this story if you’re excited to see Meg Ryan back on the big screen!
