Meg Ryan and the Golden Age of Rom‑Coms

What happened to the golden age of Rom-Coms? Emmanuel and Kai tell the story of the Rom-Com boom via the career of its biggest star, Meg Ryan. From When Harry Met Sally, to one of the more infamous talk show appearances of all time, we unpack Meg Ryan’s appeal, and what we actually want from love in the movies.

Additional archive: When Harry Met Sally, Castle Rock Entertainment, 1989; Burger King commercial, Burger King Company LLC, 1982

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
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(00:40):
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Speaker 3 (00:48):
So okay, here we go.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
From BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries. This is Big Lives.
I'm Emanuel Jochi, I'm Kai. Right on this show, we
take a single culture icon and we break down their
life and they impact.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Using the Absolute Treasure Trove. But is the BBC's archive.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
And today Kai we I'm going to talk about the
one and the Only Meg Ryan.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
The one and the Only is a strange wait for
me to hear the beginning of Meg Ryan. I don't know,
I just I don't know anything about her, but I
do kind of think just the word vanilla is what
comes to mind, like and I enjoy vanilla ice cream,
but yeah, like not like a good vanilla ice cream

(01:35):
with the beans and.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
All that, Like she's just gotta.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Well that hurts me slightly because she is one of
my maybe favorite actors. Really we'll get to that. Yeah, yeah,
And I guess I'm curious when you think of Ryan, Like,
what's the movie scene that comes to mind?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Well, real talk, I didn't really watch any of movies.

Speaker 5 (01:56):
But.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Wow, I don't even we are on different planets.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I think we are, Like it would be I guess whatever,
because I don't even really remember when Harry met Sally,
but so I think it would probably be the poster
of when Harry met Sally.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
Like wow, not even okay, that is what So you
did say somewhat of what I thought you were going
to say, which is you mentioned when Harry met Sally,
which is like, you know, arguably Meg ryan'sman's famous movie,
this big romantic comedy, and there is this scene in
it that I always think about when I think about
Meg Ryan, which is that it is this scene where
she and Harry are in like cats His Deli, like

(02:38):
this restaurant in like Lower Manhattan, and they're talking about sex,
and Harry, who is played by Billy Crystal, is like
bragging about like just how good he is in bed
with women, and basically Meg Ryan like fakes an orgasm
live in the restaurant just to prove that he might
not know what he's talking about.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Right, Okay, I know the scene, yes, yes, oh.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
Oh, oh, go ahead, I'll have what she's having.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
If it's the joke at the end, I'll have what
she's having. That's the one I remember, But I only
remember it out of context, and I don't remember it in
the movie itself.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
That scene from it is iconic, and I don't know.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
I guess you could say, for thirty years, forty plus years,
I feel like that scene of that movie is a
big part of Meg Ryan's calling card. And for people
who might not know, who know even less than you
about Meg Ryan. You know, Meg Ryan is an actress,
massive star in the late eighties and throughout the nineties
and over course of the nineties, especially of a ten

(03:43):
years she starred in like a series of movies. So
when Harry met Sally, which we just talked about, sleepers
in Seattle, you've got malor just like a bunch of
these romantic comedies that made her really the face of
that genre, Like she was basically the queen of a
romantic comedy, like synonymous with that type of movie. But

(04:06):
you know, I've never understood why movies like When Harry
Met Sally, or like Sleepers in Seattle, why they fell
out of fashion as much as they did, Like obviously
they still have existed.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Because you're a stand for this genre.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
I am how do I put this, Like, I don't
know how I can say this accurately with and make
it a big enough you to just comy how much
this room was a fixture of my life. I'm talking
every Sunday night, peeking out from behind my mum doing
my sister's hair watching these movies. I think we must

(04:43):
have owned maybe three or four copies of some of
these movies, Like we'd have a version that we would
recorded on TV, a version that like you know, we
actually bought in the store, and like we'd have like
a VCR version, a DVD version, Like these movies were
such a big part of our lives. They definitely shaped
my child like view of love and what love and

(05:06):
romance was supposed to be. And I don't I think
that I'm actually alone in that. I think there are
a lot of people who looked at these movies as
sort of saying something about love, which is a big
deal because after that ten year period, Hollywood kind of
stopped making movies like that, after you know, Meg Ryan

(05:27):
sort of faded from you a little bit. And yes,
people kept making romantic movies. They've made a big comeback now,
but I don't know if these movies just don't hit
the same And I never totally understood why the drop
off it happened, why the quality had dropped off, What
was going on besides you know, just like studio heads
being dumb and Hollywood hollywooding. And so I am here

(05:48):
today ka to investigate a question with you through the
life of Meg Ryan, which is why did the rom
com die?

Speaker 1 (05:57):
And who killed it?

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Oh, okay, there's a villain, well, okay, I don't know
about like a singular villain, but definitely like I don't know,
like there's a crime scene there to be excavated. As
I went through the BBC archive and just sort of
dug through these old interviews of Meg Ryan, the rom
com queen herself, like I don't know, I went on
a journey that took me to that particular moment, to

(06:20):
a singular interview that I really feel like if you're
hunting for who killed the rom com like that's that's
the scene.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Of the crick.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Okay, wow, Okay, I'm in for that.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
Welcome back to Big Lives. Today, we're talking about Meg Ryan,
who Kai earlier you called Vanilla.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
I just don't know, not the good club and good
kind of vanilla, but I don't, you know, help me.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
See this woman that shaped your childhood.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
Okay, let me help you, and if you bear with me,
I'm just going to tell you about where Meg Ryan
came from and you know, her career before the BBC
appears that we're going to get to just because I
don't know, I think so much of what happens in
that moment is a fundamental disagreement over the journey of
Meg Ryan's career and how not Vanilla Meg Ryan actually is.

(07:17):
But listen, Meg Ryan, yeah, a blonde, white woman who
was born in the early sixties. Her actual given name
was Meg Hira. She actually changed it to Ryan much
later when she got into acting. Ryan's actually her grandmother's
last name. But in any case, what's remarkable to me.
I think when I think about how Meg Ryan actually

(07:37):
got her start and became the person that we're going
to talk about, is that she did so in such
a sort of classic Hollywood way that I think really
only exists for pretty white, blonde women, which is she
totally fell backwards interacting. She was actually in college studying
to be a journalist. A journalist, yeah, a journalist, and

(07:58):
Ben just started acting in TV commercials just to make
some extra money, basically to help put her through school.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
And when I say commercials, I I'm talking like nineteen eighties,
Like we're early nineteen eighties here, Razzle dazzle, jingle dingle
like Burger King commercials. Hold them.

Speaker 6 (08:24):
I just have to tell you about the aren't you
hungry for a Walker? Game?

Speaker 7 (08:27):
At Burger King.

Speaker 6 (08:28):
You can win a waker or a coke one thousand,
five thousand, even a million dollars. There's a win six
years of winning a prize. Okay, back to the most
important reason to come to Burger.

Speaker 5 (08:37):
King, the food.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
I don't so first off, I mean to your point, like,
I can't imagine being in college and being like, oh,
maybe I'll just do some acting in commercials. Right, and
that's like, what's going to pay my rent as opposed
to washing dishes.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
One hundred percent?

Speaker 4 (08:55):
But she makes it happen and it blows up and
she is in this and just to say like, obviously
you heard what I was talking about with a razzal
dazzle that commercial, like what you are picturing is completely
accurate exactly. I'm talking big pieces of tomato slices flying
through the air, landing neatly on a perfectly juicy burger

(09:18):
that doesn't look edible really, And then of course you
have this woman pop up. She's young, she's peppy, and
she starts trying to sell you on some random sweepstakes thing,
and now, of course is Meg Ryan. And I don't know,
watching that and listening to it, I feel like you're
just like, oh, this is a person who seems right

(09:38):
out of like a nineteen fifties cheerleading squad or something
like peppy and sweet, but still in an era where
they're like wearing like floor length skirts, in the sense
that she's sort of innocent but also kind of dorky.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Like that girl next doory.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
Totally the girl next door, And that is from the
very beginning even of her acting career from that commercial onwards.
The role that Meg Ryan would sort of inhabit in
a lot of American culture, the role she playing a
bunch of movies. So yes, early eighties, she kind of
blows up because of these commercials. And guess what she's

(10:16):
so successful in them?

Speaker 8 (10:17):
I guess.

Speaker 4 (10:17):
I just say that she drops out of college with
a semester to go to become a star, to go
pursue acting full time. And where she goes next is
she ends up in the world of soap operas. She
ends up playing this character called Betsy Stewart on a
show called As the World Turns.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
As the World Turns?

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Did you watch As the World Turns?

Speaker 2 (10:41):
As a kid, My grandmother was huge on the soap
like the soaps were when I was a kid, soaps
were a big deal and so like people would literally
like go to work, take their lunch break to call
their friend who had the soaps on to find out
what was happening right now right So, as a kild,
if you were being watched by any older particularly woman,

(11:04):
you were watching.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
I was one of them.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
And I don't know about you, but what I remember
from those soaps is it's a sort of acting if
you're in a soap, because they are all of these
crazy plot like changes for the rest of it. You know,
it's dramatic acting, but like over dramatic acting, and nothing
is less enough to getting it is a very particular
kind of acting school, if you will, which is how

(11:27):
I see it in Meg Ryan's of the career. I'm
going to play you this clip he or she is
being asked about that time on this soap, just like
a few years later as part of like a press junket.
There's a famous story about you when you were in
an American soap.

Speaker 8 (11:41):
This great story is it?

Speaker 9 (11:43):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (11:43):
What you could turn on the tears?

Speaker 10 (11:45):
It will every Friday episode.

Speaker 7 (11:47):
Meg would cry and they'd be hooked for the man.

Speaker 5 (11:49):
I would I would weep. I can weep almost at will.
I don't know what that's all about. And maybe it
was two years on the soap where I had to
do it as often as I had to do it.

Speaker 8 (11:59):
What do you think about when you do it?

Speaker 4 (12:00):
I mean, do you think some things well?

Speaker 5 (12:02):
And the soap I used to be very frustrated with
how things were going because you work for so long,
you know, so many hours, and you have to say
such ridiculous things and make it sound like you mean it.
So it was a very frustrating experience. So I would
generally call.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
On that so wow, yeah, she is this very kind,
particular person. Like there are like two types of movie stars, right.
There's a sort of movie star that seems like a
god where you're just like, wow, I am seeing Denzel
in this, and Denzel is playing a real man, but
it's almost like he's deigning to play a normal man

(12:39):
for us, you know what I mean, exactly exactly. And
then there's another type of actor who their whole appeal
is based on how much you relate to them. They
are playing by definition, they feel like somebody you know,
you believe it, And the best sorts of those actors,
I think maybe people like Tom Hanks right where you're

(13:00):
just like, oh, America's dad, somebody who seems like somebody
you might know, and that's what gives his roles gravitas
and meaning. And I feel like all of this sort
of training for Burger King stuff, for soap training is
training Meg Ryan to connect with a very particular demographic
as their every woman.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
I have to say, listening to that tape though, like
that was exactly my response. Like, emotionally, I don't, like
I said, I don't really know her, and I haven't
listened to her talk a lot. But listening to her talk,
she did make me interested in her, Like her voice,
Like just her voice made me lean in.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
I was for you.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
What is it about her voice that makes you lean in?
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
I think it's I was reacting to it, and I
think it's what you just said that she was being
super relatable. Yeah, you know, like that she sounded like
a human being in a way that is not really quantifiable.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
There was something.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
There's just something about her voice that literally made me
sit forward.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
And so she hants is that she only spends a
couple of years on the soap and then she's kind
of off.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
To the movies.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
There's a few sort of smaller dependent things that you do,
and then she lands like a role in a big
film that is so synonymous with the late nineteen eighties,
which is Top Gun.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Ah, right, I didn't even remember she's a top Gun.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
She plays the wife of Tom Cruise's right hand man, Goose,
but her big breakthrough is the nineteen eighty nine film
The Masterpiece. When Harry Met Sally, an iconic movie, one
of my favorite movies, you know, the brainchild of the
genius writer Nora Ephron and the director who passed away

(14:37):
really tragically last.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Year, Rob Reiner Rip.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
And you know when I say, oh, we don't make
a certain type of romantic comedy anymore, I think this
film actually is a perfect example of that, right, Like,
this movie is born out of an argument that Rob
Ryiner and Nora Efron have about whether men and women
can actually be truly platonic friends. They take that whole
argument and make it into a movie, a movie starring

(15:04):
Meg Ryan as like the female love interest and Billy
Crystal as the male love interest. Basically these kind of
standings for both Nora and Rob Riner.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
In a way, Billy Crystal as the like sex god
is very difficult to wrap.

Speaker 11 (15:18):
My he he's weird, but also that's the that's the
thing about the movie is that you're just like, right,
this is a guy who looks like an average guy.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
He's not the usual heart frog in the usual role.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
I'd put him at below average.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Billy. He's not handsome, but he's charming.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
Isn't that supposed to be handsome.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
Yeah, And so the movie is about like these two
people who meet when they're like leaving college, and it
follows their friendship over the course of I don't know,
I think like a decade or so, as they deal
and kind of figure out how they fit in the world,
and also as they figure out what they want from
a partner. The movie is wrestling with something genuinely very

(16:06):
messy and super complicated and kind of stuffing about our
relationships with each other.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
I don't understand, Emmanuel, why, because this is like such
a big deal movie. I think many people, if they
were to name like the five greatest movies, a lot
of people this would be on that list. And I
just have no relationship to it and why it's so great.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
I was just recently talking to people who are shocked.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Can you help, Yeah, what is it about that movie
that makes it so great?

Speaker 1 (16:33):
So I don't Here's the thing that you're right.

Speaker 4 (16:35):
There are a lot of romantic movies that come out
in this time period that are classics, right, And I
think what's different for me about When Harry Met Sally
is that I think it's one It's a movie about
very grown people. Everybody most of a movie takes place
in a phase where everybody in the movie is supposed
to be in their thirties. These characters have passed, like

(16:57):
Billy Crystal's main character, Harry, has been divorced already, for example,
right like Bess.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
It's not like coming of age, which is what you
would think of.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
No, it's not am of age love story in that
sort of way. It is a movie that is very
interested and focused on making sense of how do we
fall in love today, and just to place us in
context of where we are here late eighties, Like we're
now in an era where women have been in the
workplace like for quite a while, but still especially for

(17:32):
white women, because it's not necessarily the same for black women.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
For white women in particular, we're.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
Still looking at kind of the first generation of women
in a lot of families who are going to college
and who are working that corporate job, not as a secretary,
but as like a real person. Life is more fast paced,
and so people are I feel like at this time
trying to figure out, like, Okay, the world is different,
how is love different?

Speaker 1 (17:58):
And what is it?

Speaker 4 (17:58):
What do we want out of a partner now that
we're not totally locked in the sort of nineteen fifties
charade of like the guy as the breadwinner and coming
home and all of those sorts of things like what
we want out of love? Now, I think is a
real question about that movie's asking, even just the premise
of like can men and women be friends? Like there's
no room really for like a heterosexual platonic friendship in

(18:20):
that sort of nineteen fifties idyllic like suburban dream.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Right, Well, that's very helpful, and now I get it,
like it's really speaking to a very specific question and
feeling that people have at the time, So that that.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Is totally and I think that's what sets it apart.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
And also it's a romantic movie that's not really that
interested in like romance with a capital R for me
at least, like there is there are I think bits
of it that definitely mirror what has become a formula
for rom coms. Right the will they Won't Nay of
two people if only they could figure it out. There

(18:59):
is of course a grand declaration from one of the
characters to the other at the end of the movie,
but even that declaration really is a speech about compromise.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Ah, I hate these things about you.

Speaker 4 (19:13):
But more importantly, I hate the fact that I can't
seem to.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Live about you.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
Is the message of the movie, and which is totally
which is different and unique and I think real, real, real,
exactly real in a very oll way. And of course,
one of the more famous scenes that we really talked
about is the orgasm scene, which is you're talking about
sex from a very particular kind of perspective that wasn't

(19:38):
always displayed in the movies, right, which is basically a
female character calling a male characters bluff on like, well
his house, sex is actually for.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Me a lot of the time.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Anyways, the movie is a phenomenon. And I'm actually just
going to play you a bit of this interview that
Nora efron rter of the movie gave just about the
orgasm scene and just about like the process of working
with both Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan on this film.

Speaker 12 (20:07):
Because of Rob Ryner and because of when Harry Sally,
I really learned that if you have smart actors who
are funny and they have ideas, you're crazy not to
listen to them. It was Meg Ryan's idea that after
that scene where she and Billy Crystal talked about orgasm,
she would have one in the delicatessen. That's her idea. Therefore,

(20:29):
she's probably entirely responsible for my career.

Speaker 4 (20:34):
And I think that's the thing. Meg Ryan makes that
role look easy. But there is a thing she's doing
throughout that that like, I think it's special, and I
think she makes the whole thing work in part because
we believe her. We know about white woman like in
her the character she plays as a white woman who's
picky about a lot of different things in her life,
who could slightly a little bit of a Karen, you

(20:55):
know what I mean, And many people watching that movie
are that white woman.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
So does well. She is now a genuine star.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
So Meg Ryan, offered the success of When Hayam Excited,
goes on to star in more and more Efron films,
which kind of starts with this golden period. The first
when she does up next is this movie Steps in Seattle,
which I can tell from the lightly in your eyes
you have absolutely no relationship to whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
Literally never seen it.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
In pain. You have me in pain, But that's okay.
How to describe this movie?

Speaker 4 (21:27):
Basically, Tom Hanks is a grieving widower and he has
this really cute, like eight year old son Jonah, and
Joana calls into a radio show and is like, I
think my dad needs a wife, and then, of course
Meg Ryan's character, here's that radio segment, and yeah, the
rest of the movie is about what transpires next for

(21:48):
both of them to possibly meet Ah. You know, it's
this movie that is celebrating in a lot of ways,
just like that magic of the possibility that there might
be somebody out there somewhere for you. You know, in
a way, it's kind of different than the last movie
that they've made, when hay I Met Sally, which is
more rooted in realism, especially because underlining all of this

(22:12):
is it's almost like a response in a way to
a certain sort of cynicism. And the thing it's responding
to the movie as a message is this very real
Newsweek article that was written in the late nineteen eighties
which said that it was easier for women to get
killed by a terrorist than to get married over the

(22:34):
age of forty. Wow, which again, you know, we're in
this era of.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Get with almost every word in that sense.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
Which just to say that article was so infamous. Newsweek
actually years and years later did have to officially retract it.
They were like reapologizally, yes, they're like, weapologize for this,
this was wrong and dumb are not really grounded than anything,
but yeah, basically yes, it's like sort of that conversation

(23:08):
about what do we want of love now for a
specific sort of population, what does it mean? It's headed
in this direction right of just sort of like, oh, well,
people are getting married a little later, you know what
I mean, they're not in starting getting married to their
high school sweetheart, and there's pushback against that or saying, well,
the odds of you getting married are really small, like
that's that's what it's coming out of.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
This is interesting because not only do I not know
a lot about Big Ryan, I actually don't know a
lot about Nora Efron either, other than like she's considered
one of the greatest writers ever, you know, and now
I'm getting a sense of why, Like she's interrogating these
tropes about women of a certain age.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
In a way that no one had before that. So
I'm getting an appreciation for.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
And also the other thing that this movie does that
I think is really important is that it's a commentary
on like what romantic movies are. What I just described
you is deliberately kind of like played up in the movie, right,
play up the nature of the meet you. They play

(24:11):
up like the nature visit things. There are these running
references throughout the movie to this classic romantic movie called
An Affair to Remember, which stars Carrie Grant, in which,
like you know, the big romantic set piece at the
end is the two people who are hopefully destined to
be together try to meet up on Valentine's Day at
the Empire State Building and na ends up.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Being the set piece of SIMS in Seattle.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
And there's a line in the movie that I think
really speaks to this idea of just like how much
romantic movies can shape us, which is, I.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Don't want to be in love. I just want to
be in love in a movie.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, which was what a manual was thinking.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yes, which is what I was totally busy.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
Like, this movie spoke to little seven year old me
in a very particular kind of way. I think it
literally ends with a song, the lyrics of which are like,
just make one someone happy and you will be happy
to Like it's propaganda for big love.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
That's what this movie is.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
I just want to point you to this interview that
Meg Ryan did while promoting that movie, because I think
it was really revealing about both where like she was
at the time in her personal life and why people
related to her and this type of movie that she
was making. It's with this guy who has a ridiculous name.

(25:29):
The name is Alan Titmarsh, who I guess was like
a cozy daytime interviewer in the UK. I'm sorry, Alan,
I know you get this.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
Sorry Alan, but you have a ridiculous name.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Is what it is.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
But for whatever reason, this guy who does like sleepy
daytime television has been pulled into one of those you know,
there's really awkward promo interviews for movies where they have
like an actor sitting in a hotel room and it's
like a by just.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Cycle on the interviewers through.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
I want you to picture that scene, right, And you know,
the tape we have actually is pretty raw. You can
like hear them getting set up and just all this
awkward small talk. But somehow, and like all of this awkwardness,
there's a legitimate discussion about where this genre that Meg
Ryan is the face of, where it's going, right, and
this guy tit Marsh is like, Wow, yeah, this movie

(26:17):
is so big right now. And he also like, why
is this type of movie so popular? And Meg ryand
answers by telling basically her own love story with the
actor Dennis Quaid, who you know, big actor and star
on his own right in a bunch of different movies.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
M hm, and she seems so in love.

Speaker 10 (26:37):
Are you a great believer in fatelism yourself?

Speaker 5 (26:40):
Yes, you know, I am not destiny really is.

Speaker 7 (26:44):
That the same thing as fatalism?

Speaker 8 (26:45):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
Fatalism just seems so negative to me, but.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
I along with it.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
Yeah, but yes I am. I mean, I've been telling
like this when I was doing press for this in
the States, the story about I saw my husband, or
rather he saw me, years before we ever met. And
it was odd because I was walking up the street
in New York and I remember remember the day, and
I remember that I had this strange sweater on, and

(27:12):
I just remember how perfect this day was on eighty
first and eighty second, between eighty first and eighty second
on Amsterdam. And Dennis, my husband, remembers me walking up
the street in this sweater going on this unbelievable day.
So I think it's odd that I remember one day,
you know, in the Fall in New York and that

(27:33):
Dennis remember seeing me and you know, I wasn't an actress.
Then he just remembers it and it was a very
strange long blue sweater that came down to here, and
he remembers it so interesting. So there are a lot
of times that I think that, you know, I think
about you passing through an airport and who else are
you passing by? And you know, it's a very romantic concept.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
I think she is winning. That is a winning woman.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
I have to say, like, despite all my whatever I
said about her at the beginning, when you listen to
her talk.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
Like, yeah, she's compelling, she makes you believe she is
compelling to me, And okay, I want you to adult
to your inner white woman in your thirties in you know,
Bill Clinton's first administration, Like you're hearing that and seeing that,
and you're like, huh, yeah, it does feel like it's
not for me. I'm buying what you're selling, you know

(28:23):
what I mean.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
I don't have to adopt that.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
I will take my middle aged black man in Donald
Trump's America and listen to that and be like, I'm
by it what you're selling.

Speaker 4 (28:34):
I mean, And so it really just solidifies publicly, Right,
this is someone who is living and acting the happier
ever after narrative. Right, you can do it all. Actually
you can have it all. And that's true on screen
and it's true in her real life as well.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
But it is a fairy tale.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Oh and you know the thing we know about fairy tales,
kat is fairy tales do not last.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
They're not real.

Speaker 4 (29:02):
And some things transpire over the next few years in
Meg Ryan's life and in her career that completely kind
of shatter whatever illusion and fairy tale that's been created.
And one of the biggest breaking points in those years
actually happens on tape in an interview with a BBC Wow,

(29:32):
welcome back to Big Lives. We're talking about Meg Ryan,
and we're also talking about who killed.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
The rom como.

Speaker 4 (29:41):
Where we left off, it's right in the mid nineties,
and at this point Meg Ryan publicly is ostensibly totally
happily married to Dennis Quaid, top of the movie world,
blah blah blah, Golden globes at wazoo. It's all great,
except you know, like no marriage as can be perfect,

(30:03):
and you know, their marriage is definitely complicated, like Dennis
Quaid in the eighties, like struggled pretty heavily you with addiction,
Oh yeah, and all of that, like his big strug
of addiction is happening, you know, really early on in
his relationship with Meg. He gets clean sort of right
before they get married, but the after effects of him

(30:25):
dealing with his addiction it affects their relationship because of course,
how could it not.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Wait so all along the perfect marriage that she's talking
about in that interview that I was so drawn to,
it's not true.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
I mean, listen, you never know really what goes on
anybody's marriage. But fair, fair, it seems like it's more
complicated than that, you know what I mean, It's a
lot more complicated than that. And again, if you note,
like in that interview, she focuses on their meetually happening

(31:00):
right now. Wow, So yeah, things are bad through the
late nineties with them, and in two thousand faced up
rate right, and they get divorced a year later. But
that narrative of their relationship, the addict one, is not
the narrative that grips the public. I don't even know honestly,

(31:22):
how public in this grade was at that time with
the struggles either way. What the public focus is on
is actually an alleged affair that Meg Ryan has towards
the end of that relationship. Yeah, she allegedly has this
romance with Russell Crowe with Russell c Yeah, they start
in the movie together and likely steps out and like,

(31:46):
we you know.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
This is absolutely not where I thought this conversation was going.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
But that's the thing, right, Like you had this image
of Meg Ryan as like this vanilla person totally and
so that seems and if you're having this reaction now,
like imagine at the height of her fame, the reaction
people are having, she's seen as having failed in this
very specific way in this perfect Hollywood marriage, and only

(32:13):
she's failed, like she is now the picture of a
type of woman that her fans do not want to
relate to because.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
She's a Cheaterah. She's being depicted as a Cheatah And.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
You're married to an addict and you're cheating, Like this
is a far cry from one.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
Hundred percent, And you know, I want to, you know,
just say here, we don't know the truth about whether
she was separated, whether she actually cheated, whether they were
even still really totally together, whatever, but this is what
was pushed, nor is any of it our business exactly exactly.
And I think that is kind of the attitude that
Meg Ryan takes around this time. It feels like from

(32:52):
that point on she is like, fine, you know what,
it's not your business, but you want to be in
my business. I'm not your idealized sweetheart. You know, it's
basically the attitude she kind of takes. And up until
this point she has been literally called by critics and
by different culture commentators America's sweetheart, Like that's the like
things she has absolutely and you know, her career is

(33:13):
an interesting turn where she takes on a new role
that is totally different to a lot of the others
she's been in. And we're gonna fast forward here to
two thousand and three to a movie called In the Cut.
Did you ever hear about this movie?

Speaker 3 (33:30):
I'm lost? No, okay, but the name is already very different.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
This movie, I should say, was not well reviewed. It
was not well reviewed. She plays an English teacher, sort
of uptight English teacher who finds sexual liberation in a
very kinky way with a cop investigating a series of
murders in her town who may have committed those murders.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
What are you talking about.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
It's a James Yes, it's a Jane Campion movie, and
I love James Campion. I obviously love Meg Ryan. I'm
not gonna write hard for this movie. I'm not gonna
do that. I rewatched it last night just to make
sure it's not for me. It's not for me, but
the reaction to it, I gotta say, is wild. You know,

(34:23):
this movie is infamous for its sex scenes.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
They're very raw.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
Meg Ryan has not really done like full nudity graphic
scenes or anything like that, right, and people do not
like this at all. It's interesting because it's not like
Meg Ryan had not had played women who didn't have sex.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
She definitely did, but like.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
I mean, she had an orgasm at a dining room table.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
It was but it was sort of like a fatal gas,
you know what I mean. Her character and sleeps in Seattle.
Nor Efron famously said was basically like a Republican woman
who's never had an orgasm, you know. Like the one
sex scene that I could remember Meg Ryan being in besides,
this one comes in the movie City of Angels, where

(35:08):
she's literally keeping with an angel. So yeah, like she's
sleeping with a making love to a manifestation of God,
like that's that's the day as it gets you know.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Ah in the cut.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
Now she's in the cut and people are angry about
this film.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
They do not like what this is. It's not about it.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
And it is in that context that she goes on
the Michael Parkinson Show, which was like basically the British
version of The Tonight Show that aired on BBC for
I don't know kys like he Michael Punkinson was like
an institution. If you are celebrities selling something in the UK,
you are going through there, right, got it?

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (35:54):
And in this interview, you know again if we're on
the hunt for who and what killed the rom com,
like this is where it happens.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
Is this is where it happens.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
I just want you to picture it. Right.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
This is prime saturin television, six million people watching, right,
And it's a talk show in sense it's a talk show,
but it's kind of different, I think to what we're
used to in America with like the Tonight Show all
that kind of stuff. In so far as the format
of this show, there are multiple guests on it and

(36:28):
they're different segments. So the way they do it is
they'll have one set of guests on first and then
sort of bring in a headlining guest, and so Meg
Ryan is the headlining guest. It's this big like set,
there's like a studio audience, everything sort of glittering and
chrome in a very sort of white TK kind of way,
and it's it's very They have the guests come down

(36:48):
in this very groundway, the Meg Ryan. So Meg Ryan
kind of comes down this like kind of twisted staircase
in this big dramatic sort of entrance, and right from
the start Parkinson, who I should just say, he is
kind of older at this point, like I think this

(37:09):
was one of maybe the final like seasons so to speak,
of this talk show that he does. And he is
kind of known for being a bit of a straight
talker and being gruff and saying things a little out
of pocket. It's late night TV, so you can kind
of get away with more a little risky, and.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Right from the start the vibe is off, like just off.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
Parkinson has just been interviewing as part of the first segment,
a couple of fashion journalists who host this show called
What Not to Wear Right that gives advice to people
and what not to wear, and so as meg Ryan
sits down, he asks her about that. He's sort of like, well, okay,
so what's your relationship to fashion, Like do you have
a take on this whole fashion stuff and what you wear?

(37:53):
And meg Ryan is just kind of like, oh, I
really don't have a take on fashion. I grin and
bear it. It's basically what he says. And Parkinson immediately
seems very disappointed that she's not taking part, and she's
just sort of like, I don't care and I don't
know if like what is going on that it almost

(38:18):
feels like there's been some sort of fight like that
happened behind the scenes before, but whatever happens.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Next is just so awkward.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Parkinson goes on to talk about the film, which clearly,
like a lot of people who've seen the film, he
does not like this film. And some of the questioning around,
like everything from you know, the directorial choices to the plot,
which again I will say it makes no sense, is

(38:49):
like kind of aggressive from what you would think of
from a talk show host. You know, we're used to
seeing sort of like sit down and sort of like
hype you up, or at least make a joke out
of what's happening right or the.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Bad criticism or whatever.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
And his questions are, well, I'm I'm just going to
play you this clip where he is talking about some
of the nudity in this in this movie that he
you know, he says multiple times before, are kind of graphic.

Speaker 10 (39:14):
I want to ask you, this is a serious question.
This is a serious question. This is true, it is
And how long do you have to take to be
within that fellow actor to play scenes that you play there?
I mean, there's there's the tender scene of all is
very kisses your backside?

Speaker 3 (39:29):
How long do you have.

Speaker 10 (39:30):
To know an actually before he kisses your bombs?

Speaker 8 (39:35):
The first day of shooting, No, it.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Wasn't the first day of shooting.

Speaker 8 (39:37):
Come and tell me it's a serious question.

Speaker 10 (39:39):
The last day, the last day, yes, so obviously you
have to build.

Speaker 6 (39:43):
It was a tremendous, tremendous experience for both of us
to work with Jane Campion, who if you've ever seen
any of her films, you know how she treats Euroticism
in an incredibly artful way. And I disagree with you
also that it's graphic. I think it's poetic.

Speaker 10 (40:03):
Well, your scenes may be, but there's one very graphic
scene sexual scenes which with MYLF the philatop scene.

Speaker 6 (40:09):
Well, you don't see anything.

Speaker 8 (40:11):
Don't see it?

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Do you guys?

Speaker 6 (40:16):
Seen it? Now?

Speaker 11 (40:17):
No?

Speaker 2 (40:17):
You do?

Speaker 8 (40:17):
Actually, I mean you know you can't deny that. That's very,
very great.

Speaker 6 (40:20):
I also think Jane is a remarkable filmmaker too, because
she suggests more than you actually see.

Speaker 8 (40:27):
That's the truth.

Speaker 10 (40:28):
Let's let's I'm gonna know what'll.

Speaker 9 (40:33):
It's awkward and weird, right, and it's not promoted.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
I mean, this is a promotion, like you're supposed to
be on there promoting the front and he's like ripping
into inappropriate.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
And bear in mind he's also doing the normal talk
show promotional things right, Like he's playing clips of the
movie and then asking questions like this, yeah, And she's
trying to do her best to be game right, but
also kind of like whoa bro uh, this is an
old man, like, you know, asking in a kind of

(41:06):
leering way about this stuff in a way that is
making her.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Anytime somebody tells you they're not doing something crappy and
then start talking, you can bet that that's there doing
this is an a period question. But let me ask
you about the details of having your ass.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
And the whole time right the camera is sort of
tightening on Mega Ryan's face. She just looks like so uncomfortable,
and you would think that, you know, maybe after one
of these changes where she's kind of politely saying okay, okay, brooddy.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
He would would move on, but he doesn't.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
It's like he's upset how the he knows the interview
is not going well, but instead of pivoting, he's sort
of taking it out on her and keeps making digs
at her what would otherwise be kind of like softball questions.
So you know this is you know how like they
play clips like through any sort of promotional reviews and

(42:00):
the whole dnswers. They play it good and then the
audience collapse and then the host is like, wow, so good,
so amazing.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (42:08):
Here's the kind of stuff that he says after he
plays clips.

Speaker 10 (42:12):
You said once that that acting was not in your nature.

Speaker 8 (42:17):
I did you did say that? Yes, you did say that.

Speaker 10 (42:20):
Did you Are you denying that you said that?

Speaker 6 (42:22):
No, it seems like something I'd say, all right, No,
I think what I meant was that it just it's
it always feels very awkward for me to be in
front of an audience or in the spotlight. It doesn't
come all that naturally.

Speaker 8 (42:40):
So why do it?

Speaker 6 (42:40):
I don't know. Maybe you can help me out with that.

Speaker 8 (42:43):
No, I couldn't. It's for you to debate and tell me.

Speaker 6 (42:46):
I don't know. I'm compelled though, and I like it.

Speaker 10 (42:49):
I like the work a lot, but you don't like
that the spotlight that goes with it, the rest, it's awkward.

Speaker 6 (42:54):
It's not something that comes easier fits naturally. I mean,
I do it. You know, it's fine, but it doesn't seem,
you know, like an easy fit.

Speaker 10 (43:07):
But you can't tap with that look, and you can't
do it. You do and be famous and well known without.

Speaker 6 (43:12):
Well, I think you can certainly be an actor and
not be a movie star.

Speaker 8 (43:16):
Well, but you are a movie star, yes, by.

Speaker 6 (43:19):
Choice, seemingly.

Speaker 8 (43:22):
So you've got a problem.

Speaker 10 (43:24):
Yeah, wow, and it seems that one that's not going
to be resolved on this show.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
Do you hear her answers to the question getting shorter
and shorter and.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Shorter and shorter and shorter, like all of a sudden,
he's an investigative reporter and his audience likes this.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
Like yeah, and that's it's it's kind of like a
rig game. But and again when we're talking about who
is this for, like, Parkinson is operating from a point
of strength here clearly because he knows she's been getting
bad reviews, right, he knows people upset, and so he's
really going for it.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
I'm going to play number one.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
It's like, you know, at one point he answered just
like about her one time ambitions to be a journalist, right,
and it turns into this like meta commentary on the interview.
That's the way where he's really just being very confrontational.

Speaker 8 (44:17):
I mean, what kind of journalists would you made, do
you think?

Speaker 6 (44:23):
Well, I wasn't interested in doing anything really you know, hardcore,
but I was interested in doing things like, you know,
maybe right for a magazine cooking.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
Food.

Speaker 10 (44:36):
Now that you're now that you're wary of journalists, I mean,
does it give you an insight into.

Speaker 8 (44:40):
What they're after.

Speaker 6 (44:42):
Now that I'm wary of them?

Speaker 10 (44:44):
Yes, you are worried of journalist. You're worry of me,
You're worry of the interview. You don't like being interviewed.

Speaker 8 (44:48):
You can see it's in the way that you sit
and the way you are.

Speaker 10 (44:52):
So so therefore, well, I mean a certain perfectly easy
question to ask you about being a journalist. I mean,
in other words, if you were me, what would you do?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Now we'll just wrap it up?

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Yeah, but isn't that I what a dick? Right?

Speaker 4 (45:14):
And I have to say, like there is a kind
of old timey sort like you can hear him in
his voice, kind of enjoying the parody he feels like
he has at that moment, like he's like telling her
a bully. Yeah, but she gets the last little lick,
in which I should say he doesn't take. He does
not wrap up the interview. Sure you can tell that

(45:36):
there's a vision of the interview that he's had in
his mind. And so he's like, I'm getting it. And
since she's not going to play along or she's like, yeah,
I've upset her, I'm just going to deliver it. So
he Ben embarks on what is stunning pera where he
just tells her how she's feeling in her life and
her career right now after making this movie. I'm going
to play that for you.

Speaker 8 (45:54):
If I might. I'm doing the research about you.

Speaker 10 (45:56):
I locked at some interviews that you've done and there's
there's a different there's a difference between you when you're
doing those romantic comedies and now you seem to be
a much more wary person. And if it could could
make the observation some slightly bruised person than you will
and that will be due to to what you went through,
is was you're divorced and that sort of thing. That

(46:18):
would be a profound effect on the way you feel
about things, maybe, yeah, yeah, And that would maybe also
be one of the reasons why the role that you
play in this film that you feel able to tackle
it now, and it says change your view possibly of relationship.

Speaker 6 (46:32):
Yeah. I think life informs artists, you know, and it
helps them and helps them negotiate. And you can't help
but reflect your experience and your work.

Speaker 10 (46:42):
And you imagine that you might in the future, when
you fully recover from all you've been through, that you
might actually become different again. Revert to that, to that
person's lines.

Speaker 6 (46:53):
Hopefully I'll never revert, but I'm sure I'll become different
again in some way. I'm sure it'll move on. Hopefully
I'll evolve.

Speaker 8 (47:03):
Hope there when it happens, Actually, I'll be on again.
When we see the new Megaran. Okay, well make Ryan,
thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
This sucks. I mean, you can tell you just doesn't
like her.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
It sounds like somebody who does not like her and
has set up like a hit job interview, which would
be fine if she were like.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
A politician or politician.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Or somebody you know, or if this were some other
platform Sir, you have forgotten what your show is.

Speaker 4 (47:38):
It's ugly. But I also don't want to give Partinson
too much credit here. I feel like he has sees
an opportunity because he feels like he's speaking for a
large swath of people who are mad.

Speaker 13 (47:55):
At this woman, who are mad at her, right, And
I think it is this interview is like a symptom
of a great misunderstanding I think actually of what made
the films that Meg Ryan was in really great.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
Right.

Speaker 4 (48:12):
So, like we've talked about Deeps and Seatle, we've talked
about When How I Met Sally, and we've talked about
them as being, yes, these movies that contain some of
the elements of a lot of rom coms that you've
probably seen in your life, right, but also that they
were kind of about something they are answering questions and
reacting things in will time, and that obviously drew Meg
Ryan to those projects as an actor. She's exploring something

(48:36):
in her career in The cut is not a rom com,
it's not even a Nora Efron movie, but it is
a Meg Ryan movie in which she is doing more
of that. It's it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Work because you don't have the noron.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
Yeah, it's not ad it's not a great movie, but
I have to say Meg Ryan is decent in that movie.
And she's decent because you can tell she's clearly.

Speaker 14 (48:59):
Exploring the darker parts of love and romance and infatuation
and kind of like what happens when you do become.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
More cynical about those things for yourself.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
She she's doing an interesting thing that is in conversation
with everything she's ever made, you know what I mean,
It's not.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
If you think of them as like things about relationships,
right about like how humans relate to each other, as
opposed totally.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
Just like sacred and you know, as angry as Parkinson
is throughout the interview, the anguish bit I find is
actually the most substantive, which is he's saying, listen, you're
rom com queen known for romance, Like where is the
romance in this film?

Speaker 1 (49:44):
Like, where the hell is that now?

Speaker 10 (49:47):
Jane Campion, the director of this film, has said that
the first thing she wanted was to throw romance out
of the window.

Speaker 6 (49:53):
Yeah, why why because she believes it's she believes in
love of a romance.

Speaker 8 (50:01):
Is there a difference.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
Absolutely in Jane's universe. It's romance is uh is sort
of a destructive force and it's a lie, whereas true
love is a truth, a universal truth that is being
pursued by my character.

Speaker 8 (50:23):
Jane Campizo.

Speaker 6 (50:25):
Actually, yeah, I mean I think what she's made a
movie about really is about a sort of debunking of
the current Western romantic mythology that's in place, which is
that there is such a thing as Happily ever after
your Prince Charming will come. You know. She's saying that
most people have a frustrated relationship with that, with that myth,

(50:45):
and that indeed it is a myth, and if you
are present and looking for truth, you'll be more satisfied.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah. I agree with her. Like it's a beautiful thought.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
Right right, Like he's again, it's a that is totally logical.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
I feel like it's a.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
Thing again that having made the movies that she's made
up until that point, having contributed to that, they of
her off. She is like uniquely in types to say,
but that is not what anyone wants to hear from her.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
Though I will say she does. He is right about.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
She does sound different than like the clips you were
playing for me earlier in this conversation where I couldn't
help but lean forward, and she felt so like down
to earth in this compelling as opposed to boring way.
Despite how I started here, she's not that. She's like,

(51:46):
I'm sitting back actually totally physically backing up from her here.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
She she really is. It was almost like you can
hear her backing in the chair away. How gods are up?
She's not as open.

Speaker 8 (52:00):
That's a bleak bill of life, isn't.

Speaker 6 (52:01):
I think it's beautiful?

Speaker 10 (52:02):
What beautiful from there? Well, that's not social truth. It's
a social cynicism and it and chant, I mean you're
saying she's.

Speaker 6 (52:11):
Saying romance has more validity and more honesty in.

Speaker 10 (52:14):
It than romance inspired great great great movies, great great poetry.

Speaker 8 (52:19):
Great.

Speaker 6 (52:20):
I think it's very I think I can distinguish between
and romance. I think you know, if you've ever been romanced?

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Have been romance?

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Yes?

Speaker 8 (52:29):
Sure?

Speaker 6 (52:30):
And does it turn out well normally?

Speaker 8 (52:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (52:34):
I mean I mean, I mean there are certain there
are certain like you dude, well.

Speaker 9 (52:40):
I mean I love that she turned it back on him, right,
she turned it back in But but just to say, like,
the thing that's happening there right is they're having a
summative conversation about like, what is the kind of love
that we should be selling in the movies?

Speaker 1 (52:57):
If rom coms exist, what are they going to be?

Speaker 4 (52:59):
Like?

Speaker 1 (52:59):
That's the fight, that was the purpose? What's the purpose?
What's the thing?

Speaker 4 (53:03):
And what Meg Ryan is saying between the lines is
I have arrived at a place as a person where
it didn't work out for me, And what I'm interested
in making now are movies that are a little more
real about just like the world we live in and
what like it actually means to try to find romantic
fulfillment and to find love, you know. And Parkinson, I

(53:27):
think here is speaking for a large swath of her
fans and people who love those movies, who are like, yeah,
now get back to.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
The hits, like I want.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
I want, I want my movies to be happy and
to be simple, even if you know they were never
simple totally I want I want them to be more
like that. And this is where I feel like when
I talk about who killed a rom Com, I feel
like this interview is such an example of this discussion

(54:00):
that must have happened at that time culturally, where like
literally one effect of that interview, just concrete is that
Meg Ryan and she's gone on the record saying this,
she was already kind of thinking, you know what, I
kind of want to raise my kid and this I
don't know if I want to exist in Hollywood in

(54:20):
the same way.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Oh, I was wondering I was gonna ask you because
I felt like she stopped acting or something, so she
did yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
So basically after this there's a big absence of her.
She kind of fades away and stops doing yeah. And
that's not in no small part because of this interview,
Like how about that. She's already sort of thinking about it,
and she's like, I'm a little over this. Definitely feels
like you've a publicer over this and over me and

(54:49):
that respect me peace, and his interview really summants that
for her. She's like, yeah, I'm out, which, of course
robs the genre of like its greatest start, but I
think more than that, and instead what we got were
a bunch of films that you know, I like and love,
but aren't the same as those movies really, and I

(55:11):
think do turn into the sort of formulaic realm coms
that are so easily dismissed, like.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
A Hallmark Channel movie.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
Yeah, the Wholemark Channel movie is definite kind of it.
But even I would say something as contemporary as like
Anyone but You, or like any of the rom coms
that get put on Netflix are very formulaic in that
way you can almost predict by the minute exactly what
the plot point is going to be. And it's a
formula that people love and gobble up and feel confident.

(55:40):
But it's not the same as those earlier movies that
you saw in that era that Meg Ryan was the
star of.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
It's just it's just not.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Which is interesting, Like it's not even like the the
thing that tried to reclaim the joy of a raalm
com didn't even get it right, like because like the
Happily Ever After This, because I didn't so I didn't
see any of these movies. I don't see the current
ones I didn't see the old ones, but like, what

(56:08):
you have sold me on about those early movies is
that they're not only happily ever after.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
And what frustrates me in listening to.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
This debate between this guy and Meg Ryan is it
feels like they have both embraced a false binary.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
Yeah that it's.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Like either happily ever after or it's complicated and messy.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
But my life is both, you know, like you know that,
and I guess I don't know.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
But if we had gone on and made more movies
about it being both, why does that have to do?

Speaker 3 (56:51):
It's the false binary that's frustrating in that debate.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
You just nad it on the head, which is like, yeah,
what if we had gotten more movies that did that?

Speaker 1 (57:00):
I want?

Speaker 4 (57:00):
Ever note, because that BBC interview helped kill the rom
com helped kill the rom Come, what do you go
for me next time?

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Okay, well, I have someone that I think we're all
probably going to know who this is. But let me
play you the quiz clubs anyway. Listen to this first one.

Speaker 7 (57:17):
I don't sing very well. It's a bleating kind of
goat voice, you know, but it pleases me. And if
anybody else likes me. He probably pleases them. They can
get through my goat.

Speaker 4 (57:26):
Singing goat, bleeding goat voice, a bleeding goat, okay, a
world famous bleeding goat.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Charming and funny.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Also it's kind of true, but anyway, Okay.

Speaker 7 (57:39):
I'm very much a character when I go on a stage,
I feel, I mean, I like an actor. Yeah, I
believe in my part all the way down the line,
right the way down. But I do play it all
it's worth because that's the way I do my stag.
I'm an actor.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
A bleeding goat, and a performers himself as an actor.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Okay, I've done it now.

Speaker 7 (57:59):
My rock has rolled, I mean it's flashed. I've done
my Ziggie.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
That was my statement.

Speaker 7 (58:04):
Everything else that I'll do from now will really just
be me enjoying myself and the sparks like a shooting star.
And when it's burnt out, it's the dazzle of it
all that should be the naivid team of fucking roll.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
A shooting star, a bleeding goat, an actor.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
An actor seemingly very poetic soul is the Ziggi part. Okay.
Big Lives is.

Speaker 4 (58:33):
A production of BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries is hosted
by me Emanuel Jochi and Kai Wright. Our team over
at BBC Studios includes producer Emma Reverel, archive producer Samir Chowdery,
sound design by Melvin Rickerby. Our executive producer is Annie Brown.
Our production coordinator is Galen Davis Connolly, our apprentice is

(58:54):
Amy Woods, and our production manager is Mabel Finnegan Wright.
The team over at Pushkin Industries includes executive producer Costanzo Goyardo,
producer Daphne Chen. Our legal advisor is Jake Flanagan. Our
marketing team includes Morgan Ratner and Jordan mcmaon