Meg Ryan Knows Social Media’s Downside but Is Still Trying to Be ‘Positive About All of It’

Meg Ryan won America over as the lovable hopeless romantic in everything from When Harry Met Sally to Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. And then she stepped out of the limelight. During her self-imposed hiatus, Ryan traveled, enjoyed being a mom to her then-teenage son, and adopted her baby girl, Daisy, from China. The actress says there was nothing in particular that encouraged her to step away from film sets, other than the fact that she wasn’t feeling particularly inspired. But after years of lying low, Ryan has once again found her creative spark and, with it, a desire to enter a new career territory.

After stumbling upon the script for Ithaca, Erik Jendresen’s film adaptation of William Saroyan’s 1943 novel, The Human Comedy, Ryan jumped at the chance to direct it. Though taking on a new role at the age of 54 was initially intimidating, Ryan admits that the transition was easier than she thought. “I was surprised by what I did know, what I had picked up along the way,” she tells Yahoo Style.

We caught up with the actress-turned-director to discuss bossing around Tom Hanks for a day on set, her attempt at conforming to today’s social-media-crazed society — “I apparently have tweeted,” she jokes — and why her daughter wants absolutely nothing to do with the entertainment industry.

Yahoo Style: Ithaca is predominately an all-male cast and male-oriented story. What made you decide that this needed a female perspective and that this was right for your directorial debut?

Meg Ryan: I was ruminating around that exact question one time. I was sitting next to Sam Shepard and he goes, “Meg. What the hell is wrong with you? Who else is going to tell this story? Sam Peckinpah? He said, “Women are the making of men. Women make men, men.” So it’s this maternal perspective on this coming-of-age story. I’ve had experiences in the movies, but mostly I’ve had experience as a mom and I really felt that is a perspective I could tell a story from. What I love about the story is it’s actually very simple but it’s about complicated things. I thought given my inexperience as a director, if I just had these simple elements of story and character and light beautiful pictures basically told without a lot of tricks and with good music, I felt like we could deliver the emotional punch of the story.

Did your directing style surprise you?

It has pretty formal aspects, this movie. It’s very old fashioned in terms of the way that it’s cut and the way it’s framed and the way we shot it. In terms of the tableaus, we referenced those American realist painters. Again, the camera doesn’t move very much, the frames tell the story. So it didn’t actually surprise me. It’s like doing a house. I don’t know if you’ve ever renovated a house. It’s like it tells you what it is. I feel like that’s the story here. It wasn’t the right movie for quick cuts or different kinds of music. I love how the source and the score kind of are woven together. The actors in the movie sing what is the theme of the score. That’s a pretty old-school way of going about things, too, as much as the elements are that it was a period piece about 1942. I think we stole a lot of the storytelling convictions from that time, too.

Was it fun to reunite with Tom Hanks onscreen and work with him again? How did you bribe him to make his way out to Virginia to shoot with you?

How nice was that? I am so happily surprised by that. It was such a beautiful, sweet, unnecessary thing for him to do. It’s a lot to come down somewhere for a day and figure out what story everybody is telling. He’s so gracious and fun. He put a smile on everybody’s face while he was there, asked great questions. He’s just so lovely. All of us felt so lucky that he came.

You guys have had such great chemistry onscreen. Was it only natural that he would play your husband in this film?

[Laughs]. He comes with a lot. The movie is so much about integrity and how this young boy, this community, is helping him cultivate that through these tragedies. The rug gets pulled out beneath him. Tom comes with such an innate sense of that kind of masculine integrity that he doesn’t have to do as much. The idea of him is very strong, right?

You essentially got to be his boss for a day and direct him. Did you guys have some laughs over that?

You don’t have to direct him (laughs). His instincts are incredible. He asks great questions and he tries really hard. He’s got one little thing that he whispers in the movie. It’s this one word and he did it like 80 different ways. He’s just such a pro. So sweet!

In addition to directing this film, you also starred in it. So how does Meg Ryan direct Meg Ryan?

That’s what I was thinking of when you first asked me about what surprised me. It surprised me how hard that is to do. I don’t think I’m very good at that. I know plenty of people have done it and done it well, directed themselves. But I found it very awkward and confusing. You’re in this super-objective place about everybody else’s job when you’re in the movie and you’re hoping that you are protecting everybody and that everybody is happy and giving the best version of their creative selves. And there is that all running through your head but at the same time, it has to be this objective thing that an actor has to view themselves. And you really have to get inside one person’s point of view. So it’s a war. A sort of awkward relationship between trying to have an objective point of view and then giving someone suggestions as an actor.

That has to be hard because actors always say that it’s so difficult to watch themselves onscreen. I can’t imagine having to do that with the added pressure of you being the director.

I learned so much about acting by directing. By watching how all these other actors work, I learned so much. It’s the best class in acting I could have gotten. Truly. But the subjective nature of it, the idea that you’re having to convince yourself what the character thinks and what the character wants and what the character believes in, you are entirely convinced of those things between “action” and “cut.” It’s a magical thing, too. That was the interesting thing about directing, too, to watch that craft, the acting craft from that point of view. Everything else on a set is almost all a little bit quantifiable. If you put the f-stop at a certain thing, this is going to happen. If you pull back and use the lens, this is going to happen. The other thing is the weather, but the actors come on and the crew is there waiting for this very mysterious thing to happen, which is they bring life to things. And sometimes the actors don’t even know how it’s happening or why it’s happening. It’s this very magical little moment that you want to just be ready for when somebody like Sam Shepard walks on the set or Hamish Linklater.

Did you have any initial hesitation to try your hand at directing? Did you think for a second that by being a well-known actress, people would typecast you and not take this career move seriously?

I learned a long time ago not to try and think about what other people think [laughs]. Because that’s always wrong. I’ve never ever been right about that so I gave that up. Really, the two driving things in this movie were a) to have the audience have an emotional experience, not an intellectual one, but an emotional one, a visceral one. And also not to fail these amazing artists who had showed up. When Sam Shepard shows up or Tom Hanks or John Mellencamp or really any of these talented young kids that are in the movie, you don’t want to disappoint their talent. So that was the bar I kept holding myself to, just to be worthy of the fact that they were all there doing me these incredible favors.

You took a bit of a hiatus from mainstream Hollywood. What did you do during that time?

There was no big plan about it at all, but I have had a really good life. I have such good fortune and such wonderful kids and the ability to travel, live in New York City. I just kept making different choices. So I think the best answer to what have I been doing is “nothing.” But that’s not really true [laughs].

Is it strange to be back in the limelight now in this new age of social media where celebrity obsession seems to be at an all-time high?

You know what’s interesting about it, honestly? I haven’t thought about it or been around it in so long and it’s so different because of social media. It just seems like there is so much happening. There are so many interesting artists. There is so much product. There are so many interesting people and movies and TV shows and art. And I do really love this idea of a direct access between artists and their audience. I think that’s the beautiful thing about social media, frankly. I like that so often people don’t have to be interpreted. They can just say what they mean. I think that’s one good thing. I’m trying to be positive about all of it because I know there is a downside, but that’s a good part of it.

And I see that you recently joined Twitter yourself. You caved in?

I apparently have tweeted but [laughs]. For this movie … yes! Everyone in my life is trying to help me move forward into social media. But I really like Instagram. I have a feeling I’ll keep up with that. I think it’s cool. When I look at other people’s, it’s like a little magazine of people’s lives and what’s interesting to them and what they see. And I also like that you can have these accounts where you just have it with your family or your friends and the way you can keep up with each other. It’s fun.

As a first-time female director, what are your thoughts on the lack of women in the role?

Yeah, I know. That’s a problem. But what I think about all of this is that it’s really a question of perspective, that we’re all richer whenever we are able to see the world through somebody else’s eyes. And it’s just great when those perspectives are diversified. And in this case, for this movie, it was a maternal story. It would have been a different thing, a father telling this story. It’s interesting because [William] Saroyan dedicated the book to his mom in return for all the beautiful stories she had told him. So I think it’s important to tell stories as women and not necessarily about women. Yeah, there are a lot of boys in the movie and it is about a male coming of age, but it can’t help but be told from this perspective of a mom.

And women look at things so much differently than men.

Yeah. And that helps everybody to have a different perspective.

What is it like to take on a new career at 54? Is that nerve-racking or exciting and invigorating?

It’s cool. I think by now it’s very acceptable to be a multihyphenate, right? What’s great about having done all of those movies as an actor, by osmosis you learn a lot about a movie set and about how those things work. So I wasn’t actually surprised by what I didn’t know but I was surprised by what I did know, what I had picked up along the way. So yeah, experience in that way really served me, just as much as being a mother and just as much as renovating a house, honestly. It’s all an art.

And you have this whole new exciting chapter to look forward to because it sounds like directing is something you are going to pursue more of.

Yeah. And it’s pretty great to be able to say what you mean. For better or for worse, as a director, you’re responsible for everything. The buck stops with me, but there is a lot of stuff in the movie that I think about and I was glad that I was able to find a vehicle to express them.

Your actual son played one of your sons in the film. What was it like directing him?

He’s just so adorable. It was really just a continuation of when he was little. When he was, like, 8 years or 10 years old, the whole time he’s been making these little movies and having his friends over and directing them and starring in them and action hero movies and this and that. It almost just kind of felt, in a way, too familiar. It was so funny. And he’s so incredible. He came from a Martin Scorsese set right to our set.

Wow. You have a very talented family.

Yes!

So is your daughter ready to act and direct? Do you think she has a future in the business?

No. She has precisely zero interest in it at all. She just doesn’t. In fact, she was a little extra in the movie and she kind of whispered to me, tapped me on the shoulder one day and said, “Mom. I know you and Jack really like this, but I don’t get it.”

That’s so cute. So she’ll end up as an accountant or something completely different from you guys.

She’s got a great big scientific mind and she’s just brilliant. Just a different kind of thinker in the house.

Well, I’m looking forward to seeing what you do in the future. I hear maybe you’re going to direct a rom com soon?

Yeah. Yeah. I hope so!

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