The actors Meg Ryan believes have “innate” charm: “They probably aren’t able to manage it”
When Meg Ryan made her screen debut, she was lucky enough to be directed by the Hollywood legend himself, George Cukor. Sadly, the movie was an absolute disaster.
Rich and Famous being a failure might have seemed like a bad omen for Ryan, who was just 20 years old and hoping to break into the industry, but things luckily turned around for her… A few years later, she scored a role in Top Gun, which would become the highest-grossing movie of 1986.
From that moment on, Ryan’s career took off, and her role in the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally… was enough to cement her as a film icon, often referred to as America’s Sweetheart – she was the girl next door, the friendly rom-com lead who never pushed things into a territory too sexual or offensive. Ryan kept things pretty sanitised, and she gained plenty of leading romantic roles as a result.
She has long possessed such an appealing and warm sense of charm, and this has carried her through everything from You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle to When a Man Loves a Woman and Kate and Leopold. While some of Ryan’s movies are unmistakably better than others, you can never fault Ryan’s smiley persona.
That’s not to say that she’s not versatile… The actor shocked audiences when she appeared in the erotically-charged thriller In the Cut in 2003, which completely altered her career – she received an incredible amount of backlash for the project, especially her nude scenes, and this led her to take a step back from acting for a while, and her career has never been the same since.
Clearly, audiences have always liked Ryan best when she fits into this charming rom-com leading lady mould. While it’s completely unfair to chastise Ryan for trying something more subversive, it’s not hard to see why people were shocked that the actor was suddenly playing someone who wasn’t this charming girl-next-door type. That’s what people were used to.
Charm is something that Ryan knows a lot about. It seems to come very naturally to her, and it’s what made her such a beloved rom-com figure back in the ‘80s when she charmed her way into the hearts of audiences by playing Sally Albright. So, when it comes to recognising real charm in other actors, Ryan is an expert.
“Real charm is probably innate. It’s just there or not,” she told The New York Times. “I can see it in people like Jennifer Lawrence or Emma Stone or Ryan Gosling. They probably aren’t able to manage it.”
Ryan’s right. It’s not hard to think of the charm that these stars bring to every interview and red carpet, let alone their actual acting performances. It’s that innate ability to smile with true depth, to present an aura of authenticity and genuine humanity that makes someone so charming.
Some actors try to manufacture it, but you can always tell. With the likes of Lawrence, Stone, and Gosling – as Ryan points out – it’s genuine, and that’s what makes them so popular and so successful.
