‘Steel Magnolias’: the Oscar-nominated role that Meg Ryan turned down
Hollywood is a cutthroat industry with plenty of competition. Some actors spend years trying to secure a leading role, like Harry Dean Stanton, for example, who didn’t land his first major part until 1984’s Paris, Texas, despite making his film debut in 1956. In other cases, an actor might turn down a role so they can star in a different movie, although it’s a gamble as to whether these decisions will actually work in their favour.
Meg Ryan spent the 1980s appearing in rather small television and movie roles, until scoring her big break with a leading role in the classic romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally… in 1989. Starring opposite Billy Crystal, the actor gave a charming performance as Sally, with the movie tracing the pair’s ‘will-they-won’t-they’ relationship over the course of a decade.
It’s a good job Ryan landed the role; she shot to fame, earning various award nominations, including a nod from the Golden Globes, and subsequently went on to star in many more rom-coms. She followed it with her first of three rom-coms alongside Tom Hanks, Joe Versus the Volcano, before reuniting with him for Sleepless in Seattle and then You’ve Got Mail later in the decade.
Hanks nearly scored the role of Harry in Rob Reiner’s classic romantic comedy, but interestingly, Ryan was not the first actor to be approached to appear in the film. Other actors in the running for the role of Sally included Molly Ringwald and Elizabeth Perkins (who starred alongside Hanks in Big), but it was Ryan who eventually nabbed the part.
However, Ryan had initially signed onto another film, releasing herself from the part so she could instead work with Reiner and Crystal on the Nora Ephron-penned film. Ryan was actually set to star in Steel Magnolias, playing the role of Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie, but when she decided to drop out of the movie, a young Julia Roberts took on the role instead.
Roberts actually earned herself an Academy Award nomination for the part, while Ryan’s performance in When Harry Met Sally… was not recognised by the institution. Still, Ryan was hardly regretful that she had turned down Steel Magnolias, because it allowed Roberts to rise to success while Ryan also found acclaim in a movie that has arguably endured with a more iconic (and quotable) legacy. Reiner’s film is seen as a definitive rom-com, and all entries to the genre that have followed in its wake seem to bear the influence of the time-spanning classic.
Talking to The Sunday Times, the actor revealed, “I don’t know if it’s good form to talk about this, but I’m so happy that things turned out as they did.” It seems as though both Ryan and Roberts got lucky with their decisions. Ryan’s gamble to step away from the star-studded Steel Magnolias, which also starred Sally Field, Dolly Parton, and Shirley MacLaine, allowed her to become a leading star.
She subsequently went on to appear in many other romantic and comedy movies, although she ended up turning down the role of Vivian in Pretty Woman, which Roberts took on, and won acclaim for, instead.
