Meg Ryan stopped acting to focus on her children: This is her today

It was far from obvious that she would land the role as Annie Reed in Sleepless in Seattle. In fact, she was the sixth choice and both Julia Roberts, Kim Basinger, and Michelle Pfeiffer were offered the role but said no.

Darker roles
Following the success of Sleepless in Seattle, Meg Ryan turned down a role in the famous movie The Silence of the Lambs. Instead, she focused on what made her successful; romantic comedies.

But in 1996, the actress felt she wanted to challenge herself with a different role. So in the war drama Courage Under Fire, Meg Ryan starred alongside Denzel Washington and Matt Damon in a much darker role.

The film, which premiered in 1996, was a box office success, and at that time, it felt like Ryan couldn’t fail. Her success story continued in 1998, one of the best years of her career. Co-starring with Nicolas Cage in the romantic comedy City of Angels, everything was set up for another box office success. And once again, Meg Ryan was hailed by critics, and the movie grossed nearly $200 million.

That same year, another career-defining role came when she teamed up again with Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail. The film, which takes place during the era when emails and the internet were entering our lives, evolves around two rivals who fall in love with each other when they start emailing each other without knowing the other person’s true identity.

Meg received her third Golden Globe Award nomination for the movie and the New York Times wrote:

“Ms. Ryan plays her role blithely and credibly this time, with an air of freshness, a minimum of cute fidgeting, and a lot of fond chemistry with Mr. Hanks.”