Meg Ryan has been an amazing actress, and there’s no doubt about it. Yet, as amazing as she is, she has been equally trolled and shamed over some aspects of her career, like her 2003 thriller-mystery with Mark Ruffalo, In the Cut, which was deemed controversial by the critics along with shaming her viciously for her intimate scenes in the film.
If anything, that movie more or less ended up derailing her career for quite some time just because she got into a role that they never expected her to. And, surprisingly enough, Ryan seems to be okay with it now.
Meg Ryan Was Brutally Shamed For In the Cut Intimate Scenes
When Meg Ryan agreed to take on the role of Jane Campion with Mark Ruffalo as Detective Giovanni for In the Cut, little did she know how viciously the audiences would react to her intimate scenes in the movie. Which is why it took her by surprise, as well.
Speaking with the New York Times, she talked about the same, saying:
“I feel like that [In the Cut] might’ve been the last movie I did. I was surprised by the negative reaction. I loved the movie and loved that experience and loved Jane Campion.”
What made it all worse was an interview with English talk show host Michael Parkinson, where she was asked how she could ‘be naked’ in the movie, since her previous roles were mostly that of the lovable good girl. Apparently, Ryan feels she “didn’t handle it well.” As she shared in the NY Times interview:
“I don’t think I handled it well. Since then, I’ve had publicists say to me, ‘You should’ve prepared your audience for your doing something different.’”
Continuing, she explained what went wrong in her understanding of everything with In the Cut.
“In the Cut was a s-xual thing, and s-x throws people. I’d never presented myself like that before; it was so different from my assigned archetype. Probably I had a very neutered image.”
Yet, even though the audiences’ “vicious” reactions to the movie and backlash at her seemingly derailed her career for quite a bit, Meg Ryan admits she is happy with how things ended up being eventually.
Meg Ryan Is Glad She Escaped That Phase Of Her Life, Career
During the same interview, Meg Ryan then shared how she was glad to have escaped that phase of her life and career, saying:
“When I look back now, it was definitely easier to be the funny person rather than the pretty person, the sexy person. Not that I ever could be sexy, but I felt like that got into such a funky land. I didn’t want the problems.”
That being said, the actress also took quite a long break — for almost a decade — after her 2015 film, which also served as her directorial debut, Ithaca. She came back 8 years later with What Happens Later in 2023.
The reason behind this? “I took a giant break because I felt like there’s just so many other parts of my experience as a human being I wanted to develop,” said none other than Ryan in an interview with People.
All in all, even though In the Cut landed her career in some deep deep trouble as it led her to massive backlash, it also impacted her personal life in ways more than one, and she is glad to have escaped that phase of her life.
