Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal posing for the movie "When Harry Met Sally" circa 1989. Ryan, Crystal and "When Harry Met Sally" director Rob Reiner, reunited for a 30th anniversary screening of the film at the Turner Classic Movie Festival on Thursday night. (Getty)
One of the most iconic scenes in romantic film comedy history -- when Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm in “When Harry Met Sally” -- was actually partially Ryan’s idea.
Ryan, who played Sally Albright, Billy Crystal, who played Harry Burns, and Rob Reiner, who directed the 1989 film, reunited for a 30th anniversary screening of the film at the Turner Classic Movies Festival on Thursday night and revealed juicy, behind the scenes details of the hilarious performance.
“The idea was, we gotta have something that men don’t know about women,” Reiner, 72, said, according to Entertainment Weekly. The director said as they discussed the scene, it was Ryan, now 57, who offered to actually act it out.
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“Meg said, ‘I’ll do it, I’ll just actually act it out. We don’t have to talk about it. I’ll do it,’” Reiner said, adding: “And I had the idea, ‘[It’ll be] in a restaurant!'”
Ryan said that agreeing to do the scene made sense because of her character.
“The comedy of Sally is so behavioral,” Ryan reportedly said. “It’s not so much talking, it’s doing, so it was very logical.”
Once they got to Katz’s Deli, though, Reiner said Ryan got a bit nervous because of all the extras in the scene.
“Meg doesn’t realize is she has to do it in front of all these strangers,” Reiner said, according to People. “And so the first couple of times it looked like it needed more. So I said, ‘Meg, let me show you!'”
“He proceeds to have an orgasm that Mighty Joe Young would be proud of,” Crystal, now 71, reportedly joked.
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After that, Ryan was able to act it out how Reiner wanted -- and she even added a little extra, he said.
“Then [Meg] does little thing at the end, which I didn’t tell her, she does a full-on orgasm like this, it’s over and then she goes right back and she takes a little thing of the coleslaw,” Reiner said.
However, the director gave credit for the funniest line to Crystal.
“Billy, he added the biggest laugh in the movie, which is the biggest laugh in any movie I’ve ever been involved with,” Reiner said.
Apparently, it was Crystal’s idea for a woman in the restaurant to respond with “I’ll have what she’s having.” In the film, the line was said by Reiner’s mother.
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