Behind the Scenes: When Harry Met Sally... (Reiner, 1989) with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan

Terry, we are just going to be friends, okay? Great, friends! It's the best thing. You realize, of course, that we can never be friends. You have to define what friends is. Friends is a deep relationship where you share your most intimate thoughts and feelings. My wife is my best friend, but can I be very good close friends with another woman? I don't think so, because I think that's going to be threatening and it's going to be uncomfortable. Can men and women be friends? I guess the answer is no, ultimately. Although people are forever saying, I'm married to my best friend, but I guess that's another matter entirely. I don't know. I think it's possible. I think it's difficult, but I think it can be done. There's a sexual tension always between men and women, no matter what. If they're both married, there's a sexual, a little bit, always there. What I'm saying is, and this is not to come on in any way, shape, or form, is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way. And that's what I was meaning when I say men and women can't be friends. Of course they can be friends, but if they're two heterosexual people, there's always a sexual component. I understand the sex thing, but there's a lot of women friends I have that I know before I was married that it was not going to be. It was just going to be friends, and I still have friends with them. No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her. She's so great. Why don't you take her out? How many times do I have to tell you? We're just friends. The job of a man, if they're going to have a good relationship with a woman, is to understand the nature of a woman. Hello? Yeah, I was just finishing a book. Could you come over? What's the matter? He's getting married. Joe! I'll be right there. It's a constant process of trying to understand what does a woman feel? What does she need? What does she want? You'll never really understand it, but you've got to work at trying to understand that. Women are constantly attempting to understand men. Men know they can't understand women and eventually lose interest whatsoever, especially once they're married, because they don't need to understand them anymore. They've already got wives, and now they're through having to pretend that they need to understand them. We will never really understand each other, but if we're going to have a good relationship, we have to try to understand what the other person's going through. Yes, that's right. They can't be friends. Unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can. This is an amendment to the earlier rule. If the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possible involvement is lifted. Can I be friendly with other women? Absolutely. And that's why I say you have to define what friends is. But deep, deep friendship like I have with my wife? No. I don't believe that's possible. I also believe that if you're going to become deep, close friends with another woman, that you're either not going to be married at that time, or eventually you're going to wind up having a sexual relationship with that woman. That's my belief. Go back to her place, you have sex, and the minute you're finished, you know what goes through your mind? How long do I have to lie here and hold her before I can get up and go home? Is 30 seconds enough? That's what you're thinking. Is that true? Sure. All men think that. How long do you like to be held afterwards? All night, right? So somewhere between 30 seconds and all night is where you have to come together, and you have to make those accommodations, and it's constant accommodations. Do you want something to drink or something? No, I'm okay. Well, I'm going to get up for some water, so it's really no trouble. Okay. Water. I'm not saying last night wasn't great. It was. Yes, it was. We just never should have done it. No man can be friends with a woman he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her. What if they don't want to have sex with you? Doesn't matter, because the sex thing is already out there, so the friendship is ultimately doomed, and that is the end of the story. Well, I guess we're not going to be friends then. Guess not. It's too bad, because you were the only person that I knew in New York. I met Rob when I was a guest on All in a Family back in, I think, 1975. Billy was cast as my best friend, and I had not met him before that, and I figured if Norman Lear felt he should be my best friend, then maybe he should just be my best friend. We became really great, close friends, and we decided, let's just stay like this for 30 years. When this project came up, it was called Boy Meets Girl, and I wasn't being offered the part, and it was other people I knew were going in, and I was killing myself going, oh, this sounds like something I could do. Why isn't he talking to me about it? Getting to the point where he was going to be in the movie was a little difficult, because, and I'm not telling tales out of school, he knows that I thought of other people as well, so that was a little bit awkward and tough. One day I got this call saying, listen, I want you to do this. I always wanted you to do this, but I had to go through this process, and I want you to do it. I knew he could do it, and he would do it great. Billy added so much to the movie. That's funny. It's like, yeah, waiting for the punch. Not just as a performer, but he also is a great comedian and a great writer. I read it, and I said, okay, but I have a lot of ideas, and I came into it when I think he and Nora added sort of a logjam in where the script was going to go, and then I came in with a whole fresh bunch of ideas, and we sort of lurched forward. We were free in rehearsals to find and play and do, and that's how many scenes ended up coming into the script, was the how about of it. How about this? How about that? Rob's a great listener, and he understands the music of comedy. It was a pleasure working with him, and we know each other so well. I could talk to him about anything. He trusted me completely. I trusted him, and it made it very easy for me, and it also made the shoot a lot of fun. The only problem with Rob is he laughs during the takes. He stands by the camera, which I love. He's not watching a monitor. He's right in the middle of you, and he's like a cheerleader. He plays all the parts as you're playing them, so you're sensing sometimes this big figure, and then you hear this. And it's a distraction, so finally you have to cut. I'm sorry. That was on me. And cut. I'm not a good director in that way. I ruin a lot of takes. I'm behind the camera, and I'm laughing, because I feel like I'm enjoying it, and also you want to let your actors know that they're doing a good job. Now, you don't want to let them know too much because their good job could be ruined by your bad job of laughing behind the camera, but no, he made it easy. I mean, it's a pleasure, because you have somebody who you are so in sync with, and you're so comfortable with, and you have a real creative partner. It was a really fun experience for me. He's so passionate about anything he does, but this one, it was pretty much a joyous time, but I don't think it would have happened if I wasn't cast as his friend Al the nut boy on All in the Family. We've talked about before how we first started working on this together, and just like every married couple in the world, we couldn't remember exactly. We couldn't remember exactly. Was it 1984 or 1985? Right. Definitely lunch at the Russian Tea Room. Yeah, I remember meeting at the Russian Tea Room, and I remember pitching you an idea that you completely rejected. That's right, and it was very embarrassing, because it was before we'd even ordered lunch. Right, right. I should have waited. I should have waited till we ate a little bit, and we were having our coffee. But it was okay, though, because we got the idea out of the way, and then we had a conversation. You, me, and Andy Scheinman. You sort of talked about your life, your lives. Your lives as single guys. Right. And then that was the end of the lunch. Then you came back to New York. You were staying in a hotel in Central Park South. Right. And I went up to your room. And all I remember saying is that I had an idea. I didn't know what it was going to be. I had an idea, scenes from a friendship. It was basically, I had seen Ingmar Bergman, scenes from marriage, and I was trying to find any way that I could codify, in some kind of screenplay form, all of the experiences I had been going through as a single person for like 10 years. Yeah, that is so not what happened. What happened? What did I say to you? What you said was, you had this idea for a movie, that you'd always loved this idea. Two people become friends. Right. At the end of the first major relationship in each of their lives. Right. And they make a decision not to have sex, because it will ruin the friendship. And then they have sex, and it ruins the friendship. That's what you said. That was it. And that's the movie. Yeah, yeah. And you said it. And this was not the second idea you'd thrown at me. This was like, you'd come in with a whole other thing. I don't remember what it was. I don't remember. I remember the first thing I threw out. I remember you rejected it. Then there was a second thing. And then you said, this sort of is a coda to the whole, well, this meeting didn't work either, but I'll throw this one out there. I'll throw this out and see if she'll take it. And I said, I can do that. Yeah, you bit right away. I can do that. I immediately saw a beginning, middle, and end. I remember getting in a taxi to go home, and absolutely knowing the structure of the movie. Knowing that it started before it really started. Right. That it would be a couple that kept bumping into each other at all the wrong moments. Times in their lives, yeah. And then suddenly, you know. I remember that the process of when we started working on it, you being the great journalist and reporter that you are, you basically interviewed Andy and me to get stories and things. Yes, it was a horrifying experience. Just to hear about our dating lives and what we had gone through. Yes, what you had gone through, and what you had put other persons of another sex through. It was horrifying. It wasn't surprising. It wasn't like you said things and I went, oh my God, are you trying to tell me that? And yet, it did have its moments of, oh my God, are you trying to tell me that? But that's what I think made the movie work so well. Because you being horrified or whatever by, oh my God, this is what these guys do. And then you adding the elements of, oh my God, this is what women do or what women think about. That's what I think made the movie work so well. I think so too. Because we just were honest about what really happens between men and women. Right, right. Now you said it was like 1985, and so I made two films, I think, between the time you first started working on it, and then we eventually shot the movie. That's at least two. Isn't that what happened? At least two. I did Stand By Me and Princess Bride. Both of those films. You started working on it before Stand By Me. And you said to me, I'm going to do, you're going to start this and I'm going to do Stand By Me, and then we'll meet again, and then I'll do the Princess Bride, and then I'll do this. And that's what happened. And so there were these long periods of time in between where you'd do a draft, and the draft would sit there. Yes, it certainly did. And then we'd go back into it together, and then you'd do another draft, and then it would sit there. And then after I finished Princess Bride, then we started working together. Yes, and that's when you had the idea that I think was so brilliant for the movie, which was the couples. Right, I thought, oh, that could be a little motif that we run through the film. Yes, and of course at that moment, I wanted to call the movie How We Met. Yes. Or How They Met. Yeah. We had so many titles for this movie. If you remember during the shooting, we had a contest with the crew. We said you could win a whole case of champagne if you could come up with a title. We had all kinds of, Harry, this is Sally. That stuck for a while. I liked that one. I liked it more than When Harry Met Sally. I didn't like When Harry Met Sally until I put the three dots there. The three dots at the end. I know, I remember this. The three dots were a big thing for me. But what about the three dots? And I kept saying, I still don't like it. I don't care about the three dots. I like the three dots. Yeah, no, I know. So we had it there. That was the thing. And for the longest time, they didn't get together in it one time. The first draft. Yeah. They did not get together. Right. And that to me has always seemed like, forgive me, the true ending. Well, it did to me too. And that's why I kind of went with that for a while. Because I couldn't imagine how they could ever get together or how a man could ever get together with a woman. But it made sense to me when I met Michelle. I met Michelle in the movie. Then it made sense they could get together. Yes, I understand that. But before you met Michelle, you had made a decision that they should get together. But I didn't feel good about it. I felt odd about it. Commercially, you kind of had to do that, but it didn't feel right. You know what I mean? It didn't feel right. For the story, it doesn't really feel right. I know that there are people, because I meet them all the time, people come up to me and say, oh, my wife and I were friends. It's just like when Harry met Sally. Right, I get that too, yeah. And then I also have way more people who come up to me and say, oh, I'm in this Harry-Sally thing, and it's really not happening, blah, blah, blah. I say, don't let the movie fool you. Those people really don't get together in real life. Well, it made them feel better. You make them feel better. Well, I try to make them feel better, but I do think that if two people meet each other and they don't do it, it's because something's missing. Yeah, yeah, sure. And it's hard to make up for that. Yeah, but I've also heard the stories of people who said we were friends for a very long time, and then it did work. I know, I know. So there were those two. So they must know something we don't know. Yeah, so there were those two. I mean, it could work. It could work, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, that was interesting, that we always had that initial ending that was that way, and then we went the other way on it. But then when we started really working on it, and it was very late in the process, we were in your office in California, and all sorts of things came into the movie that it's embarrassing to me took so long to come into the movie. Well, the whole thing about ordering. The whole thing about ordering, and that was because we were ordering lunch. Because I watched you order. I know, it was horrifying. I watched you order, and I said, my God, this has to be in the movie. I know, and I remember the sandwich too. Which one, what was it? It was avocado and bacon and sprouts and cheese, but I wanted half of it on the side and the mayonnaise in a little, you know, it was just unending. It was the 19th time I had done my horrible ordering. But my favorite thing about the fact that, you know, you did order that way, and that we did put it in as part of her character, is we also included it in the scene when the four of them get together at the Cafe Luxembourg, and Harry says, you know, Sally orders the things in the way- She's a great orderer, yes. In a way that even the chef can't imagine how good it's gonna come out, and that is the truth about you. Aside from all the craziness about ordering, you make their dishes better. Thank you. You improve what they do. It's like a prime ticket to get an invitation to one of your dinner parties, because you are a great cook. It's not just that, you know, there's a reason why you're ordering it that way. It's not just your particular crazy taste. Yes, I do know better. But you also know that it's gonna be better. That's right, that's right. But anyway, there we were, and you said to me, we've told you all this stuff about guys. You tell us something about women that we don't know, and it was really like, I dare you to tell me something about women that I don't know. That happened in my office, I remember. And I said, okay, women fake orgasms. And you said, not with me. They don't, right. And then you said, how do you know? I said, absolutely with you, and everyone does it. And you said, no way. And you really didn't believe it. That was the most exciting thing about it. But then I did a little unscientific survey around the office. It was worse than unscientific. You went thundering into the bullpen where they kept all the poor women who worked at Castle Rock in the unwindowed area. And assaulted them with this question. And did your rob thing. Basically, get in here, right? And on these, like six terrified-looking women came into your office. These days, it would be sexual harassment. I'd be arrested for sexual harassment. And fired. And probably fired, yeah, I'd have to fire myself. Yes, but, and you said, do women fake orgasms? And they all said yes. At one time or another, they all said they had done it. Yes. And that was when I went, oh my God. Well, and then you wrote that great scene. We wrote a scene, and then we had a read-through. Yeah. With Meg and Billy. Right. And we didn't have a faked orgasm. No, no, initially we didn't. That was an idea. That was Meg's idea. Meg said, I could fake an orgasm. And then we said- It wasn't even in a restaurant. No, we said, let's put it in an incongruous place. She just threw out that idea. And then we said, well, let's find an incongruous, crazy place that we could put it. And then Katz's Deli became the place. And then my mother became, which is my favorite thing, that she's now one of the top 100 in the AFI. I know. Top 100 most memorable lines in movies. That she's in there with Brando and Humphrey Bogart. But that all happened right at that, right after that read-through. Yeah, yeah. Was restaurant, faking the orgasm. Right. And Billy said, oh, well, then one of the customers can say, I'll have what she's having. He came up with that line. And you said, and I know just the actor to say it, my mother. Yeah, yeah. It was there it all was. Yeah, it happened like that. Yeah. Yeah, and I told my mother that I was hoping that it would be the topper line. Because I knew the scene was going to be funny. And I was hoping hers would be the topper. Because if it wasn't the topper, then I might have to cut her. I was nervous that I might have to cut her. She said, that's all right. I'll just spend the day with you. It'll be nice. You'll get a hot dog at Katz's Deli. But it worked out great. I mean, you never know. I mean, people always ask me. I'm sure they ask you about that. Did you know that that scene was going to be what it was? I mean, it would be funny. We didn't know it's going to be talked about forever, that scene. Well, or I once saw the movie without that scene. Because on airplanes, they don't show. They didn't show it. Because that's what got the movie the ludicrous R rating. And so it was snipped out on the airplane. And so I'm on the airplane. And they're showing the movie. And about at least half the people on the plane had seen the movie. And there was this kind of, oh. Because the scene just ended right before she faked the orgasm. Oh, they had the scene. But they just didn't. They had the scene kind of up to that moment. Did she talk about faking an orgasm? Yes. And then it just sort of ended. And the movie is not as good without it. I have to say that. It's one of those memorable scenes. I mean, you know. Well, I remember when you first screened it. You called to tell me that the audience in the movie, all the women were laughing wildly and the men were completely silent. Yeah, because they had the same experience I had when I first heard about it. I know. And that's amazing because it wasn't that long ago. Well, it was a while ago. But still, it's hard to imagine that that was a genuine secret from half the population. But it was. Well, one of my favorite screenings that we went to, and apropos of that scene, was we had a royal premiere. And Princess Di was still around. And the whole time I'm watching this thing, I'm thinking, what the heck is she thinking about? I mean, you watch a movie through the eyes of somebody else when you're in the thing like that. Oh, every little reference. Oh, how is she going to take this? Now we're building up to the orgasm. Oh, my God. How is she going to take this? She laughed. She was with some dude laughing. And she leaned to Billy. Billy told me this later. She leaned over to Billy. She said, I would be laughing a lot more, but I know people are looking at me. And then she asked to have the film shown at the Buckingham Palace with her friends. And then she said she could laugh and enjoy it. But when she's sitting there, she had to act as if it wasn't that funny. I remember that. Yes, well, you know, you say, did you know? You never know, right? You never know. You don't know. It was so under the radar, this movie. It was so, you know, it had two actors that basically weren't box office in any way. Meg was, it was her first leading role. Right. And, you know, your friend Richard Cohen once said to me, one of the things that we didn't put in there we should have was the true thing about men is that they don't listen. Men fake listening. Fake listening. Women fake orgasm. Men fake listening. So we should have, you know, we should have had that in there. I don't know if you've ever gotten this comment, but people often ask me, well, there's these two people that they're professional people. They were living in New York. They're single people. They both have their own apartments in their lives. And yet the whole movie, they're talking about relationships, knowing single people don't ever talk about their careers and about work. And the answer I always give to them is, yeah, they talk about work all the time. I just didn't run the camera during that period. I only run the camera when they were talking. But I remember talking to you about that. And you said, I don't care about that. And it was, it was actually a great relief to me because I think people are always trying to stick that into movies. And then you stick it in, in the beginning. And then you have to keep sticking it in and sticking it in because you can't just stick it in once. Right. You've got to stick it in three times. And then you stick something into a movie. It has to keep popping up. So then you've got this big fake subplot you didn't care about at all. That's so funny because a lot of times in a movie they say, well, you're shoehorning a relationship in. You know, you're faking a romantic relationship. Here we were saying, no, we don't want to fake the work part of it. We want to keep that out. So yeah, no, because it was really, it was about just the two people. It wasn't about what they do for a living. No, but I mean, one of the great reliefs of this movie, of course, there was no studio. No, Castle Rock was the studio. Yes, I mean, you were basically it. So if you didn't want work, we didn't have to put work in. Right. And that was the end of that. It was such a relief. It was a mainstream picture. And I don't know these days if you can make mainstream pictures that don't have two stars, that don't have the obligatory scenes that they all ask for. It's very hard. I think we were lucky because we had an independent company that had the wherewithal to finance something. I think that was a big part of it. How much did that movie cost? It cost $14.5 million. You know, nothing cost $14.5 million. Yeah, and it did, you know, it did what it did. And I remember that we went to the Deauville Film Festival. That was great. We had fun there in France. That was a good thing. It was a great experience. I'm sure you see it when you have your movies that you make that come up on television and stuff. You remember the experience making the movie. Have you had a life experience making a movie? So it's like a whole movie. You watch, oh yeah, remember we did that. We had that moment and stuff. That's what happens for me with this movie. For me, because I met my wife during the making of this movie and I had a great pleasurable experience shooting in New York City, going to a great restaurant for lunch, which was a block or two away every time. To me, that's what I remember more than anything, more than the fact that now it became a hit and people loved it and whatever. It was a great experience for me. For me, it was like, I remember the day you were shooting in Cafe Luxembourg. And that scene was so great. And Bruno Kirby did some great improvs while it was happening. I mean, one of the things to me that was so amazing on that movie was because I'd done most of my very young career, not I wasn't young, but my career was, as a screenwriter with Mike Nichols, who was very, you know, the script is the script and we stay with the script and we honor the script and we rehearse the script. Comes out of theater. But you, of course, coming out of TV. Yeah, everything changes. Everything changes. And working with Billy, who was so hilariously funny, and Meg, who is so unbelievably gifted. And I learned that you would just have to be a fool not to let the script change when you have people like that. So there I was at Cafe Lux watching this scene get funnier and funnier as it went on. And I just remember walking on into this gorgeous spring day and thinking, oh my God, this movie is going to be so fabulous. And that night I went to see the dailies from the day before. And it was from the first time you shot the last scene in the movie. Which we didn't use. Yes, thank God you didn't use it. And it was a disaster. It was a total disaster. That scene was a tricky one. I think you shot it three times. And I remember walking out into the spring night and thinking, this is going to be the most humiliating experience of my life. From the high to the low. Just 12 hours, you know. There were 12, eight hours, you know. Yeah, that's right. I remember we did shoot that ending three times and we finally got it right. I think we finally got a really good, satisfying ending. Yes. Billy came up with the thing about the crinkle in your nose. Yes, that was great. He noticed that on her face, that her nose would crinkle up. And that line he had, when you know that you want to be with somebody for the rest of your life, to start as soon as possible. That was all great. I said, oh my God, that's really powerful stuff, yeah. And then they wind up on the couch, just like we are. Now there's another story. They're one of the bunch of stories. Like everyone else. Just a story. It was a great, great experience.