Meg Ryan made a decision to get out of the daily riff-raff that Hollywood can become tough for actors and actresses. What did she do? Well, Ryan decided that living out of Los Angeles was something good to do for herself and her two kids.

“I have to say, I don’t think I was a very good famous person,” she tells Entertainment Tonight‘s Nischelle Turner. “I just don’t think I’m a good celebrity … (And) I just always felt a little bit like life was over, like, outside this little bubble; outside some sort of membrane. And I remember cars closing — like, expensive cars — and then you don’t hear the outside anymore. You’re roped off in that part of thing, and I just knew it’s just not good for an artist or a creative person to have limited life, in a way, to draw from.”

Yes, Ryan left TinselTown for about a decade. She’s opening up as to why she needed to do so. Ryan wanted her creative juices refueled while allowing her to value the things that matter most to her.

But she’s back with David Duchovny for What Happens Later.

Meg Ryan Returns After Nine-Year Hiatus

The queen of rom-coms is back following a nine-year hiatus. She co-wrote, directed and starred in this film. It’s her first rom-com since 2009’s Serious Moonlight, though she last appeared in 2015’s Ithaca, the war drama in which she made her directorial debut and starred alongside Tom Hanks, Sam Shepard, and her son, Jack Quaid.

After Ithaca, the 61-year-old actress walked away from the subtle entrapment that comes with finding stardom in Hollywood. It’s a world in which celebrities are treated not only differently but ushered into a bubble with a velvet glove. They are roped off from seeing or experiencing how the rest of the world lives and operates.

It’s a world Ryan says she no longer has any interest in. To her, it’s a world she says is akin to when one slips into a luxury car, and the outside noise is muffled into silence when the doors are slammed shut. 

Ryan, to change things up, says she moved out of Los Angeles. This isn’t to say she didn’t enjoy interactions with fans who would come up to her and tell her they admired her in the countless, emotion-stirring romcoms she starred in. Films like Sleepless in Seattle or When Harry Met Sally or You’ve Got Mail.

“I have a very charmed life. People generally smile when they say hi to me, and they’re happy about some of the movies I’ve done, and that’s great,” Ryan said. “I’m not saying anything bad about that. I have a very charmed experience, I recognize that. But I wanted to sort of just extend out of that, move out of L.A. Just change it up.

“I’m grateful that I’m a mom and I’m grateful that I have friends,” Ryan says. “I’m grateful that my life has so many different aspects to it. I traveled a lot. So, by now, I felt like, oh, I have some stuff to say with this movie.”