I read the script instantly, and honestly, it just didn't pop for me. The idea was great: a twelve-year relationship between a man and a woman who become friends, have sex, it ruins everything, and then they realize they 're really in love. But it didn't seem fully formed yet. I thought about ways to make it better, and when I met with Rob and Nora, they admitted that they were in a sort of creative stall. I was a fresh voice for them. I told them my ideas for certain scenes and lines, and things started to click. Many of the moments Rob and I had experienced as friends, we felt could become moments for Harry and Sally. Rob's divorce from Penny Marshall had been a very difficult time for him, and we'd talked constantly, either in person or on the phone. We were inseparable. Often, Rob would have the sort of headache that became, in the film,the “twenty-four-hour tumor,” where Sally said, “Go to a doctor” and Harry replied, “He'll just tell me it's nothing.” About a year before, sitting with Rob at Dodger Stadium one night, I 'd had an idea for a sketch called “Caught in a Wave.” My idea involved two guys at a baseball game talking about a breakthrough one of them had in therapy and every time he's about to describe the big moment he had with his shrink , the stadium wave gets to them and they have to stand up, throw their hands in the air, and say “Whoa.” That became the scene with Harry and his friend Jess at a football game talking about how Harry's marriage broke up. I also suggested the singing machine scene, where Harry sees his ex-wife and the music of the karaoke machine underscores the awkwardness, and Nora put that into the script as well.It was thrilling to collaborate with Rob and Nora, who were so smart and funny and open to new ideas. Then we had to find Sally.
Meg Ryan had auditioned to play my girlfriend in Throw Momma. I'd thought she was great and a perfect compliment to me, but Danny DeVito had seen her as a tad young and cast Kim Greist. This time, when Meg came in to read with me, we all knew instantly that we were Harry and Sally. She was beautiful, she was adorable, she was really funny, and she had that awkward kind of grace that is found in only the best screen comediennes. I often wonder if Meg had gotten that part in Throw Momma, which I had done just before this, would Rob have cast her? Would he have thought, I just saw this?
Once Meg was on board, Rob, his producing partner Andy Scheinman, Nora, and Meg and I would have lengthy meetings where we just talked about men and women and relationships and tried to come up with fresh dialogue and create new scenes. I think this process is what made the movie so personal, because what Harry and Sally went through was so real. When Nora brought up the issue of women faking orgasms during sex, Rob couldn't believe it. “Well, they haven't faked one with me,” he said. It was Meg's idea to have a scene where Sally tells Harry about this and, like Rob, Harry can't believe it, so she fakes one in a public place. I said, “Like a restaurant,” and then Rob said it should be a loud orgasm, with everyone watching her, and then I said, "When it's done, an older woman says to a waiter, 'I'll have what she's having.'" And that's how it happened. In retrospect, it may be the longest orgasm in history.
Once the script was finished, we renamed it When Harry Met Sally … and the cast was completed with the excellent additions of Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher. We started filming in Los Angeles, then moved to Chicago and finally New York.
Rob was the perfect director for this movie, although sometimes he was too good of an audience. He would break out laughing and ruin takes, but in my heart I knew that if I had made him laugh, we were in the right zone. Early on, I had a very honest talk with him. This movie was so personal to him, I'd been starting to feel a little restricted. I didn't want to play Rob; I wanted to be Harry. I told him that he needed to move out of Harry so I could move in. He totally understood and gave me more freedom with the role, as well as the best gift an actor can get from his director: trust.
One day we were shooting at the Temple of Dendur, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I'd had this thought that when you start to get really comfortable with someone, you show them your funny “voice.” Usually it's a silly-sounding character that you use in your “special moments.” You let your guard down and trust the person to listen without judgment, because you're probably falling in love with them, and they with you. It became the “pepper pepper” scene, where Harry uses this crazy voice and gets Sally to repeat, “I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie.” It was all improvised. At one point—you can see it if you Google the scene—Meg actually looks off to where Rob is standing. Harry then asks her out, in his silly voice, and she tells him she has a date, and then Harry, his feelings kind of hurt,flirts with her by telling her to wear a skirt, that she looks really good in skirts. It's one of my favorite moments in the movie, and it only happened because Rob was so open to trying ideas and Meg was so damned talented.
The night before shooting the orgasm scene in Katz's Deli, Meg was nervous about it when we talked on the phone. After most of our shooting days, we spoke on the phone as Harry and Sally would, discussing what the day had been like and how we felt about the new one coming.
The orgasm scene was worrisome because she would have to have one thirty or forty times that day. Which would have tied my all-time junior high record. I was as reassuring as I could be, and frankly , being the one sitting across from her, I was looking forward to it.
The next morning, we met on the set and did a rough quiet rehearsal. She seemed nervous and wasn't happy with her wardrobe, and she ended up wearing a sweater of mine. Once Barry Sonnenfeld, our outstanding director of photography, was done lighting, we walked onto the set, which now was filled with the “atmosphere.” (I don't like the term “extras”—that means we ordered too many. “Background artists” is better yet.) Rob's wonderful mother, Estelle, was sitting at a nearby table. She would be the “I'll have what she's having” lady. We started to rehearse, and Meg seemed tentative. First orgasm, so-so; next one like we'd been married for ten years. Perhaps she was nervous about sharing her orgasm with so many strangers. Rob, getting a bit impatient, then asked her to step aside for a moment so he could show her what he wanted.Now I'm sitting across from this large, sweaty, bearded man. It looked like I was on a date with Sebastian Cabot. He then had an orgasm that King Kong would have envied. He was screaming, "YES! YES! YES! " and banging the table so hard, pickles were flying and cole slaw was in the air. When he was done, the background artists applauded and Rob took me aside. "I made a mistake," he confided. "I shouldn't have done that."
"Meg will be okay. I don't think you embarrassed her," I said.
"That's not what I meant," he said. "I just had an orgasm in front of my mother."
Once we started shooting, Meg was Spectacular. All day with the camera either on her or on me, she had sensational orgasms. My reactions to her became more fun to do as she came up with new little moans and groans. Months later, when Rob had finished his first cut of the picture, we had a test screening in Pasadena, California. The movie was playing really well, and then came the orgasm scene. The laughs were enormous, and when Estelle said her line, the place exploded. I was sitting in the back with Rob and we just grabbed each other's arms. We knew we had something special.
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