Meg Ryan wrote, directed and will star in an upcoming romantic comedy titled What Happens Later

Meg Ryan made a rare public appearance in support of Michael J. Fox in New York City.

On Thursday, Ryan, 61, was photographed posing on a couch with Fox, also 61, and his wife Tracy Pollan at a special screening for the documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in Manhattan.

The When Harry Met Sally actress, who sported a black coat and red sweater to the screening, was last photographed out in N.Y.C. ahead of her birthday six months ago.

Ryan has largely stayed away from the movie industry in recent years. Her last acting role came in her directorial debut for 2015’s Ithaca, in which she costarred with Tom Hanks. Eight years later, the actress and filmmaker is expected to return to the big screen with a romantic comedy she wrote, directed and will star in titled What Happens Later.

The project was announced back in May 2022. At the time, Ryan she shared a poster for the film on Instagram and wrote in the caption, “HERE WE GO!!”

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Ryan’s next movie stars her and David Duchovny, and is based on Steven Dietz’s play Shooting Star, with a screenplay written by Dietz, Ryan and Kirk Lynn.

“It is exciting to have Meg Ryan bring the weight of her experience in the genre to the director’s chair and to matchmake her with such a wonderful sparring partner in David Duchovny,” Gabrielle Stewart from distributor HanWay Films said in a statement to Variety at the time of the film’s announcement.

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Fox’s documentary features an extensive look at the actor’s life and career, including his rise to fame in the classic 1985 time-travel movie Back to the Future and his decades-long experience with Parkinson’s disease.

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Back in 2019, Ryan told The New York Times Magazine that she was writing something in the genre that she hoped to direct while speaking about her classic string of Nora Ephron-written rom-coms.

“I’m aware now that romantic comedies are confections, but they have construction. There’s architecture. It’s not something I was aware of back then,” she said at the time, adding, “But I don’t think that because things are tragic they’re deeper. Think about Nora Ephron. Her observation about romantic comedies is that they were commenting on their time in an intelligent way, but with the intention to delight.”

Ryan’s upcoming movie What Happens Later is expected later this year, while Fox’s documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie premieres on Apple TV+ May 12.