When Harry Met Sally… Didn’t Originally Have a Happy Ending, According to Rob Reiner

Harry and Sally don’t get together at the New Year’s Eve party? Let that simmer for a second because it very nearly happened! The classic rom-com When Harry Met Sally… almost ended without the lead characters falling in love. That’s the way director Rob Reiner originally envisioned Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan’s characters: without one another romantically. Fortunately, Reiner thought better of that disastrous notion when he met his wife, Michele Singer, whom he married in 1989. Reiner said in an interview with Chris Wallace (via CNN):

“The original ending of the film that we had was that Harry and Sally didn’t get together. Because I had been married for 10 years, I’d been single for 10 years, and I couldn’t figure out how I was ever going to be with anybody. And that gave birth to When Harry Met Sally… And I hadn’t met anybody.”

Reiner continued:

“And, so it was going to be the two of them seeing each other after years, talking, and then walking away from each other. I met my wife Michele, who I’ve been married to now 35 years. I met her while we were making the film, and I changed the ending.”

In a sit-down prior to Ephron’s death in 2012, Reiner and his co-collaborator recalled that Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) did not end up together in the first draft of the script. In fact, both Ephron and Reiner preferred the “true” ending, but the lovebirds got together at the New Year’s Eve party to conclude the film. Even though Reiner went along with the happy ending, he claimed to not have felt good about it. However, Ephron revealed in the older interview that Reiner made the decision to get Harry and Sally together BEFORE he met Michele. Watch Reiner and Ephron’s behind-the-scenes discussion about When Harry Met Sally… in its entirety below:

When Rob Reiner Pitched a Classic

In either 1984 or 1985, honestly neither could remember, Rob Reiner met with screenwriter Nora Ephron at The Russian Tea Room for lunch. And while a totally different idea he had that day didn’t fly with Ephron, Reiner later returned to New York and pitched her a number of other ideas for a movie — and one would eventually become When Harry Met Sally… (1989) And back in 2019, when the classic rom-com celebrated its 30th anniversary, Reiner took part in an interview where he discussed the development of his and Ephron’s collaboration, as one the best all-time rom-coms, When Harry Met Sally…, opened the TCM Classic Film Festival. Reiner said in an interview (via the Associated Press):

“All I can ever do is I look into myself and try to figure out, ‘How do I think as a man?’ There are certain universal things that men experience and the fact that I was working with Nora Ephron, she brought the female perspective to the mix, and we made it a part of the creative process to say what actually happens between men and women.”

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Stars Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal have both spoken about When Harry Met Sally… and its enduring legacy. And Reiner also reflected on how the quintessential rom-com resonates with so many fans of all generations to this very day. Reiner said in the same interview:

“I was making a mess of my dating life. I kept saying, ‘How does this work? How do a man and woman get together?’ I started thinking about that, and I talked to Nora. And she liked the idea And we started working on it. I think people see some basic truths about men and women when they watch that movie.”