When Harry met Sally… arrived in theaters 35 years ago, not only did Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan’s “opposites attract” chemistry result in one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time, but the film also introduced another Harry to the world of entertainment.
Harry Connick Jr. was a 21-year-old singer and pianist with big dreams when, in 1989, director Rob Reiner asked him to record the film’s soundtrack. Connick performed standards with an orchestra, arranged by composer Marc Shaiman, and the soundtrack reached number one on the Billboard Traditional Jazz chart and also reached the Billboard 200.
“It was like a dream,” Connick, now 56, told Yahoo Entertainment. “I was a kid — I was about 20 — and I was working with a man I really admired,” he said of Reiner.
Although the New Orleans native had been performing for several years, “I was thrilled to have the opportunity to do some things I had never done before,” he says. “I had never sung with a full orchestra, so being in the room with all those people and having eyes and ears open to listen and learn, I will never forget that. This was a great opportunity for me.”
O When Harry Met Sally… the soundtrack earned Connick his first Grammy for Best Male Jazz Vocal Performance. Looking back, he says, “That whole period of my life was really wild.”
Three decades later, Connick is acting and singing in a new Netflix romantic comedy, Find me falling, which features two original songs by the musician. He plays an aging, heavily tattooed rock star at a personal crossroads.
At the beginning of the film, he is “at a sad, lonely, moody point in his life,” says Connick.
Fortunately, in true romantic comedy fashion, things improve along the way.
Connick – who has also starred in films such as Hope floats (1998) with Sandra Bullock, Independence Day (1996) with Will Smith and New in town with Renée Zellweger (2009) – had no problem creating two songs for the film, including one that inspired the film’s title.
“Stelana Kliris, who wrote and directed the film, said, ‘We need a song that John would have written and sung in his early 20s,’” Connick says of his character. “So I wrote ‘Girl on the Beach’” as the song that made John an international rock star.
“The second song he would have written recently,” he said. “This had more melancholy and poetry, and would have been a more emotionally evolved version. So I wrote ‘Find Me Falling’ and, based on the lyrics I wrote, the [film’s] title evolved. That wasn’t the original title. They changed to [my] song title. So it was fun to write as someone else, because I made choices that I wouldn’t necessarily have made.”
Find me falling has the traditional elements of a romantic comedy – as Connick’s character reconnects with an old flame – but this film, shot in stunning Cyprus, has a few twists and turns along the way.
“I think the general feel of a romantic comedy is the same” as it was years ago, says Connick. “It’s escape, it’s love, it’s travel, it’s crazy stories.”
Find me falling is currently streaming on Netflix.
