Meg Ryan's Two Children: Everything You Need to Know About Jack Quaid and Daisy True Ryan
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- UPDATED DECEMBER 18, 2024
by Tasha Mayberry
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Meg Ryan may be famous as the ’90s rom-com queen, but she’s also the proud mother of two children, son Jack Quaid and daughter Daisy True Ryan.
The What Happens Later actress and actor Dennis Quaid welcomed their son Jack in 1992. The couple, who were married for 10 years, divorced in 2001. In 2006, Ryan adopted her daughter, Daisy, born in 2004 in China.
Jack followed in his parents’ footsteps and pursued acting. Ryan even directed him in the 2015 film Ithaca, and credited her children for inspiring her to explore directing.
“[Motherhood has changed me] fundamentally,” she shared with PEOPLE in October 2016. “I have two kids… and I think that part of my life served my [ability] to direct the best.”
In October 2023, during another PEOPLE interview, Ryan couldn’t help but praise her adult children.
“I have two of the greatest kids,” she said. “They are hilarious, they’re smart, they are kind, they’re interested in other people, they’re curious about the world. I feel like both of them make the world a little better, and I just feel so proud of them.”
Here’s everything you need to know about Meg Ryan’s two children, Jack Quaid and Daisy True Ryan.
Jack Quaid, 32
Jack Henry Quaid was born on April 24, 1992, in Los Angeles. At the time of his birth, his parents, Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, had been married for a year, but they separated in 2000, finalizing their divorce the following year when Jack was just 9.
As a child, Jack frequently joined his parents on movie sets. He fondly recalls spending time in Austin, Texas, while his father filmed the 2002 movie The Rookie.
“I would go on location with my parents a lot,” Jack shared with PEOPLE in January 2022. “I wasn’t taking any pointers or anything. A kid can’t handle how slow a set moves, so I would watch a couple of takes and then go to the craft service truck and try to steal all the candy I could!”
Though he was aware of his parents’ careers and the unique nature of his upbringing, Jack never felt the need to distance himself from the entertainment industry.
“I acknowledge fully the way that I grew up was not normal,” he explained on the Allegedly with Theo Von & Matthew Cole Weiss podcast in March 2016. “But at the same time, it was normal in the sense that despite what my parents do, they are still a mom and a dad.”
Jack admitted to Women’s Wear Daily in March 2017 that he “always had the performing bug” and would entertain his family with magic shows. His first acting role came in middle school, when he starred in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Jack Quaid attended high school at Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, where he served as president of the Bad Movie Club before moving on to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. At NYU, where his mother had also studied as an undergraduate, Jack spent three years in the Experimental Theatre Wing and was a member of the sketch comedy group Hammerkatz.
After college, Jack continued to hone his comedic skills, co-founding the Sasquatch Sketch Comedy team in 2013.
Though his father’s agent expressed interest in representing him, Jack chose to pursue his career independently. “When he said he was ready to act, I told him I’d help him out, and of course, he’s Meg Ryan’s son, but he said, ‘No, I want to do it myself,’” Dennis Quaid shared with PEOPLE in March 2018.
That decision paid off — Jack made his acting debut in 2012’s The Hunger Games. In 2015, he appeared in his mother’s directorial debut, Ithaca.
“Nobody knows you better than your mom, so it was absolutely perfect,” Jack said to WWD about working with his mother. “Our shorthand is incredible. I tried to somehow keep it professional.”
Jack continued to build his career with roles in HBO’s period drama Vinyl (2016) and the comedy heist film Logan Lucky (2017) before landing his breakout role as Hughie Campbell in Prime Video’s The Boys (2019-present). His more recent projects include the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks and the 2020 film Scream. Next, Jack is set to star in the sci-fi thriller Companion and the action-comedy film Heads of State.
In a 2022 interview with PEOPLE, Jack Quaid shared that while his parents don’t offer him direct acting advice, they are incredibly supportive of his career.
“It’s lucky that I got to grow up saying, ‘Hey, I want to be an actor,’ and they understood that… and supported me going into it,” he said.
When asked if he is more like one of his famous parents, Meg Ryan explained to Redbook that Jack is “as different from me as Daisy is” and “different from his dad.”
“He’s his own guy, and that’s how kids come, no matter how you get them,” she said. “It’s just as much of a lottery with your own biological children as it is with an adopted child half the world away.”
Jack is known for keeping his romantic life private. He was last linked to his The Boys costar Claudia Doumit, with the two spotted holding hands in Sydney in June 2022, according to the Daily Mail. Before Doumit, Jack had relationships with actress Lizzy McGroder and director Tayler Vee Robinson.
Along with his younger sister, Daisy, Jack has two step-siblings, twins Thomas and Zoe, from his father’s third marriage to Kimberly Buffington, which ended in 2016. Dennis Quaid married his fourth wife, Laura Savoie, in 2020.
Daisy True Ryan, 20
Daisy True Ryan was born in China in 2004, and Meg Ryan adopted her in early 2006.
In a September 2008 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Ryan shared that she had always planned to adopt, describing the process as “a deliberate act.”
“[Adoption] taught me a lot about any expectations you have in life. Just toss them away. Throw them out,” Ryan reflected.
Originally named Charlotte True, Daisy’s name was changed after Ryan spent time getting to know her. On The Late Show with David Letterman, Ryan explained that the name “didn’t quite suit her” and said, “[Daisy]’s a really ridiculously happy person, and it was the happiest name I could think of.”
When Daisy was 3, Ryan told Access Hollywood that raising her toddler was “a great experience.”
“She’s a great brain too, that kid. And she is in charge, very in charge,” Ryan added.
Meg Ryan raised Daisy as a single mother, a journey she described as having both its ups and downs. At an In Goop Health event in Los Angeles in June 2018, Ryan shared with E! News, “I know I’m really her reference, for better and worse, and I’m glad she has other influences. One thing that is nice is you don’t get overruled.”
After Jack’s high school graduation, Ryan and Daisy relocated from Los Angeles to New York City, where Daisy spent her formative years.
In 2019, Ryan told The New York Times that she and Daisy bond over classic movie marathons. “I’m showing my daughter all kinds of romantic comedies,” she said. “We did a Frank Capra thing over Christmas: It Happened One Night and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Daisy currently attends Smith College in Massachusetts, and Ryan admitted to PEOPLE in October 2023, “I visit probably more than I should.”
In December 2024, Ryan reflected on her adoption of Daisy in an interview with The Sunday Times, saying that “events conspired” to bring them together.
“I always thought I’d adopt, and at various points, I was on the brink of it,” she said. “But it was particular to Daisy, I guess. I don’t know how events conspired to bring us together, but it was perfect.”