Why Jack Quaid Won’t Run Lines With Meg Ryan, Dennis Quaid

“I just love eccentricity, really,” he said. “I just love anyone who’s a little bit off the beaten path. I love challenging myself if I can, you know, playing parts that I’d never thought in a million years I would play. Like, I think my thing is, if I see a role and there’s a potential of me playing the role, if it scares me I know I’m in the right place. So I think I want to do more things that freak me out.”

And while his parents weren’t initially “super psyched” to find out he wanted to follow in their footsteps as an actor (because it’s such a tough profession), as Jack told The Hollywood Reporter in December, they support him in his endeavors.

“But there’s definitely a need to prove myself,” he told The New York Times recently. “There is a little bit of something with identity and thinking, do I have any value outside of them? Not to say I’m complaining.”

Meg has defended her son from being painted with the broad brush of nepotism, telling Glamour in 2023, “Jack is really talented. He’s more of a natural than I’ll ever be. That nepo stuff is so dismissive of his work ethic, his gifts, and how sensitive he is to the idea of his privilege.”

After his mom went to bat for him, Jack told The Daily Beast, “My first thought was like, she’s being a mom. She’s being a loving mom.”