Mary Louise Streep was born on June 22, 1949, inSummit, New Jersey.[8] to artistMary Wilkinson Streep and pharmaceutical executive Harry William Streep Jr. She has two younger brothers, Harry William Streep III and Dana David Streep, both actors.[9] Streep's mother, whom she has compared in both appearance and manner to DameJudi Dench,[10] strongly encouraged her daughter and instilled confidence in her from a very young age.[11] Streep said, "She was a mentor because she said to me, 'Meryl, you're capable. You're so great.' She was saying, 'You can do whatever you put your mind to. If you're lazy, you're not going to get it done. But if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.' And I believed her." Although she was naturally more introverted than her mother, when she later needed an injection of confidence in adulthood, she would consult her mother at times for advice.[11]
Streep was raised as aPresbyterian[12] inBasking Ridge, New Jersey, and attendedCedar Hill Elementary School and the Oak Street School, which was a junior high school at that time. In her junior high debut, she starred as Louise Heller in the playThe Family Upstairs.[13] In 1963, the family moved toBernardsville, New Jersey, where she attendedBernards High School.[14] AuthorKarina Longworth described her as a "gawky kid with glasses and frizzy hair", yet noted that she liked to show off in front of the camera in family home movies from a young age.[15] At age 12, Streep was selected to sing at a school recital, leading to her having opera lessons fromEstelle Liebling. Despite her talent, she later remarked, "I was singing something I didn't feel and understand. That was an important lesson—not to do that. To find the thing that I could feel through."[15] She quit after four years. Streep had manyCatholic school friends, and regularly attendedMass.[16] She was a high school cheerleader for the Bernards High School Mountaineers. She was also chosen as the homecoming queen her senior year.[17]
Streep as a senior in high school, 1966
Although Streep appeared in numerous school plays during her high school years, she was uninterested in serious theater until acting in the playMiss Julie atVassar College in 1969, in which she gained attention across the campus.[18] Vassar drama professor Clinton J. Atkinson noted, "I don't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting. She really taught herself."[18] Streep demonstrated an early ability to mimic accents and to quickly memorize her lines. She received herAB in drama[19]cum laude in 1971, before applying for anMFA from theYale School of Drama. At Yale, she supplemented her course fees by working as a waitress and typist, and appeared in over a dozen stage productions per year; at one point, she became overworked and developed ulcers, so she contemplated quitting acting and switching to study law.[18] Streep played a variety of roles on stage,[20] fromHelena inA Midsummer Night's Dream to an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrightsChristopher Durang andAlbert Innaurato.[21][22] She was a student of choreographerCarmen de Lavallade, whom she introduced at the 2017Kennedy Center Honors.[23] Another of her teachers wasRobert Lewis, a co-founder of theActors Studio. Streep disapproved of some of the acting exercises she was asked to do, remarking that one professor taught the emotional recall technique by delving into personal lives in a way she found "obnoxious".[24][25] She received her MFA in drama from Yale in 1975.[26][27] She also enrolled as a visiting student atDartmouth College in 1970, and received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the college in 1981.[27]
Career
1970s: Early work and breakthrough
Streep started her career acting in numerous productions withThe Public Theater
Although Streep had not aspired to become a film actor,Robert De Niro's performance inTaxi Driver (1976) had a profound impact on her; she said to herself, 'That's the kind of actor I want to be when I grow up.'[24] Streep began auditioning for film roles, and underwent an unsuccessful audition for the lead role inDino De Laurentiis's remake of the action adventureKing Kong which was released in 1976. De Laurentiis, referring to Streep as she stood before him, said in Italian to his son: "This is so ugly. Why did you bring me this?"[15] Unknown to Laurentiis, Streep understood Italian, and she remarked, "I'm very sorry that I'm not as beautiful as I should be, but, you know – this is it. This is what you get."[18] She continued to work onBroadway, appearing in the 1976 double bill ofTennessee Williams'27 Wagons Full of Cotton andArthur Miller'sA Memory of Two Mondays. She received a Tony Award nomination forBest Featured Actress in a Play.[30] Streep's other Broadway credits includeAnton Chekhov'sThe Cherry Orchard and theBertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musicalHappy End, in which she had originally appeared off-Broadway at theChelsea Theater Center. She receivedDrama Desk Award nominations for both productions.[31]
Streep's first feature film role came oppositeJane Fonda in the 1977 filmJulia, in which she had a small role during a flashback sequence. Most of her scenes were edited out, but the brief time on screen horrified the actress, "I had a bad wig and they took the words from the scene I shot with Jane and put them in my mouth in a different scene. I thought, I've made a terrible mistake, no more movies. I hate this business."[24] However, Streep stated in 2015 that Fonda had a lasting influence on her as an actress, and credited her with opening "probably more doors than I probably even know about".[11] Robert De Niro, who had spotted Streep in her stage production ofThe Cherry Orchard, suggested that she play the role of his girlfriend in the war filmThe Deer Hunter (1978).[32] Cazale, who had been diagnosed withlung cancer,[33] was also cast in the film, and Streep took on the role of a "vague, stock girlfriend" to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming.[34][35][36] Longworth notes that Streep, "Made a case for female empowerment by playing a woman to whom empowerment was a foreign concept–a normal lady from an average American small town, for whom subservience was the only thing she knew".[37]Pauline Kael, who later became a strong critic of Streep, remarked that she was a "real beauty" who brought much freshness to the film with her performance.[38] The film's success exposed Streep to a wider audience and earned her a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actress.[39]
Streep in 1977
In the 1978 miniseriesHolocaust, Streep played the leading role of a German woman married to a Jewish artist played byJames Woods inNazi era Germany. She found the material to be "unrelentingly noble" and professed to have taken on the role for financial gain.[40] Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death on March 12, 1978.[41][36] With an estimated audience of 109 million,Holocaust brought a wider degree of public recognition to Streep, who found herself "on the verge of national visibility". She won thePrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her performance.[42] Despite the awards success, Streep was still not enthusiastic towards her film career and preferred acting on stage.[43]
In the dramaKramer vs. Kramer, Streep was cast oppositeDustin Hoffman as an unhappily married woman who abandons her husband and child. Streep thought that the script portrayed the female character as "too evil" and insisted that it was not representative of real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles. The makers agreed with her, and the script was revised.[49] In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a wife with a career,[50] and frequented theUpper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set, watching the interactions between parents and children.[49] The directorRobert Benton allowed Streep to write her own dialogue in two key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman, who "hated her guts" at first.[51][d] Hoffman and producerStanley R. Jaffe later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting: "She's extraordinarily hard-working, to the extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else, but what she's doing."[52] The film was controversial among feminists, but it was a role which film critic Stephen Farber believed displayed Streep's "own emotional intensity", writing that she was one of the "rare performers who can imbue the most routine moments with a hint of mystery".[53]
In 1979, Streep began workshoppingAlice in Concert, a musical version ofAlice's Adventures in Wonderland, with writer and composerElizabeth Swados and directorJoseph Papp; the show was put on at New York's Public Theater from December 1980.Frank Rich ofThe New York Times referred to Streep as the production's "one wonder", but questioned why she devoted so much energy to it.[43] By 1980, Streep had progressed to leading roles in films. She was featured on the cover ofNewsweek magazine with the headline "A Star for the 80s";Jack Kroll commented, "There's a sense of mystery in her acting; she doesn't simply imitate (although she's a great mimic in private). She transmits a sense of danger, a primal unease lying just below the surface of normal behavior".[61]
Streep denounced her fervent media coverage at the time as "excessive hype".[61] Thestory within a story dramaThe French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) was Streep's first leading role. The film paired Streep withJeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story, as well as theVictorian era drama they were performing. Streep developed an English accent for the part, but considered herself a misfit for the role: "I couldn't help wishing that I was more beautiful".[62][61][e] ANew York magazine article commented that, while many female stars of the past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a "chameleon", willing to play any type of role.[64] Streep was awarded aBAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work.[65] The following year, she re-united with Robert Benton for thepsychological thriller,Still of the Night (1982), co-starringRoy Scheider andJessica Tandy.Vincent Canby, writing forThe New York Times, noted that the film was an homage to the works ofAlfred Hitchcock, but that one of its main weaknesses was a lack of chemistry between Streep and Scheider, concluding that Streep "is stunning, but she's not on screen anywhere near long enough".[66]
Greater success came later in the year when Streep starred in the dramaSophie's Choice (also 1982), portraying a Polish survivor ofAuschwitz caught in a love triangle between a young naïve writer (Peter MacNicol) and a Jewish intellectual (Kevin Kline). Streep's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise.[67]William Styron wrote the novel withUrsula Andress in mind for the role of Sophie, but Streep was determined to get the role.[68] Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take and refused to do it again, finding it extremely painful and emotionally exhausting.[69] That scene, in which Streep is ordered by anSS guard atAuschwitz to choose which of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp, is her most famous scene, according toEmma Brockes ofThe Guardian who wrote in 2006: "It's classic Streep, the kind of scene that makes your scalp tighten, but defter in a way is her handling of smaller, harder-to-grasp emotions".[10]
Among several acting awards, Streep won theAcademy Award for Best Actress for her performance,[70] and her characterization was voted the third greatest movie performance of all time byPremiere magazine.[71]Roger Ebert said of her delivery, "Streep plays the Brooklyn scenes with an enchanting Polish-American accent (she has the first accent I've ever wanted to hug), and she plays the flashbacks in subtitled German and Polish. There is hardly an emotion that Streep doesn't touch in this movie, and yet we're never aware of her straining. This is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine".[72]Pauline Kael, on the contrary, called the film an "infuriatingly bad movie", and thought that Streep "decorporealizes" herself, which she believed explained why her movie heroines "don't seem to be full characters, and why there are no incidental joys to be had from watching her".[73]
In 1983, Streep played her first non-fictional character, thenuclear whistleblower and labor union activistKaren Silkwood, who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at theKerr-McGeeplutonium plant, inMike Nichols' biographical filmSilkwood. Streep felt a personal connection to Silkwood,[74] and in preparation, she met with people close to the woman, and in doing so realized that each person saw a different aspect of her personality.[75] She said, "I didn't try to turn myself into Karen. I just tried to look at what she did. I put together every piece of information I could find about her ... What I finally did was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside".[75] Jack Kroll ofNewsweek considered Streep's characterization to have been "brilliant", while Silkwood's boyfriend Drew Stephens expressed approval in that Streep had played Karen as a human being rather than a myth, despite Karen's father Bill thinking that Streep and the film had dumbed his daughter down. Pauline Kael believed that Streep had been miscast.[76]
Streep next played oppositeRobert De Niro in the romanceFalling in Love (1984), which was poorly received, and portrayed a fighter for theFrench Resistance duringWorld War II in the British dramaPlenty (1985), adapted from the play byDavid Hare. For the latter, Roger Ebert wrote that she conveyed "great subtlety; it is hard to play an unbalanced, neurotic, self-destructive woman, and do it with such gentleness and charm ... Streep creates a whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms."[77] In 2008,Molly Haskell praised Streep's performance inPlenty, believing it to be "one of Streep's most difficult and ambiguous" films and "most feminist" role.[78]
Longworth considers Streep's next release,Out of Africa (1985), to have established her as a Hollywood superstar. In the film, Streep starred as the Danish writerKaren Blixen, oppositeRobert Redford'sDenys Finch Hatton. DirectorSydney Pollack was initially dubious about Streep in the role, as he did not think she was sexy enough, and had consideredJane Seymour for the part. Pollack recalls that Streep impressed him in a different way: "She was so direct, so honest, so without bullshit. There was no shielding between her and me."[79] Streep and Pollack often clashed during the 101-day shoot in Kenya, particularly over Blixen's voice. Streep had spent much time listening to tapes of Blixen, and began speaking in an old-fashioned and aristocratic fashion, which Pollack thought excessive.[80] A significant commercial success, the film won a Golden Globe for Best Picture.[81] It also earned Streep another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and the film ultimately won Best Picture. Film criticStanley Kauffmann praised her performance, writing "Meryl Streep is back in top form. This means her performance inOut of Africa is at the highest level of acting in film today."[82]
Streep in 1989
Longworth notes that the dramatic success ofOut of Africa led to a backlash of critical opinion against Streep in the years that followed, especially as she was now demanding $4 million a picture. Unlike other stars at the time, such asSylvester Stallone andTom Cruise, Streep "never seemed to play herself", and certain critics felt her technical finesse led people to literally see her acting.[83] Her next films did not appeal to a wide audience; she co-starred withJack Nicholson in the dramasHeartburn (1986) andIronweed (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time since the "Great Performances" telecast of the Phoenix Theater production ofSecret Service (1977). InEvil Angels[f] (1988), she playedLindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman who had been convicted of themurder of her infant daughter despite claiming that the baby had been taken by adingo. Filmed in Australia, Streep won theAustralian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role,[84][85][86] aBest Actress at theCannes Film Festival, and theNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.[87] Streep has said of developing the Australian accent in the film: "I had to study a little bit for Australian because it's not dissimilar [to American], so it's like coming from Italian to Spanish. You get a little mixed up."[10] Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times referred to her performance as "another stunning performance", played with "the kind of virtuosity that seems to re-define the possibilities of screen acting".[88]
In 1989, Streep lobbied to play the lead role inOliver Stone's adaption of the playEvita, but two months before filming was due to commence, she dropped out, citing "exhaustion" initially, although it was later revealed that there was a dispute over her salary.[89] By the end of the decade, Streep actively looked to star in a comedy. She found the role inShe-Devil (1989), a satire that parodied societal obsession with beauty and cosmetic surgery, in which she played a glamorous writer.[90] Though the film was not a success,Richard Corliss ofTime wrote that Streep was the "one reason" to see it, and observed that it marked a departure from the dramatic roles she was known to play.[91] Reacting to her string of poorly received films, Streep said: "Audiences are shrinking; as the marketing strategy defines more and more narrowly who they want to reach males from 16 to 25 – it's become a chicken-and-egg syndrome. Which came first? First, they release all these summer movies, then do a demographic survey of who's going to see them."[89]
1990s: Commercial fluctuations
Biographer Karen Hollinger described the early 1990s as a downturn in the popularity of Streep's films, attributing this partly to a critical perception that her comedies had been an attempt to convey a lighter image following several serious, but commercially unsuccessful, dramas, and, more significantly, to the lack of options available to an actress in her forties.[92] Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family,[92] a situation that she had anticipated in a 1981 interview when she commented, "By the time an actress hits her mid-forties, no one's interested in her anymore. And if you want to fit a couple of babies into that schedule as well, you've got to pick your parts with great care."[64] At theScreen Actor's Guild National Women's Conference in 1990, Streep keynoted the first national event, emphasizing the decline in women's work opportunities, pay parity, and role models within the film industry.[93] She criticized the film industry for downplaying the importance of women both on screen and off.[87]
After roles in the comedy-dramaPostcards from the Edge (1990), and the comedy-fantasyDefending Your Life (1991), Streep starred withGoldie Hawn in the farcical black comedy,Death Becomes Her (1992), withBruce Willis as their co-star. Streep persuaded writerDavid Koepp to re-write several of the scenes, particularly the one in which her character has an affair with a younger man, which she believed was "unrealistically male" in its conception. The seven-month shoot was the longest of Streep's career, during which she got into character by "thinking about being slightly pissed off all of the time".[94] Due to Streep's allergies to numerous cosmetics, special prosthetics had to be designed to age her by ten years to look 54, although Streep believed that they made her look nearer 70.[95] Longworth considersDeath Becomes Her to have been "the most physical performance Streep had yet committed to screen, all broad weeping, smirking, and eye-rolling".[96] Although it was a commercial success, earning $15.1 million in just five days, Streep's contribution to comedy was generally not taken well by critics.[97]Time's Richard Corliss wrote approvingly of Streep's "wicked-witch routine" but dismissed the film as "She-Devil with a make-over" and one which "hates women".[98][97] Streep later admitted to having disliked filming the scenes involving heavy special effects, and vowed never to work again on a film with heavy special effects.[99]
Streep's most successful film of the decade was the romantic dramaThe Bridges of Madison County (1995) directed byClint Eastwood, who adapted the film fromRobert James Waller'snovel of the same name.[102] It relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working forNational Geographic, who has a love affair with a middle-aged Italian farm wife Francesca (Streep). Though Streep disliked the novel it was based on, she found the script to be a special opportunity for an actress her age.[103] She gained weight for the part and dressed differently from the character in the book to emulate voluptuous Italian film stars such asSophia Loren. Both Loren andAnna Magnani were an influence in her portrayal, and Streep viewedPier Paolo Pasolini'sMamma Roma (1962) prior to filming.[104] The film was a box office hit and grossed over $70 million in the United States.[105] The film, unlike the novel, was warmly received by critics.Janet Maslin ofThe New York Times wrote that Eastwood had managed to create "a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill", whileJoe Morgenstern ofThe Wall Street Journal described it as "one of the most pleasurable films in recent memory".[105] Longworth believes that Streep's performance was "crucial to transforming what could have been a weak soap opera into a vibrant work of historical fiction implicitly critiquing postwar America's stifling culture of domesticity".[106] She considers it to have been the role in which Streep became "arguably the first middle-aged actress to be taken seriously by Hollywood as a romantic heroine".[107]
Streep played the estranged sister of Bessie (Diane Keaton), a woman battlingleukemia, inMarvin's Room (1996), an adaptation ofthe play byScott McPherson. Streep recommended Keaton for the role.[108]Roger Ebert stated that, "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems."[109] The film was well received, and Streep earned another Golden Globe nomination for her performance.[55]
Streep's performance in...First Do No Harm (1997) garnered her a secondEmmy Award nomination forOutstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie. In 1998, Streep first appeared oppositeMichael Gambon andCatherine McCormack inPat O'Connor'sDancing at Lughnasa, anotherBroadway adaptation, which was entered into theVenice Film Festival in its year of release.[110]Janet Maslin ofThe New York Times remarked that "Meryl Streep has made many a grand acting gesture in her career, but the way she simply peers out a window inDancing at Lughnasa ranks with the best. Everything the viewer need know about Kate Mundy, the woman she plays here, is written on that prim, lonely face and its flabbergasted gaze."[111] Later that year, she played a housewife dying of cancer inOne True Thing. The film met with positive reviews.Mick LaSalle in theSan Francisco Chronicle declared, "AfterOne True Thing, critics who persist in the fiction that Streep is a cold and technical actress will need to get their heads examined. She is so instinctive and natural – so thoroughly in the moment and operating on flights of inspiration – that she's able to give us a woman who's at once wildly idiosyncratic and utterly believable."[112]Los Angeles Times film criticKenneth Turan noted that her role "is one of the least self-consciously dramatic and surface showy of her career," but she "adds a level of honesty and reality that makes [her performance] one of her most moving".[113]
Meryl Streep is known for her mastery of accents; she may be the most versatile speaker in the movies. Here you might think she has no accent, unless you've heard her real speaking voice; then you realize that Guaspari's speaking style is no less a particular achievement than Streep's other accents. This is not Streep's voice, but someone else's – with a certain flat quality, as if later education and refinement came after a somewhat unsophisticated childhood.[114]
The same year, Streep began work onSpike Jonze's comedy-dramaAdaptation. (2002), in which she portrayed real-life journalistSusan Orlean. Lauded by critics and viewers alike,[119] the film won Streep her fourthGolden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category.[55]A. O. Scott inThe New York Times considered Streep's portrayal of Orlean to have been "played with impish composure", noting the contrast in her "wittily realized" character with love interestChris Cooper's "lank-haired, toothless charisma" as the autodidact arrested for poaching rare orchids.[120] Streep appeared alongsideNicole Kidman andJulianne Moore inStephen Daldry'sThe Hours (2002), based on the 1999novel byMichael Cunningham. Focusing on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novelMrs. Dalloway byVirginia Woolf, the film was generally well received and won all three leading actresses aSilver Bear for Best Actress.[121]
In 2003, Streep re-united withMike Nichols to star withAl Pacino andEmma Thompson in theHBO'sadaptation ofTony Kushner's six-hour playAngels in America, the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop ofReagan era politics. Streep, who was cast in four roles in the miniseries, received her secondEmmy Award and fifth Golden Globe for her performance.[55][122] She appeared inJonathan Demme's moderately successfulremake ofThe Manchurian Candidate in 2004,[123] co-starringDenzel Washington, playing the role of a woman who is both aU.S. senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of a vice-presidential candidate.[124] The same year, she played the supporting role of Aunt Josephine inLemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events alongsideJim Carrey, based on the first three novels inSnicket's bookseries. Theblack comedy received generally favorable reviews from critics,[125] and won theAcademy Award for Best Makeup.[126] Streep also narrated the filmMonet's Palate.[127] Streep was next cast in the comedy filmPrime (2005), directed byBen Younger. In the film, she played Lisa Metzger, the Jewish psychoanalyst of a divorced and lonesome business-woman, played byUma Thurman, who enters a relationship with Metzger's 23-year-old son (Bryan Greenberg). A modest mainstream success, it eventually grossed US$67.9 million internationally.[128]Roger Ebert noted how Streep had "that ability to cut through the solemnity of a scene with a zinger that reveals how all human effort is, after all, comic at some level".[129]
Commercially, Streep fared better with a role inThe Devil Wears Prada (also 2006), a loosescreen adaptation ofLauren Weisberger's 2003novel of the same name. Streep portrayed the powerful and demandingMiranda Priestly,fashion magazine editor (and boss of a recent college graduate played byAnne Hathaway). Though the overall film received mixed reviews, her portrayal, of what Ebert calls the "poised and imperious Miranda",[133] drew rave reviews from critics, and earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as another Golden Globe.[134][135] On its commercial release, the film became Streep's biggest commercial success to this point, grossing more than US$326.5 million worldwide.[136]
She portrayed a wealthy university patron inChen Shi-zheng's much-delayed feature dramaDark Matter, a film about a Chinese science graduate student who becomes violent after dealing with academic politics at a U.S. university. Inspired by the events of the 1991University of Iowa shooting,[137] and initially scheduled for a 2007 release, producers and investors decided to shelveDark Matter out of respect for the victims of theVirginia Tech shooting in April 2007.[138] The drama received negative to mixed reviews upon its limited 2008 release.[139] Streep played a U.S. government official who investigates an Egyptianforeign national suspected of terrorism in the political thrillerRendition (2007), directed byGavin Hood.[140] Keen to get involved in a thriller film, Streep welcomed the opportunity to star in a film genre for which she was not usually offered scripts, and immediately signed on to the project.[141] Upon its release,Rendition was less commercially successful,[142] and received mixed reviews.[143]
In this period, Streep had a short role alongsideVanessa Redgrave,Glenn Close, and her eldest daughterMamie Gummer inLajos Koltai's drama filmEvening (2007), based on the 1998 novel of the same name bySusan Minot. Switching between the present and the past, it tells the story of a bedridden woman, who remembers her tumultuous life in the mid-1950s.[144] The film was released to a lukewarm reaction from critics, who called it "beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull [and] a colossal waste of a talented cast".[145] She had a role inRobert Redford'sLions for Lambs (also 2007), a film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor. LikeEvening, critics felt that the talent of the cast was wasted, and that it suffered from slow pacing, although one critic announced that Streep positively stood out, being "natural, unforced, quietly powerful", in comparison to Redford's forced performance.[146]
Streep found major commercial success when she starred inPhyllida Lloyd'sMamma Mia! (2008), a film adaptation of themusical of the same name, based on the songs of Swedish pop groupABBA. Co-starringAmanda Seyfried,Pierce Brosnan,Stellan Skarsgård,Colin Firth,Julie Walters, andChristine Baranski, Streep played a single mother and a former girl-group singer, whose daughter (Seyfried), a bride-to-be who never met her father, invites three likely paternal candidates to her wedding on the idyllic Greek island ofSkopelos known in the film as Kalokairi.[147] An instant box office success,Mamma Mia! became Streep's highest-grossing film to date, with box office receipts of US$602.6 million,[148] also ranking it first among the highest-grossing musical films.[149] Nominated for another Golden Globe, Streep's performance was generally well received by critics, withWesley Morris ofThe Boston Globe commenting: "The greatest actor in American movies has finally become a movie star."[150]
Doubt (also 2008) features Streep withPhilip Seymour Hoffman,Amy Adams, andViola Davis. A drama revolving around the stern principal nun (Streep) of aBronxCatholic school in 1964 who brings accusations ofpedophilia against a popular priest (Hoffman), the film became a moderate box office success,[151] and was hailed by many critics as one of the best films of 2008. The film received five Academy Awards nominations, for its four lead actors and forJohn Patrick Shanley's script.[152] Ebert, who awarded the film the full four stars, highlighted Streep's caricature of a nun, who "hates all inroads of the modern world",[153] while Kelly Vance ofThe East Bay Express remarked: "It's thrilling to see a pro like Streep step into an already wildly exaggerated role, and then ramp it up a few notches just for the sheer hell of it. Grim, red-eyed, deathly pale Sister Aloysius may be the scariest nun of all time."[154]
In 2009, Streep played chefJulia Child inNora Ephron'sJulie & Julia, co-starring withStanley Tucci, and again withAmy Adams. (Tucci and Streep had worked together earlier inDevil Wears Prada.) The first major motion picture based on a blog,Julie and Julia contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New YorkerJulie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbookMastering the Art of French Cooking.[155] Longworth believes her caricature of Julia Child was "quite possibly the biggest performance of her career, while also drawing on her own experience to bring lived-in truth to the story of a late bloomer".[106] InNancy Meyers' romantic comedyIt's Complicated (also 2009), Streep starred withAlec Baldwin andSteve Martin. She received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for bothJulie & Julia andIt's Complicated; she won the award forJulie & Julia, and later received her 16th Oscar nomination for it.[156] She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox inWes Anderson's stop-motion filmFantastic Mr. Fox.[157]
2010s: Further critical and commercial success
Streep re-teamed withMamma Mia directorPhyllida Lloyd onThe Iron Lady (2011), a British biographical film aboutMargaret Thatcher, which takes a look at thePrime Minister during theFalklands War and her years in retirement.[158] Streep, who attended a session of theHouse of Commons to see BritishMembers of Parliament (MPs) in action in preparation for her role as Thatcher,[159] called her casting "a daunting and exciting challenge".[160] While the film had a mixed reception, Streep's performance gained rave reviews, earning her Best Actress awards at theGolden Globes and theBAFTAs, as well as her third win at the84th Academy Awards.[161] Former advisers, friends, and family of Thatcher criticized Streep's portrayal of her as "inaccurate" and "biased".[162] The following year, afterThatcher's death, Streep issued a formal statement describing Thatcher's "hard-nosed fiscal measures" and "hands-off approach to financial regulation", while praising her "personal strength and grit".[163]
Streep re-united withPrada directorDavid Frankel on the set of the romantic comedy-drama filmHope Springs (2012), co-starringTommy Lee Jones andSteve Carell. Streep and Jones play a middle-aged couple, who attend a week of intensive marriage counseling to try to bring back the intimacy missing in their relationship. Reviews for the film were mostly positive, with critics praising the "mesmerizing performances ... which offer filmgoers some grown-up laughs – and a thoughtful look at mature relationships".[164] In 2013, Streep starred alongsideJulia Roberts andEwan McGregor in theblack comedy dramaAugust: Osage County (2013) about adysfunctional family that re-unites into the familial house when their patriarch suddenly disappears. Based onTracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winningeponymous play, Streep received positive reviews for her portrayal of the family's strong-willed and contentious matriarch, who is suffering fromoral cancer and an addiction to narcotics. She was subsequently nominated for another Golden Globe, SAG, and Academy Award.[165]
In 2014'sThe Giver, a motion picture adaptation ofthe young adult novel, Streep played a community leader.[166] Set in 2048, the social science fiction film recounts the story of a post-apocalyptic community without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, where a young boy is chosen to learn the real world. Streep was aware of the book before being offered the role by co-star and producerJeff Bridges.[167] Upon its release,The Giver was met with generally mixed to negative reviews from critics.[168] Streep also had a small role in the period drama filmThe Homesman (2014). Set in the1850s midwest, the film starsHilary Swank andTommy Lee Jones as an unusual pair who help three women driven to madness by the frontier to get back East. Streep does not appear until near the end of the film, playing a preacher's wife, who takes the women into care.[169]The Homesman premiered at the2014 Cannes Film Festival where it garnered largely positive reviews from critics.[170]
Directed byRob Marshall,Into the Woods (also 2014) is a Disney film adaptation ofthe Broadway musical with music and lyrics byStephen Sondheim in which Streep plays a witch.[171] A fantasy genre crossover inspired by theGrimm Brothers' fairy tales, it centers on a childless couple who set out to end a curse placed on them by Streep's vengeful witch.[172][173] Though the film was dismissed by some critics such asMark Kermode as "irritating naffness",[174] Streep's performance earned her Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critic's Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress.[175] In July 2014, it was announced that Streep would portrayMaria Callas inMaster Class, but the project was pulled after directorMike Nichols's death in November of the same year.[176]
In 2015, Streep starred inJonathan Demme'sRicki and the Flash, playing a grocery store checkout worker by day who is a rock musician at night, and who has one last chance to reconnect with her estranged family.[177] Streep learned to play the guitar for the semi-autobiographical drama-comedy film,[178] which again featured Streep with her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer.[178] Reviews of the film were generally mixed.[179] Streep's other film of this time was directorSarah Gavron's period dramaSuffragette (also 2015), co-starringCarey Mulligan andHelena Bonham Carter. In the film, she played the small, but pivotal, role ofEmmeline Pankhurst, a British political activist and leader of the Britishsuffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote.[180] The film received mostly positive reviews, particularly for the performances of the cast, though its distributor earned criticism that Streep's prominent position within the marketing was misleading.[181]
Streep next starred as the first American female newspaper publisher,Katharine Graham, toTom Hanks'Ben Bradlee, inSteven Spielberg's political dramaThe Post (2017), which centers onThe Washington Post's publication of the 1971Pentagon Papers.[188] The film received positive reviews with praise directed to the performances of the two leads.[189]Manohla Dargis wrote that "Streep creates an acutely moving portrait of a woman who in liberating herself helps instigate a revolution".[190] It earned over $177 million against a budget of $50 million.[191] Streep received her 31st Golden Globe nomination and 21st Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.[192][193]
In 2018, Streep briefly reprised her role in the musical sequelMamma Mia! Here We Go Again.[194] She also played a supporting part in Rob Marshall'sMary Poppins Returns, a musical sequel to the 1964 filmMary Poppins starringEmily Blunt in the titular role.[195] Streep next featured in her first main role in a television series by starring in the second season of the HBO drama seriesBig Little Lies in 2019. She took on the part of Mary Louise Wright, the mother-in-law ofNicole Kidman's character.[196]Liane Moriarty, author of thenovel of the same name, on which the first season is based, wrote a 200-page novella that served as the basis for the second season. Moriarty decided to name the new character Mary Louise, after Streep's legal name. Streep subsequently agreed to the part without reading a script for the first time in her career.[197] Writing for theBBC,Caryn James labeled her performance "delicious and wily" and found her to be the "embodiment of a passive-aggressive granny".[198] She received anEmmy nomination for the show. The same year, Streep then starred in theSteven Soderbergh-directed biographical comedyThe Laundromat, about thePanama Papers, oppositeGary Oldman andAntonio Banderas. It was the first movie distributed byNetflix in which Streep starred.[199] She also played Aunt March inGreta Gerwig'sLittle Women, co-starring withSaoirse Ronan,Emma Watson,Florence Pugh,Timothée Chalamet, andLaura Dern.[200] David Rooney ofThe Hollywood Reporter praised Streep's performance writing, "Streep is clearly having a ball as the imperious snob who snorts with disapproval...[and] does her best to hide her affection for her nieces behind her narrowed gaze and all-purpose disdain".[201] The film received critical acclaim and grossed over $218 million against its $40 million budget.[202][203]
In 2020, she voiced a role in theApple TV+ animated short filmHere We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth.[204] Streep had leading roles in two films, both released bystreaming services. She reunited with Nicole Kidman forNetflix, inRyan Murphy'sThe Prom (2020), a film adaptation of the Broadwaymusical of the same name.[205] That same year she also reunited with director Steven Soderbergh for hisHBO Max comedy filmLet Them All Talk (2020).[206] Streep starred alongsideDianne Wiest,Candice Bergen,Lucas Hedges, andGemma Chan. Richard Lawson ofVanity Fair noted, "Streep could, in some senses, be approaching the film as a meta commentary on her own ivied stature as the world's greatest living actor (in some people's estimation, anyway). If that is what's happening, she never betrays her motivations with a wink. It's all played pretty earnestly".[207]
After Streep starred inMamma Mia!, her rendition of thetitular song rose to popularity on the Portuguese music charts, where it peaked at number eight in October 2008.[218] At the35th People's Choice Awards, her version of "Mamma Mia" won an award for "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack".[219] In 2008, Streep was nominated for aGrammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on theMamma Mia! soundtrack.[220] Streep has narrated numerous audio books, including three by children's book authorWilliam Steig:Brae Irene,Spinky Sulks, andThe One and OnlyShrek!.[221]
Streep is the spokesperson for the National Women's History Museum, to which she has made significant donations (including her fee forThe Iron Lady,which was $1 million), and hosted numerous events.[222] On October 4, 2012, Streep donated $1 million to The Public Theater in honor of both its late founder,Joseph Papp, and her friend, the authorNora Ephron.[223] She also supportsGucci's "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment.[224]
In 2014, Streep established two scholarships for students at theUniversity of Massachusetts Lowell – the Meryl Streep Endowed Scholarship for English majors, and the Joan Hertzberg Endowed Scholarship (named for Streep's former classmate atVassar College) for math majors.[225]
In April 2015, it was announced that Streep had funded a screenwriters lab for female screenwriters over forty years old, called the Writers Lab, to be run byNew York Women in Film & Television and the collective IRIS.[226][227] The Lab was the only one of its kind in the world for female screenwriters over forty years old.[227] In 2015, Streep signed an open letter for whichOne Campaign had been collecting signatures; the letter was addressed toAngela Merkel andNkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they served as heads of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa, respectively, in setting development funding priorities.[228] Also in 2015, Streep sent each member of the U.S. Congress a letter supporting theEqual Rights Amendment.[229] Each of her letters was sent with a copy of the bookEqual Means Equal: Why the Time for the ERA is Now byJessica Neuwirth, president of the ERA Coalition.[230]
When asked in a 2015 interview withTime Out if she was afeminist, Streep replied, "I am ahumanist, I am for nice easy balance."[231] In March 2016, Streep, among others, signed a letter asking for gender equality throughout the world, in observance ofInternational Women's Day; this was also organized by One Campaign.[232] In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up theTime's Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination.[233]
On April 25, 2017, Streep publicly backed the campaign to freeOleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker from Crimea who was subjected to a sham trial by Russia and jailed in Siberia for 20 years in August 2015. She was pictured alongside Ukrainian lawmakerMustafa Nayyem with a "Free Sentsov" sign in a photograph taken during the PEN America Annual Literary Gala on April 25, at which Sentsov was honoured with a 2017 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write award.[234]
In November 2014,President Barack Obama bestowed upon Streep thePresidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.[237] The citation reads as follows, "Meryl Streep is one of the most widely known and acclaimed actors in history. Ms. Streep has captured our imaginations with her unparalleled ability to portray a wide range of roles and attract an audience that has only grown over time, portraying characters who embody the full range of the human experience."[238] In January 2017,Viola Davis presented Streep with theCecil B. DeMille at theGolden Globes. Davis stated to Streep "You make me proud to be an artist".[239] In her acceptance speech, Streep quoted the recently departedCarrie Fisher, saying, "Take your broken heart and make it into art."[240]
Vanity Fair commented that "it's hard to imagine that there was a time before Meryl Streep was the greatest-living actress".[11] Emma Brockes ofThe Guardian notes that despite Streep's being "one of the most famous actresses in the world", it is "strangely hard to pin an image on Streep", in a career where she has "laboured to establish herself as an actor whose roots lie in ordinary life".[10] Despite her success, Streep has always been modest about her own acting and achievements in cinema. She has stated that she has no particular method when it comes to acting, learning from the days of her early studies that she cannot articulate her practice. She said in 1987, "I have a smattering of things I've learned from different teachers, but nothing I can put into a valise and open it up and say 'Now, which one would you like?' Nothing I can count on, and that makes it more dangerous. But then, the danger makes it more exciting." She has stated that her ideal director is one who gives her complete artistic control, allowing her to have a degree of improvisation and to learn from her mistakes.[241]
Women are better at acting than men. Why? Because we have to be. If successfully convincing somebody bigger than you of something he doesn't know is a survival skill, this is how women have survived through the millennia. Pretending is not just play. Pretending is imagined possibility. Pretending or acting is a very valuable life skill, and we all do it. All the time.
Karina Longworth notes how "external" Streep's performances are, "chameleonic" in her impersonation of characters, "subsuming herself into them, rather than personifying them". In her early roles such asManhattan andKramer vs. Kramer, she was compared to bothDiane Keaton andJill Clayburgh, in that her characters were unsympathetic, which Streep has attributed to the tendency to be drawn to playing women who are difficult to like and lack empathy.[241] Streep has stated that many consider her to be a technical actor, but she professed that it comes down to her love of reading the initial script, adding, "I come ready and I don't want to screw around and waste the first 10 takes on adjusting lighting and everybody else getting comfortable".[106]
Mike Nichols, who directed Streep inSilkwood,Heartburn,Postcards from the Edge, andAngels in America, praised Streep's ability to transform herself into her characters, remarking that, "In every role, she becomes a totally new human being. As she becomes the person she is portraying, the other performers begin to react to her as if she were that person."[242] He said that directing her is "so much like falling in love that it has the characteristics of a time which you remember as magical, but which is shrouded in mystery".[243] He also noted that Streep's acting ability had a profound impact on her co-stars, and that "one could improve by 1000% purely by watching her".[242] Longworth believes that in nearly every film, Streep has "sly infused" a feminist point of view in her portrayals.[244] However, film criticMolly Haskell has stated, "None of her heroines are feminist, strictly speaking. Yet, they uncannily embody various crosscurrents of experience in the last twenty years, as women have re-defined themselves against the background of the women's movement".[106]
For her role in the filmSophie's Choice (1982), Streep spoke both English and German with a Polish accent, as well as Polish itself.[247] InThe Iron Lady, she reproduced the vocal style ofMargaret Thatcher from the time before Thatcher became Britain's Prime Minister, and after she had taken elocution lessons to change her pitch, pronunciation, and delivery.[248][247] Streep has commented that using accents as part of her acting is a technique she views as an obvious requirement in her portrayal of a character.[249]When questioned inBelfast as to how she reproduces different accents, Streep replied in a reportedly "perfect" Belfast accent: "I listen."[250][251][249]
Politically, Streep has described herself as part of theAmerican Left.[252] She gave a speech at the2016 Democratic National Convention in support of presidential nomineeHillary Clinton.[253] In January 2017, Streep was honored with theCecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement at the74th Golden Globe Awards, during which she delivered a predominantly political speech that implicitly criticized President-electDonald Trump. She argued that Trump had a very strong platform and used it inappropriately to mock a disabled reporter,Serge F. Kovaleski, whom, in her words, Trump "outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back".[254] Trump responded by calling Streep "one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood", and "a Hillary flunky who lost big".[255]
While promotingSuffragette in 2015, Streep accused the review-aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes of disproportionately representing the opinions of male film critics, resulting in a skewed ratio that adversely affected the commercial performances of female-driven films.[256] In June 2023, Streep was reported as one of many A-List members of theSAG-AFTRA who signed a letter threatening to strike.[257]
Personal life
Relationships and family
Author Karina Longworth notes that despite her stardom, for decades Streep has managed to maintain a relatively normal personal life.[15] Streep lived with actorJohn Cazale in the 1970s, caring for him after hislung cancer diagnosis until he died in March 1978.[258] Streep said of his death:
I didn't get over it. I don't want to get over it. No matter what you do, the pain is always there in some recess of your mind, and it affects everything that happens afterwards. I think you can assimilate the pain and go on without making an obsession of it.[53]
Streep is the godmother ofBillie Lourd, daughter of fellow actress and close friendCarrie Fisher.[266] Fisher wrote the screenplay for Streep's 1990 filmPostcards from the Edge, based onFisher's book.[267]
Beliefs
When asked if religion plays a part in her life in 2009, Streep replied: "I follow no doctrine. I don't belong to a church or a temple or a synagogue or anashram."[268] In an interview in December 2008, she alluded to her lack of religious belief when she said:
So, I've always been really, deeply interested because I think I can understand the solace that's available in the whole construct of religion. But I really don't believe in the power of prayer, or things would have been avoided that have happened, that are awful. So, it's a horrible position as an intelligent, emotional, yearning human being to sit outside of the available comfort there. But I just can't go there.[269]
When asked where she draws consolation in the face of aging and death, Streep responded:
Consolation? I'm not sure I have it. I have a belief, I guess, in the power of the aggregate human attempt – the best of ourselves. In love and hope and optimism – you know, the magic things that seem inexplicable. Why we are the way we are. I do have a sense of trying to make things better. Where does that come from?[269]
^Streep's initial impression of Hoffman had been a negative one, thinking him to have been an "obnoxious pig" when she had first met him on stage several years earlier, and Hoffman had admitted that he initially "hated her guts", but respected her as an actress.[49]
^Despite Streep's own negative self-body-image, President Obama, while presenting theKennedy Center Honors, remarked, "Anyone who sawThe French Lieutenant's Woman had a crush on her ..."[63]
^The film was released outside Australia and New Zealand asA Cry in the Dark.
^abThe film was released worldwide asA Cry in the Dark, except in Australia and New Zealand, where it was released under the titleEvil Angels.[270]
Harry, Lou; Furman, Eric (2005).In the Can. Emmis Books. p. 138.ISBN9781578602384.Archived from the original on May 7, 2016.Meryl Streep, widely considered the best actress of her generation
^Pfaff & Emerson 1987, p. 16. "Her second year, the rage was "emotional recall" by a teacher who "delved into personal lives in a way that I found obnoxious."
^Travers, Peter (September 20, 1994)."The River Wild".Rolling Stone. New York City: Wenner Media LLC.Archived from the original on May 5, 2015. RetrievedMay 5, 2015.
^"Rendition (2007)".Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster.Archived from the original on May 22, 2011. RetrievedFebruary 11, 2011.
^Jacobs, Jay S. (June 27, 2007)."Some Enchanted Evening".Pop Entertainment.Archived from the original on November 28, 2010. RetrievedFebruary 17, 2011.
^"Evening (2007)".Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster.Archived from the original on December 12, 2010. RetrievedFebruary 11, 2011. -"Evening (2007)".Archived from the original on December 31, 2009. RetrievedFebruary 10, 2010.
^"The 81st Academy Awards | 2009". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. October 7, 2014.Archived from the original on November 10, 2014. RetrievedMay 13, 2015.
^Ebert, Roger."Doubt".Chicago Sun-Times.Archived from the original on March 26, 2015. RetrievedJuly 2, 2015.
^The Hollywood Reporter. Vol. 404. The Hollywood Reporter Incorporated. 2008. p. cxxxvii.Archived from the original on May 7, 2016.and her husband, sculptor Don Gummer, found a house in Brentwood (they eventually moved back to Connecticut). ...
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