"In the nearly four years of this series, no name has been mentioned more often, or with more respect, than that of tonight's guest.... She is one of those rare actors who defines her generation, her time, and her craft."
— James Lipton, Inside the Actors Studio 1998
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Widely acknowledged by critics and fans alike as the best actress working today or of her time, she is a three-time Academy Award winner from a record 21 nominations, as well as a record eight-time Golden Globe winner from a record 32 nominations.
Streep has tackled virtually every genre in Hollywood, including romantic comedies (Defending Your Life), serious dramas (Sophie's Choice, Doubt), action-adventure (The River Wild), comedies (She-Devil, Death Becomes Her), classic romances (Out of Africa), and even two musicals (Mamma Mia! and Into the Woods); about the only genre she hasn't been in (yet) is a superhero film. She has also appeared in, among others, The Devil Wears Prada, Silkwood, Angels in America (as an elderly male rabbi, among others), and Julie & Julia.
Streep has been described as "the successor to Bette Davis," and in fact, Davis herself endorsed Meryl's early work. Her versatility and ability to act with her eyes and face are now unique in Hollywood, but the talent evident in every film is reminiscent of Davis at her best. Onscreen, she plays characters with tremendous depth, but oddly Meryl has no "trademark" — she transforms herself completely for each role she plays in a way no female Hollywood actor has done before or since. (Her facility with accents is one of the most praised weapons in her arsenal.) Although critics have described her as "robotic" and "acting from the neck up," movies like Mamma Mia! provide evidence to the contrary.
She is currently the standard to which all other actresses and most actors as well are compared, and the phrase "You're no Meryl Streep" has been used on multiple occasions at all levels of the acting industry. In essence, she has defined the standards for not only her generation but every generation to come.
Selected Filmography:
- Julia (1977) — Anne Marie (film debut)
- The Deer Hunter (1978) — Linda
- Manhattan (1979) — Jill Davis
- Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) — Joanna Kramer (Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress)
- The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) — Sarah/Anna
- Sophie's Choice (1982) — Sophie Zawistowski (Academy Award for Best Actress)
- Silkwood (1983) — Karen Silkwood
- Out of Africa (1985) — Karen Dinesen
- Evil Angels (1988) — Lindy Chamberlain
- She-Devil (1989) — Mary Fisher
- Postcards from the Edge (1990) — Suzanne Vale
- Defending Your Life (1991) — Julia
- Death Becomes Her (1992) — Madeline Ashton
- The House of the Spirits (1993) — Clara del Valle Trueba
- The River Wild (1994) — Gail Hartman
- The Bridges of Madison County (1995) — Francesca Johnson
- One True Thing (1998) — Kate Gulden
- Music of the Heart (1999) — Roberta Guaspari
- A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) — Blue Mecha (voice)
- Adaptation. (2002) — Susan Orlean
- The Hours (2003) — Clarissa Vaughan
- Stuck on You (2003) — Herself
- The Manchurian Candidate (2004) — Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw
- A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) — Aunt Josephine
- Prime (2005) — Lisa Metzger Bloomberg
- A Prairie Home Companion (2006) — Yolanda Johnson
- The Devil Wears Prada (2006) — Miranda Priestly
- The Ant Bully (2006) — Queen Ant (voice)
- Lions for Lambs (2007) — Janine Roth
- Mamma Mia! (2008) — Donna Sheridan
- Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)
- Doubt (2008) — Sister Aloysius Beauvier
- Julie & Julia (2009) — Julia Child
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) — Mrs. Fox (voice)
- It's Complicated (2009) — Jane Adler
- The Iron Lady (2011) — Margaret Thatcher (Academy Award for Best Actress)
- Hope Springs (2012)
- August: Osage County (2013) — Violet Weston
- The Giver (2014) — Chief Elder
- Into the Woods (2014) — The Witch
- Ricki and the Flash (2015) — Ricki Rendazzo
- Suffragette (2015) — Emmeline Pankhurst
- Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) — Florence Foster Jenkins
- The Post (2017) — Kay Graham
- Mary Poppins Returns (2018) — Topsy
- The Laundromat (2019)
- Little Women (2019) — Aunt March
- Big Little Lies (2019) — Mary Louise Wright
- Don't Look Up (2021) — President Janie Orlean
- Extrapolations (2023)
- Only Murders in the Building (2023)
- The Cameo: As herself in Stuck On You.
Tropes associated with her work:
- Ability over Appearance: She nearly got turned down for some roles because the directors felt she wasn't beautiful enough - but her performances were enough to win them over. Sophie's Choice (written for Ursula Andress), The Bridges of Madison County (written for Isabella Rosselini) and The French Lieutenant's Woman (written for Helen Mirren) - in which Meryl herself felt she wasn't pretty enough.
- Actor-Inspired Element:
- Her character in Death Becomes Her was scripted to have an affair with a younger man, but Meryl suggested a rewrite.
- She felt Joanna in Kramer vs. Kramer was written to be "too evil" and had the part rewritten accordingly.
- Miranda's line in The Devil Wears Prada was going to be "everybody wants to be me", but she suggested "us" instead.
- Ascended Extra: In The Giver the Chief Elder is a pretty small role. But Meryl's counterpart in the film is much more prominent.
- Awesome, Dear Boy:
- She has refused to play witches in films for years, but did Into the Woods because it was a Stephen Sondheim musical. She also joked that since the Witch became young and beautiful again, it was a little better.
- She signed on to Rendition immediately because she was rarely offered scripts for political thrillers.
- She did She-Devil because she wanted to do a comedy role.
- Death Becomes Her was in her words "too original to pass up".
- Beauty Inversion: For Into the Woods she's done up to look like a hag in the Witch's 'before' self. Meryl joked that it took more make-up to have her look beautiful when the Witch regains her youth.
- Best Known for the Fanservice: Seth McFarlane pointed out in his "We Saw Your Boobs" number at the Oscars that Silkwood is where Meryl herself went topless.
- Bilingual Backfire: She auditioned for the female lead in King Kong (1976). Dino Delaurentiis said to his son in Italian (who had recommended Meryl) "why do you bring me this ugly thing?" - not knowing Meryl herself spoke Italian. She then replied "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."
- Career Resurrection: Believe it or not, Meryl suffered some setbacks in the 90s. Hype Backlash set in and some of her films were poorly received by critics - she herself growing tired of endless dramatic roles. She longed to go against type, many of these roles not doing that well either. With The Bridges of Madison County, she was back in prominence. Mamma Mia! was a significant turning point for her - marking her highest grossing film."The greatest actress in American movies has finally become a movie star."
- The Cast Show Off: Meryl has shown off her singing in Mamma Mia!, Into the Woods, Death Becomes Her, Silkwood, Marvin's Room and Ricki and the Flash.
- Celebrity Resemblance: Has said that she's been mistaken for Glenn Close.
- Creator Backlash: The French Lieutenant's Woman is the performance she feels is her weakest (despite the Oscar nomination)."I didn't feel I was living it."
- Creator Breakdown: When filming that scene in Sophie's Choice, she did only one take and refused to do another. As a mother, she found the scene that distressing. She never watched the scene back until years later when she was being interviewed on The Oprah Winfrey Show - where it was sprung on her and she is visibly uncomfortable afterwards.
- Deleted Role: Her first film Julia had her scenes heavily cut down. She still impressed Robert De Niro enough to be cast in The Deer Hunter.
- Doing It for the Art:
- Ricki and the Flash was put on hold for seven months so Meryl could learn to play guitar for it.
- For a scene in Out of Africa where Karen meets and greets several servants, it was filmed as one long continuous take. As soon as the camera rolled, a beetle crawled into Meryl's jacket. She carried on with the take.
- Dye Hard: Naturally brunette, but best known as a blonde these days.
- Dyeing for Your Art: For The Bridges of Madison County she gained weight, feeling it was the right fit for the character.
- Enforced Method Acting:
- On the first day of The Devil Wears Prada Meryl said to Anne Hathaway - "I think you're perfect for this part and I'm going to enjoy working with you" - and then to remember that, because it would be the last nice thing she said. She kept her distance from everyone, feeling she couldn't properly "chill the blood" as Miranda. Emily Blunt joked that as soon as the movie wrapped, Meryl ran across the car park shouting "you were so good!"
- She and Mamie Gummer didn't see each other during production of Ricki and the Flash in order to create a feeling of isolation between their characters.
- For the "Slipping Through My Fingers" scene in Mamma Mia!, she and Amanda Seyfried had heavy metal music blasted at them to get them to laugh hysterically.
- Fake Nationality: It's her specialty. The complete list is English (The Iron Lady, The French Lieutenant's Woman), Danish (Out of Africa), Polish (Sophie's Choice), Irish (Dancing at Lughnasa), Italian (The Bridges of Madison County), Australian (A Cry In The Dark) and German (Holocaust).
- Fan Community Nickname: The Streepers.
- Fatal Method Acting: Two near-misses.
- The River Wild - an exhausted Meryl was persuaded to do one more take of a raft scene. She got swept off the raft and nearly drowned.
- Into the Woods - she tripped on her dress and fell head-first towards a concrete floor. Emily Blunt swooped in and caught her. Emily Blunt who was five months pregnant at the time.
- Hollywood Old: She was a full ten years younger than Florence Foster Jenkins and had to have her costumes padded to match Florence's more matronly appearance.
- Irony as She Is Cast: In Florence Foster Jenkins she plays a ferociously bad opera singer, despite demonstrating that she is quite a gifted singer in real life.
- Method Acting: She gave it a try for The Devil Wears Prada, isolating herself from the other actors. Not being able to join in their fun made her so miserable that she's never done it again.
- Mentor Archetype: Meta. It would be easier and shorter to make a list of young actors that don't cite her as their influence and inspiration.
- Money, Dear Boy: Admits that the miniseries Holocaust was done entirely for the money.
- Old Shame:
- When asked by a journalist to name one bad film she's done, she picked Still of the Night.
- When accepting an award, she thanked Harvey Weinstein, calling him “God”. Needless to say, she has since become quite embarrassed by that.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: She was nicknamed 'Meryl' as a child and only named Mary because it was family tradition.
- Playing Against Type: Played with, since she does have plenty of range. But most of her roles are serious and dramatic, and a film is automatically considered Oscar Bait if she's in it. The films that don't conform to that:
- She-Devil - a satirical comedy where she plays a glamorous writer. It marked her first out and out comedy.
- Death Becomes Her - another satirical comedy where she plays a woman looking to regain her youth and beauty.
- Mamma Mia! and Into the Woods are musicals, the latter of which featuring her playing a witch for the first time.
- The Giver is dystopian sci-fi.
- Ricki and the Flash is a dramedy where she plays an ageing rock star.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events - a children's fantasy film where she plays a batty Cloud Cuckoo Lander. Funnily enough, the same character would later be played by a typically dramatic actress again when Alfre Woodard took the role in the Netflix series.
- It's Complicated - a light-hearted Romantic Comedy.
- Playing Hamlet: Her character Donna in Mamma Mia! is apparently supposed to be a good deal younger than her real age, made especially clear in the sequel when Cher, only three years Streep's senior, plays Donna's mother.
- Real-Life Relative: Her daughter Mamie Gummer has starred alongside her in Evening (playing Meryl's younger self) and Ricki and the Flash (as Meryl's daughter).
- So My Kids Can Watch:
- She appeared in the The Simpsons episode "Bart's Girlfriend" precisely for this reason, even asking for Nancy Cartwright's autograph.
- She played Aunt Josephine in A Series of Unfortunate Events because her daughter was a fan of the books.
- Spell My Name with an S: She laments that her last name isn't 'Street'.
- Star-Making Role: Very quick out of the gate with The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer bringing her to national attention. You could argue that her Oscar win for Sophie's Choice really solidified Meryl as a star.
- What Could Have Been:
- She initially was going to be the title role in She-Devil but found it too similar to A Cry In The Dark, so she opted to play Mary instead.
- She replaced Madonna in Music of the Heart. Madonna herself was chosen over Meryl in Evita.
- She was in talks to star in a remake of A Streetcar Named Desire in the 80s. She wasn't available, so it became a TV project with Anne Margaret as Blanche.
- The four roles she's been turned down for? Elizabeth (played by Cate Blanchett), American Gigolo (played by Lauren Hutton), Sweet Dreams (played by Jessica Lange) and The Remains of the Day (played by Emma Thompson).
