IAN_NATHAN NARRATOR NEIL_NORMAN STEPHEN STEPHEN_AMSTRONG STEPHEN AMSTRONG Meryl Streep is the finest film actress of her generation. She is someone who can inhabit a role in a way that entirely subsumes her. IAN NATHAN She was always empathetic, and the key I think, to all her performances, is that she has to find an empathy with whoever she was portraying. NEIL NORMAN She is just a wonderful, wonderful actress, who brings everything and raises the game of everybody around her in each film she makes. Meryl Streep was born Mary Louise Streep on the 22nd of June 1949, in Summit, New Jersey. She was born into a fairly well-off middle-class family. She had two younger brothers, and her father was an executive in the pharmaceutical industry. Her mother was an artist and an art director. STEPHEN AMSTRONG Her mum was very influential in Meryl Streep�s life. She would later compare her to Dame Judy Dench, both in her manner and in her physicality. And she would tell Meryl all the time, �you�ve got the talent. You can do anything you want to do, provided you�re not lazy. Work, work, work, and you can do anything.� IAN NATHAN Her first performance was at the age of twelve, and it was a musical recital. She had quite a good singing voice when she was young, and when she performed, one of the mothers of a fellow student who was performing, went to Meryl Streep�s mother and said she should have lessons, she�s that good. And in fact, what she had was opera lessons. It�s an interesting start. From the age of twelve, for about four years, she studied opera quite intently. NARRATOR Meryl Streep joined a New York stage scene in 1975, and quickly established herself. While performing Shakespeare in the Park, she met John Cazale. STEPHEN AMSTRONG She was very successful as a stage actor. In 1976, she won a Tony Award for appearing in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, and that was also the year that she saw Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver, and realised, having avoided film, that actually, you could do great acting in film. IAN NATHAN Growing up, she had loved movies, but she said she always responded to the Classics channel. She loved Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck, and she loved Carol Lombard, and Katharine Hepburn. She loved that kind of classicism, but she loved the way that they kind of broke the rules, that they were kind of powerful women, but always fascinating and intelligent. She didn�t want to be a darling of the screen, an ingenue. STEPHEN AMSTRONG She was cast in Julia a film starring Jane Fonda as Lillian Hellman, which charts the particular course that she claimed that she took during the Second World War. NEIL NORMAN When Fred Zinnemann was making Julia, he looked at Meryl Streep for the title role, and in fact because he liked the look of her very much, he was vetoed from casting her in the title role because she wasn�t known as a film actress. STEPHEN AMSTRONG Meryl Streep�s scene in the film is a very, very brief scene, but there�s a touch to it that really gives you that feeling that Meryl Streep had something about her. The performance was enough that Jane Fonda essentially went back to Hollywood and went around telling everyone she could find that they should take a look at this Meryl Streep. IAN NATHAN The screen career of Meryl Streep actually took off very quickly once she had done Julia. She gained an Emmy for a mini-series of the Holocaust on television, and she was getting noticed, and was getting seen as someone getting quite credible roles. So, The Deer Hunter didn�t seem like a film, or a part she would particularly want. The character of Linda was really the love interest for two of the three male characters. STEPHEN AMSTRONG There were two reasons she took the part in the film. One, because she wanted to work with John Cazale because he was extremely ill and she wanted to work with him for as long as possible, but also, because she thought that given freedom, she could develop the character of Linda into a real woman. NEIL NORMAN She comes across, not only as this rather beautiful, almost disingenuous young lady, but you can tell That she�s going to be wounded. IAN NATHAN She doesn�t sort of act demonstrably. She kind of does it with small movements and vocal ticks, and at that stage of her career, great crying, she did a lot of emotional kind of trauma. What also began with The Deer Hunter was one of the most extraordinary runs of nominations and the award ceremonies in any career, probably in Hollywood history, I think, because she got nominations as Best Actress from the Golden Globes and from BAFTA, and a nomination for Best Supporting Actress from the Oscars. And this would virtually become every film she did. It was an incredible procession began, and then it seemed to become a joke that she was always nominated, but always deservedly. NARRATOR Meryl Streep�s role in Woody Allen�s Manhattan was a breakthrough for her. NEIL NORMAN In Manhattan, Woody Allen�s film about a television writer, who has affairs with a variety of women, but principally, about a very young under-age girl played by Mariel Hemingway. Meryl Streep plays an ex of his who is actually now in a lesbian relationship, and who�s writing a book which is a sort of tell-all memoir about her relationship with him. And of course, he�s terrified that a lot of information is going to come out about him. STEPHEN AMSTRONG There�s a very cutting silence to the way that she reacts to some of his general Woody Allen behaviour. She�s a very still point in the film, and then there�s a great moment towards the end where they read the book, and they read what she said, and it�s absolutely damning of him. IAN NATHAN It�s a very small part but was just a little indication against all these kinds of very dark and sort of sombre roles she was playing, that she was very funny as well; that she could do comedy. Kramer vs. Kramer was an event film of the time. Directed by Robert Benton, it was based on a novel. And it was about divorce, and about the battle for custody of a child. STEPHEN AMSTRONG When Meryl Streep took the part, she was very worried about the way the woman came across. She felt that she was one-dimensional, that she was portrayed as quite evil in the script, and she fought every step of the way, to give her more meaningful, heartfelt lines to say, to create a real woman, rather than just a witch, a baddie giving Dustin Hoffman something to fight against. She gave him something to emotionally react against. IAN NATHAN She could see the flaws, but she wanted to understand those flaws and give them life, and that�s what she does. She isn�t sympathetic, particularly, in the film, but you do get the sense of a complicated person, of someone who�s unwound, who�s kind of lost her way, and sort of reassembles herself, and learns; there is a redemptive arc for her character. STEPHEN AMSTRONG For Kramer vs. Kramer, Meryl Streep won the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. STEPHEN AMSTRONG The French Lieutenant�s Woman is�a film of two parts. One is set in the telling of the story of the French Lieutenant�s woman, which is a Victorian love story between Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep, but it�s framed by the filming of this story. So, Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep play the actors who are playing these two characters in this historical period drama. In both stories, they have a form of affair. NEIL NORMAN What you�ve got there, is a sort of dual love story. There�s nothing particularly original about the individual stories, but put together, it becomes a very, very interesting film, in the way that it actually explores what happens to actors in particular, when they�re playing lovers, and then what happens in real life as well as on the screen. IAN NATHAN The French Lieutenant�s Woman was another triumph for Meryl Streep. She would win the Golden Globe and the BAFTA for Best Actress and be nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress. So, it maintained this growing momentum that she was the serious talent of her time, and therefore, she would only do the roles that represented the serious talent of her time. NEIL NORMAN Sophie�s Choice� gave her the greatest role that she�d had to date, and this is the one, I think, that really, really put her on the map in terms of not just an extraordinary presence on screen, but an extraordinary actress, consummate actress. IAN NATHAN For some, I think, it�s the role that defines her. Such is the trauma at the centre of her character. It involves her European background and the Holocaust and Nazi guards and devastating moment. And when you watch it, the acting involved is both fantastically powerful, and incredibly controlled. NEIL NORMAN You can see everything�about her history in her face, in her eyes, in the moment she starts talking. And that is, I think, probably one of the key performances of her entire career. IAN NATHAN It�s about trauma, and about the past, and about how it defines who you are. And it�s about the things that Meryl wanted to portray at this stage of her career. Tragedy, and you know, people devastated by their own experiences. That seemed to be where she found the meat of great roles. STEPHEN AMSTRONG The film was a huge hit, and Meryl Streep won the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Actress.Silkwood stars Meryl Streep, Cher, and Kurt Russell, in a serious investigative piece about what happened to a union activist when she was trying to expose misbehaviour at a nuclear plant. NEIL NORMAN I think that this certainly appealed to� it certainly appealed to Streep�s actual political ideologies, without making a big meal of it. STEPHEN AMSTRONG Meryl Streep played Karen Silkwood through extensive research. She spent a lot of time with her friends, with her family. She spent a lot of time with union activists. She tried to get not who she was exactly. She didn�t want to do an impression, but she wanted to embody what it was that she would decide to do, and why she would make the decisions she made. IAN NATHAN It�s another of those lovely detailed Meryl Streep performances. She was the queen of detail. Out of Africa was of course, Sydney Pollack�s great epic, a chance to revive the David Lean format. It�s about this regal Danish woman Karen Blixen, Baroness Karen Blixen, who comes to Kenya to find her rather messy entrepreneur of a husband, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, who sets up this coffee plantation entirely in the wrong place, and is too badly mannered to really run it properly. And she sort of takes over, and it�s all about her relationship with Africa, and this incredible landscape. It�s about her relationship with Kikuyu tribe, and Farad, her chief workman who she has this incredible bond with, through these traumas they both sort of go through. And her relationship with Dennis, this debonair pilot who is played by Robert Redford. NEIL NORMAN It�s more to do with Karen Blixen�s romance with the place, the land that she�s on, her coffee plantation, her own sense of adventure and independence, or her struggle to maintain independence. STEPHEN AMSTRONG She portrays Blixen in a very unusual way. She�s not the wronged woman. She�s the impatient woman � what on earth am I doing with my time? And that gives a very particular edge to her character. It�s a very unconventional approach to romance and drama. NEIL NORMAN A Cry in the Dark sees Meryl Streep yet again playing another real-life person. In this case, Lindy Chamberlain, who was an Australian woman who was at the centre of what was called the dingo-baby case. IAN NATHAN She was born in New Zealand, but had come to Australia very young, and had this kind of very austere way of talking, in an Australian accent, very distinct. She was also a Seventh Adventist Christian and had very strict beliefs. This would bring her under suspicion and become pivotal to the plot. And the story is that she was out camping near Ayres Rock and one night, they were sitting having a barbecue, with Sam Neill, who plays her husband, and she glimpses a dingo dog, a wild dog, carrying something in its mouth and disappearing into the bush, and she panics because she has a baby left in the tent, and she rushes back to the tent, and the baby is gone. STEPHEN AMSTRONG When they went back to civilisation, gradually people started to suspect something else had happened and she went to court. The character, the real life character of the woman, the reason that the suspicion fell on her, was because she was very stoic and very philosophical, very stable in the way that she dealt with her tragedy, and people found that unbelievable, and Meryl Streep captures that particularly well. She captures the fact that she won�t give way. She won�t weep at the right point, just because it�s expected of her by the press, or in the court. NEIL NORMAN The challenge is, for any actress, is to actually get to grips with that role, get to grips with that person, and then somehow make her so that she�s neither; she doesn�t become over-sympathetic, and that you think from the word go, oh, she must be innocent, or at the same time, that�s she�s a villain. And of course, one of the very few actresses on the planet who could have pulled that off, is Meryl Streep. IAN NATHAN Passing the age of 40 Meryl Streep, I think, had not an epiphany, but certainly, a sort of sense of resolution to relax the kind of characters she was playing.Then she became interested in finding comedy as much as drama. Postcards from the Edge, was the first one to really sort of breakthrough as a Meryl Streep comedy. STEPHEN AMSTRONG The film is loosely based on the relationship between Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, an actress and her very camp, very over the top musical mum, who really don�t get on very well, but it�s beautifully portrayed by Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. IAN NATHAN There were so many elements of it that she was drawn to. She could do her own singing within it, and she could just kind of relax and not have to be Meryl Streep for a movie. She could be this other person, and this wonderful kind of ebullient character emerged, who was charming, and just fun, almost winking at the camera. NEIL NORMAN And once again, Meryl Streep was nominated for the Best Actress in every award going. NARRATOR Meryl Streep�s performance in Clint Eastwood�s Bridges of Madison County brought her further acclaim. NARRATOR Her next film, Charlie Kaufman�s Adaptation, was more absurdist. IAN NATHAN Adaptation is another sign of� Meryl Streep�s determination to cut loose, and to break the armour of her own reputation. It is Spike Jonze, and he had made Being John Malkovich, and become this kind of very hip director, known for madcap yet brilliant ideas that he wanted to put on film. STEPHEN AMSTRONG She plays opposite Nicholas Cage in the story of Charlie Kaufman, a real screenwriter, not played by Charlie Kaufman, played by Nicholas Cage, who�s struggling with writer�s block as he tries to adapt the story of a New Yorker journalist, who is studying a man who works with orchids, and who finds that his passion for orchids awakes passions in her. IAN NATHAN Adaptation would become a big hit, and Meryl Streep would be nominated for everything, and would win the Golden Globe for Best Actress. So she�s maintaining her aura as the great nominate-able Meryl Streep, which is exactly what the film is all about, really. STEPHEN AMSTRONG The Devil Wears Prada stars Meryl Streep, effectively as Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, although she�s called Miranda Priestly in this film. It�s a portrayal of� it�s a Roman � clef written by the person played by Anne Hathaway, who arrives at Runway, which is Vogue, and gets a job as her assistant, and deals with the craziness of working in fashion without having any real clear idea as to what�s going on. IAN NATHAN Streep said the key to the performance was that she never raises her voice. It is what she called quiet authority. So she created this great certainty within her voice that she would never be countermanded, that everything she said would be obeyed. The great disdain that she brought to the part, she took it entirely seriously. She said she was playing a character who took on her shoulders immense responsibility, and you had to understand that. And only then does the comedy emerge. NEIL NORMAN I can tell from the way she actually comes in like gangbusters, that this is one of those roles where Meryl Streep is going to take no prisoners. There are two or three roles that she knows she�s the dominant force. She knows she�s the central, centre of the film, and then she is absolutely going to dominate it. She does, quite rightly, and very, very amusingly. IAN NATHAN Mama Mia! of course became a phenomenon. I think it was born out of the idea of Meryl Streep just wanting to send up the idea of Meryl Streep. This madcap idea of telling the story of an independent woman and her young daughter living on a Greek island. It�s a gorgeous Greek island, and the daughter�s impending marriage, all told through the medium of ABBA songs. STEPHEN AMSTRONG, Critic, Sunday Times She�s Meryl Streep singing her absolute heart and soul out on these songs. There�s no holding back. This is a woman who used to sing opera. This is a woman giving everything to the performance. IAN NATHAN At the heart of it, I think there was something about sharing. I think[the audiences got it, because it was a film made available to them. Wives took husbands and elbowed them as Piers Brosnan began to sing because they could see the idiocy of their poor husbands in his character. There was something very honest about it all. It sort of stripped back stardom and said let�s have fun. IAN NATHAN It�s not deep. It�s silly stuff but everybody involved clearly is having a great time, and I think that�s what translates. It�s sheer goodwill and the sheer goodwill came with the music. NARRATOR Meryl Streep�s next great autobiographical achievement was as the life-affirming figure of Julia Child, the lady who brought cordon bleu cooking to America in Julie and Julia. After that she took on the role of the United Kingdom�s first female Prime Minister. STEPHEN AMSTRONG The Iron Lady sees Meryl Streep reunited with the director Phyllida Lloyd, and it�s the story of Margaret Thatcher towards the end of her life. NEIL NORMAN She puts it in the context of the fact that this is a woman who rose to become the first female leader in the Western world of any significance. And the challenges that that took, and the force of personality and intellect that that took. IAN NATHAN Streep said she wanted to investigate, and explore, and portray, a woman in a man�s world. She wanted to portray a woman who had to fight battles on a daily basis. She wanted to find the woman in Margaret Thatcher, beneath the warrior, beneath the fearsome woman who broke the unions. And I think that�s what she does. We find something more humane in it. STEPHEN AMSTRONG Florence Foster Jenkins has Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant as this complex couple. Meryl Streep is a socialite who loves singing. She loves opera. She loves music, and she believes she can sing. He is sort of living off her, but he loves her. He�s devoted to her. He wants everything to be all right for her. So, when she sets out on this course to become a singer, he�s worried, but he wants to make sure it will work And as she begins to take singing lessons, it becomes very, very clear that she cannot sing at all. IAN NATHAN But it really is a sign of how gifted Meryl Streep is as a performer, and as a singer. To be able to get the notes wrong on cue is a fine talent. And she said she had to learn all the arias, and learn them backwards almost, to be able to know exactly when to hit the wrong note, and the grating point of the music, how to get the rhythm of them wrong. This takes great musicality because the body wants to get it right, and the brain wants to get it right, and you have to almost force yourself, when you know how to do it well, to do it badly, and that�s very effective. NEIL NORMAN It�s actually rather hopeful because you think, does it really matter? You think, no, it�s the energy and the passion that matters, and the fact that she thought she could do it, rather than the fact that she couldn�t, and I think that�s what pours off the film, absolutely, and it pours through her performance, absolutely fabulous. IAN NATHAN The Post was Steven Spielberg�s riposte, I think, to matters of its day. The American media had come under great fire during the Trump era. The idea of fake news was spreading and Spielberg wanted to kind of fight back in a way, and make a film to honour American journalism, and in a sense, The Post is a prequel to All the President�s Men. It�s a story of the leaking of the Pentagon Papers. They were this sort of condemnation of the whole intervention in Vietnam. And the New York Times had broken this story and had been trapped by a court injunction from the government, to stop them publishing. So, it falls to the Washington Post, who get their hands on the material as well, to choose to publish or not. Is it for the greater good, or will it kill the newspapers?And it�s Kay Graham, who was the publisher, a woman in a man�s world, played by Meryl Streep, and they have to make this call. STEPHEN AMSTRONG What she found fascinating about Graham, was that Graham was a socialite. She had no experience in newspaper. She was surrounded by men who kept telling her what to do and kept trying to instruct her on where to go with things. She was trying to float the paper, and she in theory was out of her depth. And the film is about how Katharine Graham comes to her power, comes into who she is. IAN NATHAN And of course, with The Post, once again she would be Golden Globe and Oscar nominated, and it was every year now with the Oscars, it was like, who were the other four actresses who would be nominated besides Meryl? That was basically how it was spoken of, and one thing is true of all those nominations, as much as it became a sort of standing joke, even a joke Meryl told, was she never didn�t deserve them. She was that good. She was the kind of high-water mark of quality and that was why she was nominated so often. NEIL NORMAN Meryl Streep is continually working. She was in Little Women, which has appeared to great acclaim. She is one of those actresses who is constantly in demand. She brings grace and power and kudos to any project that she gets involved with. STEPHEN AMSTRONG She�s got range. She�s got ambition. She brings to each role something particular. She won�t take on a role if she doesn�t believe in it. If she takes on a role for a different reason, she�ll make that role something she believes in. She�ll change it. She�s absolutely active in what she wants it to be. And she came from that group of actors in the 1970s in New York who believed passionately that acting had a purpose. It wasn�t just fun. I wasn�t just a way to make money. It had a story to tell, and that�s what she is. She tells the best possible story in the best possible way.