124-517: Mary Louise " Meryl " Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including a record 21 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and a record 34 Golden Globe Award nominations, winning eight. Streep made her stage debut in 1975 in Trelawny of
248-590: A Critics' Choice Television Award . After Streep starred in Mamma Mia! , her rendition of the titular song rose to popularity on the Portuguese music charts, where it peaked at number eight in October 2008. At the 35th People's Choice Awards , her version of "Mamma Mia" won an award for "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack". In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on
372-630: A Doctorate of Fine Arts . The first university to award her an Honorary Degree was Dartmouth College , where she spent time as a transfer student in 1970, in 1981. In 1998, Women in Film awarded Streep with the Crystal Award . In 1999, she was awarded a George Eastman Award , given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film. In 2004, at the Moscow International Film Festival , she
496-738: A Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 53rd Berlin International Film Festival , who later recognized her with an Honorary Golden Bear at their 62nd ceremony . Her portrayal as Lindy Chamberlain in Evil Angels earned her a Cannes Film Festival Award . In 1976, Streep won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Performance for her stage debut in Trelawny of the 'Wells' and Tennessee Williams ' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton . The latter work also earned her nominations for Best Actress at
620-412: 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. At age 12, Streep was selected to sing at a school recital, leading to her having opera lessons from Estelle 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
744-653: A British biographical film about Margaret Thatcher , which takes a look at the Prime Minister during the Falklands War and her years in retirement. Streep, who attended a session of the House of Commons to see British Members of Parliament (MPs) in action in preparation for her role as Thatcher, called her casting "a daunting and exciting challenge". While the film had a mixed reception, Streep's performance gained rave reviews, earning her Best Actress awards at
868-488: A British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. 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. Following the duties of the president at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in 2016, Streep starred in
992-481: A Comedy , and received Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA nominations. Streep next starred as the first American female newspaper publisher, Katharine Graham , to Tom Hanks ' Ben Bradlee , in Steven Spielberg 's political drama The Post (2017), which centers on The Washington Post ' s publication of the 1971 Pentagon Papers . The film received positive reviews with praise directed to
1116-839: A Gala Tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 2008, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2011. President Barack Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts in 2010 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. In 2003, the French government made her a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters . She was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2017. Mary Louise Streep
1240-551: A Jewish artist played by James Woods in Nazi era Germany. She found the material to be "unrelentingly noble" and professed to have taken on the role for financial gain. 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. With an estimated audience of 109 million, Holocaust brought
1364-673: A May 1978 "Theater in America" television production for PBS 's Great Performances . She replaced Glenn Close , who played the role in the Off-Broadway production at the Phoenix Theatre . Hoping to divert herself from the grief of Cazale's death, Streep accepted a role in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) as the chirpy love interest of Alan Alda , later commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot". She performed
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#17327800990901488-529: A U.S. government official who investigates an Egyptian foreign national suspected of terrorism in the political thriller Rendition (2007), directed by Gavin Hood . 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. Upon its release, Rendition was less commercially successful, and received mixed reviews. In this period, Streep had
1612-527: A blog, Julie and Julia contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking . 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
1736-811: A colossal waste of a talented cast". She had a role in Robert Redford 's Lions 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. Like Evening , 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. Streep found major commercial success when she starred in Phyllida Lloyd 's Mamma Mia! (2008),
1860-448: A departure from the dramatic roles she was known to play. 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." Biographer Karen Hollinger described
1984-413: A different scene. I thought, I've made a terrible mistake, no more movies. I hate this business." 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". Robert De Niro, who had spotted Streep in her stage production of The Cherry Orchard , suggested that she play the role of his girlfriend in
2108-574: 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 1991 University of Iowa shooting , and initially scheduled for a 2007 release, producers and investors decided to shelve Dark Matter out of respect for the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting in April 2007. The drama received negative to mixed reviews upon its limited 2008 release. Streep played
2232-468: A film adaptation of the musical of the same name , based on the songs of Swedish pop group ABBA . Co-starring Amanda Seyfried , Pierce Brosnan , Stellan Skarsgård , Colin Firth , Julie Walters , and Christine 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
2356-480: A film adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name . That same year she also reunited with director Steven Soderbergh for his HBO Max comedy film Let Them All Talk (2020). Streep starred alongside Dianne Wiest , Candice Bergen , Lucas Hedges , and Gemma Chan . Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair noted, "Streep could, in some senses, be approaching the film as a meta commentary on her own ivied stature as
2480-798: A film with heavy special effects. Streep appeared with Jeremy Irons , Glenn Close and Winona Ryder in The House of the Spirits (1993), set in Chile during Augusto Pinochet 's dictatorship. The film was not well received by critics. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote: "This is really quite an achievement. It brings together Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas , and Vanessa Redgrave and insures that, without exception, they all give their worst performances ever". The following year, Streep starred in The River Wild , as
2604-558: A housewife dying of cancer in One True Thing . The film met with positive reviews. Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle declared, "After One 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
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#17327800990902728-486: A little mixed up." Vincent Canby of The 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". In 1989, Streep lobbied to play the lead role in Oliver Stone 's adaption of the play Evita , but two months before filming was due to commence, she dropped out, citing "exhaustion" initially, although it
2852-537: A movie star." Doubt (also 2008) features Streep with Philip Seymour Hoffman , Amy Adams , and Viola Davis . A drama revolving around the stern principal nun (Streep) of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 who brings accusations of pedophilia against a popular priest (Hoffman), the film became a moderate box office success, 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 for John Patrick Shanley 's script. Ebert, who awarded
2976-603: A record-breaking 30th nomination for Florence Foster Jenkins ( 2017 ). With her fifteenth nomination for Florence Foster Jenkins in 2017 , Streep tied with Judi Dench for the most-nominated actor at the BAFTA Awards . She has won the award for Best Actress twice for her roles in The French Lieutenant's Woman ( 1982 ) and The Iron Lady ( 2012 ). For her work in The Hours , Streep received
3100-523: A relationship with Cazale at this time, and resided with him until his death three years later. She starred in the musical Happy End on Broadway, and won an Obie for her performance in the off-Broadway play Alice at the Palace . Although Streep had not aspired to become a film actor, Robert De Niro 's performance in Taxi Driver (1976) had a profound impact on her; she said to herself, 'That's
3224-522: A short role alongside Vanessa Redgrave , Glenn Close , and her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer in Lajos Koltai 's drama film Evening (2007), based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan 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. The film was released to a lukewarm reaction from critics, who called it "beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull [and]
3348-535: 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." At the Screen 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
3472-544: A somewhat unsophisticated childhood." Streep entered the 2000s with a voice cameo in Steven Spielberg 's A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), a science fiction film about a childlike android , played by Haley Joel Osment . The same year, Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert with Liam Neeson which was held in Oslo, Norway , on December 11, 2001, in honour of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
3596-521: A story drama The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) was Streep's first leading role. The film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story, as well as the Victorian 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". A New York magazine article commented that, while many female stars of
3720-602: A struggling actress, from the third season of the Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building , starring Steve Martin , Martin Short and Selena Gomez . Leila Latif of The Guardian wrote, "Streep, unsurprisingly, plays Loretta beautifully, truly tapping into the agony of a woman who's faced a lifetime of rejection but somehow kept her dream alive". She received a Golden Globe , and Primetime Emmy Award nomination and won
3844-541: A supporting part in Rob Marshall's Mary Poppins Returns , a musical sequel to the 1964 film Mary Poppins starring Emily Blunt in the titular role. Streep next featured in her first main role in a television series by starring in the second season of the HBO drama series Big Little Lies in 2019. She took on the part of Mary Louise Wright, the mother-in-law of Nicole Kidman 's character. Liane Moriarty , author of
Meryl Streep - Misplaced Pages Continue
3968-405: A thoughtful look at mature relationships". In 2013, Streep starred alongside Julia Roberts and Ewan McGregor in the black comedy drama August: Osage County (2013) about a dysfunctional family that re-unites into the familial house when their patriarch suddenly disappears. Based on Tracy Letts 's Pulitzer Prize-winning eponymous play , Streep received positive reviews for her portrayal of
4092-570: A troubled wife in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), followed by the Academy Award for Best Actress for starring as a Holocaust survivor in Sophie's Choice (1982). She continued to gain awards and critical acclaim for her film work throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Commercial success varied, with Out of Africa (1985), Death Becomes Her (1992), and The Bridges of Madison County (1995) earning
4216-478: A very young age. 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. Streep
4340-471: A wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato . She was a student of choreographer Carmen de Lavallade , whom she introduced at the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors . Another of her teachers was Robert Lewis , a co-founder of the Actors Studio . Streep disapproved of some of the acting exercises she was asked to do, remarking that one professor taught
4464-454: A whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms." In 2008, Molly Haskell praised Streep's performance in Plenty , believing it to be "one of Streep's most difficult and ambiguous" films and "most feminist" role. Longworth considers Streep's next release, Out of Africa (1985), to have established her as a Hollywood superstar. In the film, Streep starred as
4588-489: A wide audience; she co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the dramas Heartburn (1986) and Ironweed (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time since the "Great Performances" telecast of the Phoenix Theater production of Secret Service (1977). In Evil Angels (1988), she played Lindy Chamberlain , an Australian woman who had been convicted of the murder of her infant daughter despite claiming that
4712-570: A wider degree of public recognition to Streep, who found herself "on the verge of national visibility". She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her performance. Despite the awards success, Streep was still not enthusiastic towards her film career and preferred acting on stage. She played the supporting role of Leilah in Wendy Wasserstein 's Uncommon Women and Others in
4836-492: A witch. A fantasy genre crossover inspired by the Grimm Brothers ' fairy tales, it centers on a childless couple who set out to end a curse placed on them by Streep's vengeful witch. Though the film was dismissed by some critics such as Mark Kermode as "irritating naffness", Streep's performance earned her Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critic's Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In July 2014, it
4960-434: A woman who's at once wildly idiosyncratic and utterly believable." Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth 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". Streep portrayed Roberta Guaspari , a real-life New Yorker who found passion and enlightenment teaching violin to
5084-458: 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 producer Jeff Bridges . Upon its release, The Giver was met with generally mixed to negative reviews from critics. Streep also had a small role in the period drama film The Homesman (2014). Set in the 1850s midwest , the film stars Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones as an unusual pair who help three women driven to madness by
Meryl Streep - Misplaced Pages Continue
5208-519: 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. William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the role of Sophie, but Streep was determined to get the role. Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take and refused to do it again, finding it extremely painful and emotionally exhausting. That scene, in which Streep
5332-604: Is back in top form. This means her performance in Out of Africa is at the highest level of acting in film today." Longworth notes that the dramatic success of Out 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 as Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise , Streep "never seemed to play herself", and certain critics felt her technical finesse led people to literally see her acting. Her next films did not appeal to
5456-677: 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". The film received critical acclaim and grossed over $ 218 million against its $ 40 million budget. In 2020, she voiced a role in the Apple TV+ animated short film Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth . Streep had leading roles in two films, both released by streaming services . She reunited with Nicole Kidman for Netflix , in Ryan Murphy 's The Prom (2020),
5580-539: Is it. This is what you get." She continued to work on Broadway , appearing in the 1976 double bill of Tennessee Williams ' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Arthur Miller 's A Memory of Two Mondays . She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play . Streep's other Broadway credits include Anton Chekhov 's The Cherry Orchard and the Bertolt Brecht - Kurt Weill musical Happy End , in which she had originally appeared off-Broadway at
5704-413: 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
5828-450: Is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine". 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". In 1983, Streep played her first non-fictional character,
5952-417: Is ordered by an SS guard at Auschwitz to choose which of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp, is her most famous scene, according to Emma Brockes of The 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". Among several acting awards, Streep won
6076-565: The Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and her characterization was voted the third greatest movie performance of all time by Premiere magazine. 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
6200-615: The Academy Award for Best Picture . In 1979, Streep began workshopping Alice in Concert , a musical version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , with writer and composer Elizabeth Swados and director Joseph Papp ; the show was put on at New York's Public Theater from December 1980. Frank Rich of The New York Times referred to Streep as the production's "one wonder", but questioned why she devoted so much energy to it. By 1980, Streep had progressed to leading roles in films. She
6324-515: The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress , which she famously left in the ladies' room after giving her speech. She received awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association , National Board of Review and National Society of Film Critics for her collective work in her three film releases of 1979. Both The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer were major commercial successes and were consecutive winners of
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#17327800990906448-507: The Chelsea Theater Center . She received Drama Desk Award nominations for both productions. Streep's first feature film role came opposite Jane Fonda in the 1977 film Julia , 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
6572-791: The Drama Desk and Tony Award . The following year, she was a double nominee at the Drama Desk Award for the featured role in The Cherry Orchard and starred in the musical Happy End . Streep won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie for her roles in the miniseries Holocaust ( 1978 ) and Angels in America ( 2003 ). She also won Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for her work on documentary Five Came Back ( 2017 ). In 1983, Yale University , from which Streep graduated in 1975, awarded her an Honorary Degree ,
6696-611: The Golden Globes and the BAFTAs , as well as her third win at the 84th Academy Awards . Former advisers, friends, and family of Thatcher criticized Streep's portrayal of her as "inaccurate" and "biased". The following year, after Thatcher'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". Streep re-united with Prada director David Frankel on
6820-560: The Honorary Golden Bear in 2012, and the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2017. She received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2011 and President Barack Obama presented her with National Medal of Arts in 2010 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. She holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor , having been nominated 21 times—17 for Best Actress , and four for Best Supporting Actress —since
6944-452: The Mamma Mia! soundtrack. Streep has narrated numerous audio books, including three by children's book author William Steig : Brae Irene , Spinky Sulks , and The One and Only Shrek! . List of awards and nominations received by Meryl Streep American actress Meryl Streep has been recognized with multiple awards and nominations for her work on screen and stage , including being one of few individuals to be nominated for both
7068-566: The Stephen Frears -directed comedy Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), an eponymous biopic about a blithely unaware tone-deaf opera singer who insists upon public performance. Other cast members were Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg . Robbie Collin considered it to be one of her most "human performance" and felt that it was "full of warmth that gives way to heart-pinching pathos". She won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in
7192-619: The Triple Crown of Acting and EGOT . Streep has won three Academy Awards , two BAFTA Awards , 9 Golden Globe Awards , three Emmy Awards , and two Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as nominations for 7 Grammy Awards and a Tony Award . She received numerous honorary accolades including an Honorary César in 2003, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004,
7316-461: The Yale 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. Streep played a variety of roles on stage, from Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream to an 80-year-old woman in
7440-469: The novel 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. Writing for the BBC , Caryn James labeled her performance "delicious and wily" and found her to be
7564-724: The nuclear whistleblower and labor union activist Karen Silkwood , who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant, in Mike Nichols ' biographical film Silkwood . Streep felt a personal connection to Silkwood, 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. 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
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#17327800990907688-803: The "embodiment of a passive-aggressive granny". She received an Emmy nomination for the show. The same year, Streep then starred in the Steven Soderbergh -directed biographical comedy The Laundromat , about the Panama Papers , opposite Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas . It was the first movie distributed by Netflix in which Streep starred. She also played Aunt March in Greta Gerwig 's Little Women , co-starring with Saoirse Ronan , Emma Watson , Florence Pugh , Timothée Chalamet , and Laura Dern . David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter praised Streep's performance writing, "Streep
7812-498: The "poised and imperious Miranda", drew rave reviews from critics, and earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as another Golden Globe. On its commercial release, the film became Streep's biggest commercial success to this point, grossing more than US$ 326.5 million worldwide. She portrayed a wealthy university patron in Chen Shi-zheng 's much-delayed feature drama Dark Matter ,
7936-542: 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. A significant commercial success, the film won a Golden Globe for Best Picture. It also earned Streep another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and the film ultimately won Best Picture. Film critic Stanley Kauffmann praised her performance, writing "Meryl Streep
8060-444: The Danish writer Karen Blixen , opposite Robert Redford 's Denys Finch Hatton . Director Sydney Pollack was initially dubious about Streep in the role, as he did not think she was sexy enough, and had considered Jane 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." Streep and Pollack often clashed during
8184-407: The Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. The Public Theater production was a new translation by playwright Tony Kushner, with songs in the Weill/Brecht style written by composer Jeanine Tesori ; veteran director George C. Wolfe was at the helm. Streep starred alongside Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton in this three-and-a-half-hour play. Around the same time, Streep, along with Lily Tomlin , portrayed
8308-473: The United Nations and Kofi Annan . In 2001, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in The Public Theater 's revival of Anton Chekhov 's The Seagull , directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Kevin Kline , Natalie Portman , John Goodman , Marcia Gay Harden , Stephen Spinella , Debra Monk , Larry Pine and Philip Seymour Hoffman . Streep's son, Henry Gummer, later to be known as musician Henry Wolfe ,
8432-437: The United States who waves off the fears of climate change . In his mixed review, Peter DeBruge of Variety compared her performance of that of Donald Trump , adding she was "clearly having more fun than we are". Streep served as an executive producer on Sell/Buy/Date (2022), directed by Sarah Jones . She acted in the Apple TV+ anthology series Extrapolations (2023). Later that year, she began playing Loretta Durkin,
8556-404: The Wells , and the following year she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for a double-bill production of 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and A Memory of Two Mondays . She made her feature film debut in Julia (1977) and received her first Oscar nomination for The Deer Hunter (1978). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing
8680-459: The baby had been taken by a dingo . Filmed in Australia, Streep won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role , a Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival , and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress . 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
8804-495: The character in the book to emulate voluptuous Italian film stars such as Sophia Loren . Both Loren and Anna Magnani were an influence in her portrayal, and Streep viewed Pier Paolo Pasolini 's Mamma Roma (1962) prior to filming. The film was a box office hit and grossed over $ 70 million in the United States. The film, unlike the novel, was warmly received by critics. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that Eastwood had managed to create "a moving, elegiac love story at
8928-476: The contrast in her "wittily realized" character with love interest Chris Cooper 's "lank-haired, toothless charisma" as the autodidact arrested for poaching rare orchids. Streep appeared alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in Stephen Daldry 's The Hours (2002), based on the 1999 novel by Michael Cunningham . Focusing on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by
9052-458: The drama Kramer vs. Kramer , Streep was cast opposite Dustin 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. In preparing for
9176-506: 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. Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family,
9300-562: The emotional recall technique by delving into personal lives in a way she found "obnoxious". She received her MFA in drama from Yale in 1975. She also enrolled as a visiting student at Dartmouth College in 1970, and received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the college in 1981. One of Streep's first professional jobs in 1975 was at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center 's National Playwrights Conference, during which she acted in five plays over six weeks. She moved to New York City in 1975, and
9424-505: The expression of their problems." The film was well received, and Streep earned another Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Streep's performance in ...First Do No Harm (1997) garnered her a second Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie . In 1998, Streep first appeared opposite Michael Gambon and Catherine McCormack in Pat O'Connor 's Dancing at Lughnasa , another Broadway adaptation , which
9548-489: The extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else, but what she's doing." 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". For the film, Streep won both the Golden Globe Award and
9672-473: The family's strong-willed and contentious matriarch, who is suffering from oral cancer and an addiction to narcotics. She was subsequently nominated for another Golden Globe, SAG, and Academy Award. In 2014's The Giver , a motion picture adaptation of the young adult novel , Streep played a community leader. Set in 2048, the social science fiction film recounts the story of a post-apocalyptic community without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, where
9796-428: The film from Robert James Waller 's novel of the same name . It relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for National 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. She gained weight for the part and dressed differently from
9920-484: The film industry. She criticized the film industry for downplaying the importance of women both on screen and off. After roles in the comedy-drama Postcards from the Edge (1990), and the comedy-fantasy Defending Your Life (1991), Streep starred with Goldie Hawn in the farcical black comedy, Death Becomes Her (1992), with Bruce Willis as their co-star. Streep persuaded writer David Koepp to re-write several of
10044-792: The film the full four stars, highlighted Streep's caricature of a nun, who "hates all inroads of the modern world", while Kelly Vance of The 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." In 2009, Streep played chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron 's Julie & Julia , co-starring with Stanley Tucci , and again with Amy Adams . (Tucci and Streep had worked together earlier in Devil Wears Prada .) The first major motion picture based on
10168-421: The film was an homage to the works of Alfred 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". Greater success came later in the year when Streep starred in the drama Sophie's Choice (also 1982), portraying a Polish survivor of Auschwitz caught in a love triangle between
10292-650: The film, she played Lisa Metzger, the Jewish psychoanalyst of a divorced and lonesome business-woman, played by Uma 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. 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". In August and September 2006, Streep starred onstage at The Public Theater 's production of Mother Courage and Her Children at
10416-759: The first nomination in 1978 for her performance in The Deer Hunter . She has won three times for her work in Kramer vs. Kramer ( 1980 ), Sophie's Choice ( 1983 ), and The Iron Lady ( 2012 ), making her the fifth actor to win three competitive acting Academy Awards . In 2009 , Streep became the most-nominated performer in the Golden Globe Awards history when her Best Actress nominations for Doubt and Mamma Mia! gave her 23 in total, surpassing Jack Lemmon ’s previous record of 22. Three years later , she garnered her eighth win for The Iron Lady , more than any actors. She received
10540-493: 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. The Homesman premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it garnered largely positive reviews from critics. Directed by Rob Marshall , Into the Woods (also 2014) is a Disney film adaptation of the Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim in which Streep plays
10664-408: The guitar for the semi-autobiographical drama-comedy film, which again featured Streep with her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer. Reviews of the film were generally mixed. Streep's other film of this time was director Sarah Gavron 's period drama Suffragette (also 2015), co-starring Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter . In the film, she played the small, but pivotal, role of Emmeline Pankhurst ,
10788-440: The heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill", while Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal described it as "one of the most pleasurable films in recent memory". 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". She considers it to have been
10912-539: The idyllic Greek island of Skopelos known in the film as Kalokairi. An instant box office success, Mamma Mia! became Streep's highest-grossing film to date, with box office receipts of US$ 602.6 million, also ranking it first among the highest-grossing musical films. Nominated for another Golden Globe, Streep's performance was generally well received by critics, with Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe commenting: "The greatest actor in American movies has finally become
11036-534: The inner-city kids of East Harlem , in the music drama Music of the Heart (1999). Streep replaced Madonna , who dropped out of the project before filming began due to creative differences with director Wes Craven . Required to play the violin, Streep underwent two months of intense training, five to six hours a day. Streep received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. Roger Ebert wrote that "Meryl Streep
11160-648: The kind of actor I want to be when I grow up.' Streep began auditioning for film roles, and underwent an unsuccessful audition for the lead role in Dino De Laurentiis 's remake of the action adventure King 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?" 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
11284-473: The last two members of what was once a popular family country music act in Robert Altman 's final film A Prairie Home Companion (2006). A comedic ensemble piece featuring Lindsay Lohan , Tommy Lee Jones , Kevin Kline and Woody Harrelson , the film revolves around the behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name . The film grossed more than US$ 26 million,
11408-534: The majority of which came from domestic markets. Commercially, Streep fared better with a role in The Devil Wears Prada (also 2006), a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger 's 2003 novel of the same name . Streep portrayed the powerful and demanding Miranda Priestly , fashion magazine editor (and boss of a recent college graduate played by Anne Hathaway ). Though the overall film received mixed reviews, her portrayal, of what Ebert calls
11532-408: The miniseries Holocaust (1978) and Angels in America (2003), as well as the narration in the documentary series Five Came Back (2017). Her other television work include the drama series Big Little Lies (2019) and the comedy-mystery series Only Murders in the Building (2023–24). Streep has been the recipient of many honorary awards, including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004,
11656-509: The most money during that period. Streep reclaimed her stardom in the ensuing decades with leading roles in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Doubt , Mamma Mia! (both 2008), Julie & Julia , It's Complicated (both 2009), and Into the Woods (2014). She won her third Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011). For her work on television, she won three Primetime Emmy Awards for her roles in
11780-506: The mother of children on a whitewater rafting trip who encounter two violent criminals ( Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly ) in the wilderness. Though critical reaction was generally mixed, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone found her to be "strong, sassy and looser than she has ever been onscreen". Streep's most successful film of the decade was the romantic drama The Bridges of Madison County (1995) directed by Clint Eastwood , who adapted
11904-493: The novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf , the film was generally well received and won all three leading actresses a Silver Bear for Best Actress . In 2003, Streep re-united with Mike Nichols to star with Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in the HBO 's adaptation of Tony Kushner 's six-hour play Angels in America , the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop of Reagan era politics. Streep, who
12028-577: The part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a wife with a career, and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set, watching the interactions between parents and children. The director Robert Benton allowed Streep to write her own dialogue in two key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman, who "hated her guts" at first. Hoffman and producer Stanley R. Jaffe later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting: "She's extraordinarily hard-working, to
12152-485: The past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a " chameleon ", willing to play any type of role. Streep was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work. The following year, she re-united with Robert Benton for the psychological thriller , Still of the Night (1982), co-starring Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy . Vincent Canby , writing for The New York Times , noted that
12276-450: The performances of the two leads. Manohla Dargis wrote that "Streep creates an acutely moving portrait of a woman who in liberating herself helps instigate a revolution". It earned over $ 177 million against a budget of $ 50 million. Streep received her 31st Golden Globe nomination and 21st Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 2018, Streep briefly reprised her role in the musical sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again . She also played
12400-404: The play Miss Julie at Vassar College in 1969, in which she gained attention across the campus. Vassar drama professor Clinton J. Atkinson noted, "I don't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting. She really taught herself." Streep demonstrated an early ability to mimic accents and to quickly memorize her lines. She received her BA in drama cum laude in 1971, before applying for an MFA from
12524-521: The role in which Streep became "arguably the first middle-aged actress to be taken seriously by Hollywood as a romantic heroine". Streep played the estranged sister of Bessie ( Diane Keaton ), a woman battling leukemia , in Marvin's Room (1996), an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson . Streep recommended Keaton for the role. Roger Ebert stated that, "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than
12648-714: The role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park . That same year she played a supporting role as the former girlfriend turned lesbian in Manhattan (1979) for Woody Allen . Streep later said that Allen did not provide her with a complete script, giving her only the six pages of her own scenes, and did not permit her to improvise a word of her dialogue. Vincent Canby of The New York Times described her performance as being "beautifully played". In
12772-534: The romance Falling in Love (1984), which was poorly received, and portrayed a fighter for the French Resistance during World War II in the British drama Plenty (1985), adapted from the play by David 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
12896-674: 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". 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. Longworth considers Death Becomes Her to have been "the most physical performance Streep had yet committed to screen, all broad weeping, smirking, and eye-rolling". Although it
13020-424: The set of the romantic comedy-drama film Hope Springs (2012), co-starring Tommy Lee Jones and Steve 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
13144-731: The story of a late bloomer". In Nancy Meyers ' romantic comedy It's Complicated (also 2009), Streep starred with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin . She received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for both Julie & Julia and It's Complicated ; she won the award for Julie & Julia , and later received her 16th Oscar nomination for it. She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in Wes Anderson 's stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox . Streep re-teamed with Mamma Mia director Phyllida Lloyd on The Iron Lady (2011),
13268-545: The supporting role of Aunt Josephine in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events alongside Jim Carrey , based on the first three novels in Snicket 's book series . The black comedy received generally favorable reviews from critics, and won the Academy Award for Best Makeup . Streep also narrated the film Monet's Palate . Streep was next cast in the comedy film Prime (2005), directed by Ben Younger . In
13392-504: The thing that I could feel through." She quit after four years. Streep had many Catholic school friends, and regularly attended Mass . She was a high school cheerleader for the Bernards High School Mountaineers. She was also chosen as the homecoming queen her senior year. Although Streep appeared in numerous school plays during her high school years, she was uninterested in serious theater until acting in
13516-427: The war film The Deer Hunter (1978). Cazale, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer , 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. 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
13640-449: 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". The following year, Streep starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence in Don't Look Up (2021), directed by Adam McKay for Netflix . Streep played a comical role as the fictional President of
13764-435: Was a commercial success, earning $ 15.1 million in just five days, Streep's contribution to comedy was generally not taken well by critics. 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". Streep later admitted to having disliked filming the scenes involving heavy special effects, and vowed never to work again on
13888-617: Was also featured in the play in the role of Yakov, a hired workman. The same year, Streep began work on Spike Jonze 's comedy-drama Adaptation. (2002), in which she portrayed real-life journalist Susan Orlean . Lauded by critics and viewers alike, the film won Streep her fourth Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. A. O. Scott in The New York Times considered Streep's portrayal of Orlean to have been "played with impish composure", noting
14012-644: Was announced that Streep would portray Maria Callas in Master Class , but the project was pulled after director Mike Nichols 's death in November of the same year. In 2015, Streep starred in Jonathan Demme 's Ricki 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. Streep learned to play
14136-582: Was born on June 22, 1949, in Summit, New Jersey to artist Mary Wilkinson Streep and pharmaceutical executive Harry William Streep Jr. She has two younger brothers, Harry William Streep III and Dana David Streep, both actors. Her father was of German and Swiss descent; his lineage traced back to Loffenau , from where Streep's great-great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, immigrated to the United States and where one of her ancestors served as mayor (the surname
14260-615: Was cast by Joseph Papp in a production of Trelawny of the Wells at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, opposite Mandy Patinkin and John Lithgow . She went on to appear in five more roles in her first year in New York, including in Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V , The Taming of the Shrew with Raul Julia , and Measure for Measure opposite Sam Waterston and John Cazale . She entered into
14384-413: Was cast in four roles in the miniseries, received her second Emmy Award and fifth Golden Globe for her performance. She appeared in Jonathan Demme 's moderately successful remake of The Manchurian Candidate in 2004, co-starring Denzel Washington , playing the role of a woman who is both a U.S. senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of a vice-presidential candidate. The same year, she played
14508-569: Was entered into the Venice Film Festival in its year of release. Janet Maslin of The 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 in Dancing 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." Later that year, she played
14632-423: Was featured on the cover of Newsweek 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". Streep denounced her fervent media coverage at the time as "excessive hype". The story within
14756-723: Was honored with the Stanislavsky Award for the outstanding achievement in the career of acting and devotion to the principles of Stanislavsky 's school. In 2008, Streep was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame . In 2009, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by Princeton University . In 2010 she elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters , and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree by Harvard University . Julie & Julia 27 Wagons Full of Cotton Trelawny of
14880-777: Was later changed to "Streep"). Another line of her father's family was from Giswil . Her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Some of Streep's maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island , and were descended from 17th-century English immigrants. Her maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, were natives of the Horn Head district of Dunfanaghy in County Donegal , Ireland. Streep's mother, whom she has compared in both appearance and manner to Dame Judi Dench , strongly encouraged her daughter and instilled confidence in her from
15004-488: Was later revealed that there was a dispute over her salary. By the end of the decade, Streep actively looked to star in a comedy. She found the role in She-Devil (1989), a satire that parodied societal obsession with beauty and cosmetic surgery, in which she played a glamorous writer. Though the film was not a success, Richard Corliss of Time wrote that Streep was the "one reason" to see it, and observed that it marked
15128-493: Was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside". Jack Kroll of Newsweek 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. Streep next played opposite Robert De Niro in
15252-542: Was raised as a Presbyterian in Basking Ridge, New Jersey , and attended Cedar 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 play The Family Upstairs . In 1963, the family moved to Bernardsville, New Jersey , where she attended Bernards High School . Author Karina Longworth described her as
15376-423: Was the only thing she knew". 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. The film's success exposed Streep to a wider audience and earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress . In the 1978 miniseries Holocaust , Streep played the leading role of a German woman married to
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