Here’s a cinema parlour game: what voice or character will Meryl Streep adopt
next? A crackle of anticipation attends each of the actress’s
transformations.
Lately, Streep seems drawn to playing bad, from the withering fashion
dominatrix in The Devil Wears Prada to the Machiavellian politician
overseeing the covert torture of terrorist suspects in Rendition,
released on October 19. But the face is never fixed. In Lions for Lambs,
the festival’s Times Gala film (and world premiere), she is a
compromised journalist, and she is also donning bell-bottoms and glittery
platforms in the movie of Mamma Mia!opposite Pierce Brosnan. “I’ll be
singing, not lip-synching,” this master chameleon assures us.
In a recent raft of Hollywood movies interrogating American policy-making and
war, Lions for Lambsis by far the most high-profile. Directed by and
starring Robert Redford, it also features Tom Cruise as the ambitious,
pro-war Senator Irving and Streep’s journalist Janine Roth, stuck between
many rocks and hard places: desire to get the story, family responsibilities
and journalistic ethics. The title of the film comes from an apocryphal
First World War story related by Redford’s character, the academic Professor
Malley. A German general, admiring of Allied soldiers but not their
commanders, is supposed to have said: “Nowhere else have I seen such lions
led by such lambs.” For Malley: “That statement couldn’t be more dead-on
than it is now.”
Senator Irving wants Roth to break a story about a military offensive that
will affect the lives of two former students of Malley’s who are soldiers in
Afghanistan.
The film will inevitably be seen as antiwar, although Streep insists that it
maintains a “Mona Lisa smile” on the issues. “Do you want to win the War on
Terror? That is the quintessential yes or no question of our time,” says
Senator Irving to Roth.
Streep says she “had a lot of people in mind” when creating her character.
“I’m a news junkie – C-Span, BBC, CNN.” Journalists, she believes, “circled”
the whole story “and came to it late. You can’t be the servant of two
masters.” She admires correspondents such as CNN’s Baghdad bureau chief
Michael Ware and wishes she was “Christiane Amanpour [CNN], but I’m just not
cut out for it”.
Her character in Lions has a mother who needs 24-hour care. “People
make decisions for very personal reasons,” Streep says. “Senator Irving
gives Janine access, which is what a lot of journalists salivate for. In
this Administration, if you don’t play by their rules you’re shut out of the
loop. The press, to maintain lines of communication within the White House,
played a game that in the long term did not serve them.”
She feels that war in Iraq was declared on a false premise and that the
consequence has been “disaster. No other word for it.” That makes her feel
“frustrated . . . People are beginning to connect all the dots and follow
the trail to where it began.”
Streep expects “a big reaction” to the film. “I have no doubt. We’re bracing
for it.” So does she want Bush out and Hillary in the White House? Another
pause. “I’m glad that there seems to be change. People are holding their
breath. That’s why you don’t see masses on the streets – they know he’s
[Bush] going. I’ll be relieved when the whole group is out. I think in a way
things had to get this bad before they got better. It would be nice to have
a woman president. I think half the Senate should be women, half of
Parliament, half the ruling mullahs. But that will never happen, darling!”
She laughs merrily.
Streep is both pin-sharp and fluttery; dead serious and irreverent. She didn’t
want to be an actress growing up in suburban New Jersey. Her father was a
pharmaceutical executive, her mother a commercial artist. Streep’s original
ambition was to become an interpreter. When she was about 10, her mother
took her to the United Nations. “There were all these women in booths in
headphones. I thought it was so cool. They were taking the language of one
culture and translating it to another. They were wearing very colourful
national dress – it seemed so exotic.”
Streep trained to sing opera. “I was too young to know how wonderful it was,
too provincial, and gave it up. I didn’t grow up in a household where people
talked about opera. We listened to Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra.” She
thinks she would have gone on to be a soprano. Now, “ Dancing Queen
is the closest I’ll get.”
She studied drama at Vassar and Yale. “I got more serious about it as I went
on, but I was never really sure and still I’m not. I always think, ‘When I
grow up what will I do with my life?’ ” At first she “suspected” acting, “in
a puritan way. It didn’t seem serious or contributing to the betterment of
the world.” But Streep extended her social beliefs into certain roles – as
in Silkwood and Lions for Lambs. Even if they’re not overtly
political her parts tend to be complex: Joanna Kramer in Kramer vs. Kramer(for
which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1979) and Sophie in Sophie’s
Choice (Best Actress, 1982); or her title role as The French
Lieutenant’s Woman. She is the most nominated actor in Oscars history.
“When I go to the movies, I like to be enlivened, inspired and provoked by
actors,” she says. “My life would be much less rich and less understood by
me if it weren’t for the work of people I admire. I depend on it like food.”
That might sound ridiculously actressy and imperious, but it’s said with
feeling. Words such as “grande dame”, “greatest” and “finest” are often
lobbed in Streep’s direction. “It doesn’t mean anything to me,” she says,
sighing. “It does not go in. It can’t. How can it? It’s not like I haven’t
tried to believe it.” And she roars at that. “But I don’t. They just say
that about me because I’ve been around a long time.”
She claims the self-conscious face-changing, accent-shifting, all the
Meryl-isms we see in her performances, “are what I’ve always thought acting
was. I’ve never thought of myself as Meryl Streep the entertainer out there,
showing Meryl Streep every time. To me, we’re much more than the shape of
our particular selves. We carry in us everything, everybody – yours and my
DNA goes back to Charlemagne. I don’t feel I am that different to you. I
could probably feel like what it would feel like to be you if I studied you.”
These characters, she says, “are in you before you begin. It’s like
motherhood. I think you’re always the mother you’re going to become even
when you’re a little girl. You have it in you already understood – all the
mistakes you’re going to make, all the things you’ll do right.”
Has she ever wanted to give up acting? “Oh, I’d like to give showbusiness up,”
she says quickly. “Acting is intoxicating and wonderful, but showbusiness –
the business – is a drag.” She hates being watched in public, “feeling
conscious of yourself”. This is fascinating because, as she subsequently
confesses, she loves observing others. “I always think, ‘Why are they
watching me? I want to watch her’.” In restaurants her husband of 29 years,
the sculptor Don Gummer, complains because she is always eavesdropping. “I
just love the stories.”
All these people and conversations seep into Streep. “I do marinade a little,”
she says. “My children laugh at me because, when I’m on the phone to
someone, say in Jamaica, I’ll end up speaking Jamaican. It’s very
embarrassing, but it’s not conscious.” So she is happier playing others than
appearing, publicly, as herself? “A lot of famous people will tell you the
same thing,” she says. “They just want to be like how they were at 12 –
walking along the street, the simple things.”
Relative anonymity is guaranteed by living in New York and she has taken
breaks from acting to raise her four children. One daughter, Mamie, played
Streep’s younger self in the recent film Evening, and though
Streep jokes that she urged her to become a molecular biologist rather than
act, she is proud of Mamie’s debut.
It has been “very difficult and very rewarding” balancing acting and raising a
family she says. “I can’t imagine life any differently, but it is
magnificently. . . complicated.” Because of the compromises? “Every. Single.
Day. You always feel you’re coming up short on something, but you’re
rewarded on the other side. It’s something every woman understands.” Has she
got the balance right? “No. I don’t know, the jury’s out – nobody’s in jail yet.”
She still attends parent-teacher evenings for her youngest, Louisa, 16.
“She’s a busy one,” Streep says, with the rueful laugh of the weary, loving
parent.
After Mamma Mia! she will appear in Doubt, John Patrick
Shanley’s movie of his play, opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman, and may do
more theatre after appearing in Mother Courage in New York last year.
As she’s got older, Streep says she has become “tougher” on herself and her
performances, but as for turning 60 in a couple of years . . . “Oh, that’s
miles away,” she says. “I’ve lost enough people and had enough be ill to
know that all the people who whine about getting old should just shut up.”
Why? “Because of the ones who are not here,” she half-shouts exasperatedly,
“who didn’t make it this far. My God, what a thing to whine about. Imagine!
I have no patience for it. We are just lucky to be here. Every second we’re
lucky.”
She emits a tinkly laugh, then softens. “That’s what I think.”
Lions for Lambs, Odeon Leicester Square, Oct 22, 7.30pm; OWE2, Oct 24,
1pm; it goes on general release on Nov 9
You folks in the UK have been champions when it comes to fighting TERRORISTS. Yes, Ms. Streep is good at repeating other peoples words, but when asked if she wants her country to win against TERRORISTS, she can't say. I can't stay quiet about people who express themselves so STUPIDLY!!! The world is at WAR.
Lou, Holiday, FL
Lou Dalfino, Holiday, FL, USA
I really admire her because of her simplicty and because she s all good in all aspects. Im not wondering why she never skip dong movies. She is very optmistic. I hope that one of her movie's world premiere will happen to Philppines.I also hope that I can meet her personally.
zabrina, Manla, Philippines
I think Meryl Streep is a wonderful actress. I too would love to meet with and talk to her. She seems to be a very intelligent and would probably be a very interesting person,even if she wasn't a famous Hollywood movie star.
carol chretien, peterborough, Ontario/Canada
I agree that Meryl Streep should be the definition of actor. She is one of those few people who shows you exactly what you have to do ad what you have to be to be amazing.
Melissa Mercieca, Brighton, Michigan
She sounds like an amazing woman with whom it would be fascinating to get together an evening with a bottle of wine and just hear her talk about her view on life etc...
Cristina Beans, Liege, Belgium
Meryl Streep should be the definition of actor. When you look up the word actor in a dictionary all you should see is her name.
Seijn, Rochester, NY
“When I go to the movies, I like to be enlivened, inspired and provoked by actors,†she says. “My life would be much less rich and less understood by me if it weren’t for the work of people I admire. I depend on it like food.†---
Thanks, Meryl! As a writer, trying to remain inspired, when I feel down in the dumps I turn to performances like yours. You never fail to give it your all, and reveal something within a character that I can relate to-to make me feel more informed as to the human condition. Love you, love you, love you. (and sorry for asking to take the photo with you after "Blackbird" - it was your night with your kid, and I felt like I imposed.)
Alvin, New York, New York
I am 76 years young. And thankful each night and morning.
Harry, Surry, Virgina
If I thought Ms. Streep was going to read this, I would tell her thank you for being so consistently honest in her responses to inquiries from the media.
Her many character protrayals have been a history to validate her candidness.
Kudos Times, and Ms. Streep!
Karen, Sonoma, CA, USA
Is Meryl Streep planning to do sunset blvd for Andrew Lloyd webber ?
ken, san diego, ca