‘I thought I’d be washed up by 40’ MERYL unscripted
THE OSCAR WINNER OPENS UP ON PICKING ROLES AND HER MAGNIFICENT CAREER
At 69, Meryl Streep is currently considered the best actress of her generation. She’s earned a record 21 Oscar nominations and she has three of the coveted statuettes at home.
She can pick and choose the roles she wants, and producers go to great lengths to sign her up for their films.
Yet at one point, the Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again star was worried her acting career was done and dusted. “I thought I was washed up at 40,” Meryl admits. “There were not a lot of interesting scripts, I could generally only find one a year. I thought each movie I made would be my last.
“You could work up to 40, then you’d start playing hags and witches. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t play a witch until Into the Woods [in 2014, when she was 65] – and I had been offered many.”
Looking back, her career after her 40th birthday was initially nothing to write home about. Films like Postcards From the Edge and Death Becomes Her had so-so receptions, while a string of others – such as The House of the Spirits, Defending Your Life and The River Wild – sunk without a trace.
It took an adaptation of a best-selling novel featuring a middle-aged woman as one of its main characters to remind everyone what a stunning actress Meryl is. The Bridges of Madison County was a huge hit and earned the mum-of-four another Oscar nod.
Today, the situation has improved a little for older actresses, says Meryl, partly due to the fact that more women have high-powered roles in the film industry and are making more of the decisions about the kind of movies that get made, and who is cast in them.
“Movies are really just a projection of the fantasies of people who pay for them, and so for years those were just the fantasies of fellas. Now there are women who say, ‘Well, this is all right. This woman is still sexy and interesting at 40 or worth listening to or looking at.’”
But she adds that it is also important for women to play age-appropriate roles. When Russell Crowe sparked a storm a few years ago by saying he thought older actresses should stop “coveting younger roles” and instead play women of their own age, Meryl backed him.
“I agree with him,” she said at a press conference. “It’s good to live in the place where you are.”
The place she finds herself now is one filled with much
respect and admiration. Even other highly acclaimed actors are inspired by and in awe of her. For example, Colin Firth says Meryl is the reason he agreed to step out of his comfort zone and do the first Mamma Mia! movie.
“If you are being led the way by someone with that gravitas, it’s quite reassuring really,” says The King’s Speech star.
Hugh Grant, who played Meryl’s husband in Florence Foster Jenkins, says everyone has to raise their game when they work alongside her.
“I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming sometimes, thinking, ‘I have to do hard emotional scenes against Meryl Streep. She’s such an icon, it’s very odd to be in her orbit at all.”
The fact that she thought her career was on the skids nearly 30 years ago seems hard to believe given her ongoing success and the fact she’s still in demand. Forthcoming roles include a supporting part in the Mary Poppins sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, and she’ll also play Nicole Kidman’s mother-inlaw Mary Louise (which is actually her real name) in the second series of Big Little Lies.
Meryl is very modest about her icon status, though.
“I do believe it’s a little bit exaggerated but I cannot complain. I have been fortunate when it comes to roles. There are many women out there who do fantastic work too.”
When asked if she ever plays down her reputation to put other actors at ease on set, she tells, “I neutralise the legend every time I forget my lines, which is frequently. They’re all sitting there going, ‘She’s not so great.’”
As feted as she is, Meryl still manages to have her feet firmly on the ground. She separates her work life from her home life, and when she’s not filming or promoting a movie, she likes to spend time in her garden. And she confesses to sometimes getting just as delighted about the trappings of Tinseltown as anyone else.
“For me, Hollywood is a big stage. I get excited when I get invited to an awards show and they give me a big basket with goodies in it. Often they have products I would never buy!”