First time

Streep talks about being a ‘newbie’ on a Spielberg set

Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” is not only one of 2017’s most acclaimed movies; it is also one of the timeliest despite being set in 1971.

The action revolves around Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) as she weighs the decision to print the leaked Pentagon Papers, proving that President Nixon’s government is lying about winning the war in Vietnam.

In the midst of trying to take the Post public, Graham must decide if she is going to side with her editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) in defying Nixon or listen to the money men (Bradley Whitford, Tracy Letts) who urge her to back off from printing the explosive report.

Of course, the Post decided to expose the government’s lies, infuriating Nixon in the process. In an era in which President Trump continually refers to the mainstream media as “fake news,” “The Post” is a reminder of the importance of a free press.

Streep was first on the project a little over a year ago. But it was Spielberg and Hanks’ participation which gave “The Post” an instant greenlight. When preproduction began on the film in October 2016, the cast and crew imagined when the movie came out, Hillary Clinton would likely be in the White House.

“Remember those fun-filled days [before Trump was elected],” says Hanks, 61. “Not to step on anybody’s toes. You get to vote for whoever you want to in this great country of ours.

“But had it gone [Clinton’s] way, we would have been making probably a quaint museum piece, in which everybody would have been ooh-ing and ahh-ing about the ugly fashions and the big cars. But instead we were actually making a story that was ripped right out of 2017’s headlines.”

Streep was drawn to the timeliness of the movie but she also longed to the tell the feminist saga of Graham, the first woman to run a Fortune 100 company.

“The reason she was [running

PHOTO BY NIKO TAVERNISE COURTESY OF 20TH CENTURY FOX Meryl Streep stars as Kay Graham in Twentieth Century Fox’s “The Post.”