21-GONG SALUTE!
Meryl Streep has earned a record-breaking number of Oscar nominations and shows no sign of slowing down her glittering career, with a juicy TV role up next
ANEWSPAPER publisher who helped bring the US government to its knees. The mother of an abusive husband who wants to find out what happened to her dead son. Two very different characters, one bound for the big screen, the other for the small. And who do you call when you want an actress who can pull anything out of the bag? Meryl Streep, that’s who.
There’s just no stopping the 68-yearold doyenne of the entertainment world who’s just broken her own record by earning her 21st Oscar nomination.
With the nod for her portrayal of Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham in the acclaimed movie The Post, Meryl is up for her third best actress statuette and her fourth Oscar overall.
The only actress to have won four Academy Awards is the legendary Katharine Hepburn. And Meryl is head and shoulders above the rest of the pack in terms of Oscar nominations – nine ahead of Katharine and Jack Nicholson, who are tied in second place with 12 each.
Eloquent as ever, the mother of four said she was “honoured beyond measure” to have been recognised “for a film I love, a film that stands in defence of press freedom and inclusion of women’s voices in the movement of history”.
Meryl was part of the group of Hollywood women who made history at this year’s Golden Globes, all wearing black as part of the #TimesUp campaign.
The #TimesUp and #MeToo movements were sparked by the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal (YOU, 26 October 2017) – and as someone who worked closely with Weinstein, Meryl was called out by actress Rose McGowan, one of his original accusers, for not having spoken up against him.
“You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly and affect no real change,” Rose tweeted of “actresses like Meryl. I despise your hypocrisy.”
Meryl fired back in a statement, saying she was wholly unaware of what Weinstein was doing behind closed doors.
“I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know. I don’t like young women being assaulted. I didn’t know this was happening,” she insisted.
Meryl took her statement a step further at the Golden Globe Awards
by walking the red carpet with Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
“[We] are so happy to be here in this moment,” the actress told E! News.
“I think people are aware now of a power imbalance and it’s something that leads to abuse. We feel sort of emboldened in this particular moment to stand together in a thick black line dividing then from now.”
STRONG women is a recurring theme in the Florence Foster Jenkins actress’ choice of roles – and her latest projects are no exception. It was recently announced Meryl will feature in season 2 of the hit TV series Big Little Lies alongside Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman.
The HBO series, based on the novel by Liane Moriarty, follows the lives of three women in Monterey, California. The show was billed as a mini-series but HBO decided to go ahead with a second season after the first’s rapturous reception.
As Liane was penning the second season, she knew there was another powerful woman she needed to tell her story.
“I was about halfway through [writing the season] and I was talking to the producers and I said, ‘I’ve got this role of Perry’s mother and I’d like Meryl to play this character’,” the author told Australia’s Daily Telegraph.
“The producers were laughing at me and saying, ‘ You’ve become so Hollywood’, as in picking up the phone and saying, ‘Get me Meryl’,” she said.
“But then they were saying, ‘It’s not beyond the realm of possibilities because Nicole and Meryl are friends’.”
So Nicole fired off a few emails – and Meryl agreed to come on board. She’ll play Mary Louise Wright, mother of Nicole’s character’s abusive husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgård), who was killed at the end of the first season. She comes to Monterey to see her grandLEFT: children and find out who’s responsible for the death of her son.
Expect to see Meryl at her bad-ass best: Liane hinted that Mary Louise won’t be far off Meryl’s icy Devil Wears Prada character, Miranda Priestly.
Reese, who also produces the show, is thrilled to have Meryl join the cast.
“Get ready for more wine, secrets and #BigLittleLies,” she captioned a snap of herself with Meryl.
Big Little Lies junkies will have to sit tight until 2019 to see Meryl in action – and we might have to wait a while to see anything new from Meryl at all.
Fans were ecstatic about the upcoming release of a sequel to Mamma Mia!, the musical based on the music of Abba.
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is due to hit screens in July but the trailer left a bitter taste in Streepers’ mouths – as Meryl’s character, Donna, isn’t in it.
The sequel to the beloved 2008 movie takes place 10 years after the original, following a now-pregnant Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), who draws strength from mother Donna’s past as a single mom.
Cinderella actress Lily James takes on the role of a young Donna in colourful ’70s flashbacks, and the producers have roped in Cher for the role of Donna’s mother.
The trailer set social media alight as fans bemoaned Meryl’s absence, even threatening to boycott the second film.
“I swear if I go see Mamma Mia 2 and Donna is dead then I’m writing off 2018 completely and moving to a Greek island myself,” one tweeted.
Another chimed in, “That’s it. Mamma Mia 2 is cancelled.”
JUST as Meryl seems to know a thing or two about longevity in showbiz, so she does in marriage.
She and her husband, sculptor Don Gummer (71), have been married for 40 years and their romance could make for a heartwarming film.
They met after Meryl’s actor partner John Cazale, who’d starred in The Godfather, died at 42 of bone cancer in 1978. A heartbroken Meryl couldn’t bear to stay in the home she’d shared with John and one of her brother’s friends came to her rescue.
Don offered his empty flat to her while he was travelling overseas. When he returned they hit it off to such an extent Meryl ended up staying – and they were married within six months.
They live a relatively un-celeb-style life in a sprawling ranch-like home in leafy Connecticut where they raised kids Henry (38), Mamie (34), Grace (31) and Louisa (26).
Henry is a musician, Mamie and Grace are actresses and Louisa is a model.
And Don is his wife’s rock. When Meryl won the best actress Oscar for The Iron Lady in 2012 she said, “First I’m going to thank Don because when you thank your husband at the end of the speech they play him out with the music, and I want him to know that everything I value most in our lives [he’s] given me.”
Meryl’s secret to a happy marriage? “Goodwill and a willingness to bend – and to shut up every once in a while.”