Interview Magnificent She has been nominated for an MerylOscar 16 times, N A GLITTERING And then Jim Carrey took to the stage won two and her night in Los Angeles and bellowed in mock horror, “There is seven years ago, no bad film in this woman. There are no latest incarnation the good and the flaws. Nothing. WHERE ARE THE FLAWS? as Iron Lady great of Hollywood WHAT ARE YOU, MAN? SHAPE- Margaret Thatcher gathered to honour SHIFTER? BODY-SNATCHER?” the finest actress of The uproar was only matched by the is tipped to earn our generation. unanimous agreement − that, yes, here in her a hat-trick. Before walking on to the stage to this star-studded room of vaulting talent Oaccept the American Film Institute’s Life was “the real thing”. David Leser meets Achievement award, Meryl Streep had sat And that was seven years ago, well the extraordinary with her husband and children, blushing before Meryl Streep shape-shifted into but resplendent, as she absorbed the the hellcat fashion magazine editor, Meryl Streep and accolades of her peers, many of them Miranda Priestley, in The Devil Wears discovers a woman giants of the screen themselves. Prada, for which she would receive her of sublime grace “You transcend talented,” Jack 14th Oscar nomination. Or before she Nicholson observed, beaming towards bled into the ideologically hardened mother and exuberance. his two-time co-star (Heartburn and superior in Doubt, a role that would earn Ironweed). “Impassive, passive, gorgeous, her 15th Oscar nomination. Or before committed. To me you are perfect and she would transform into the hulking, but I love you very much.” utterly beguiling, figure of legendary chef Shirley MacLaine, who, 14 years earlier, Julia Child in Julie & Julia, for which she had played opposite Meryl Streep’s self- would receive her 16th Oscar nomination, hating, drug-addled character, Suzanne more than any other actor, male or female, The greatest leading Vale, in Postcards From The Edge said, in the history of cinema. lady of our times: “The mystery of your talent is extraordinary. Yes, this was all before that, before she Meryl Streep has It is so other-worldy that it makes me would dance and sing her way to a Golden been nominated for more Oscars than any understand there is more in all of us Globes and Grammy nomination for her other actor in history. than meets the eye.” role in Mama Mia!, the musical comedy Diane Keaton described her friend as that would gross nearly $600 million, her “my generation’s genius”. Robert De Niro highest earning film to date; or before called her “the real thing”. her performance in It’s Complicated, ➤ BRIGITTE LACOMBE. BY PHOTOGRAPHY 1 AWW.COM.AU JANUARY 2012 JANUARY 2012 AWW.COM.AU 2 for which she would reveal her madcap drawing age lines on her face, and of mourning. [But] not only did I know underbelly, and for which she would wearing old cardigans.) she was a brilliant actress, it was a garner the 24th of her 25 Golden Globes Shortly afterwards, Robert De Niro moment in her life when emotionally nominations for Best Performance by saw her playing a maid in Chekhov’s The [she could draw on her pain].” an Actress. Cherry Orchard. Within a few months, Meryl ended up re-writing her lines On that feted night in Hollywood she was cast opposite him in The Deer for the courtroom scene in the film and seven years ago, all these defining roles Hunter, the first of three films with De then went on to win her first Oscar as were still to come, even though Meryl Niro, and the first film for which she Best Supporting Actress, saying as she Streep, herself, seemed to doubt it. “I am would receive an Oscar nomination. accepted the award “Holy Mackerel”. so proud and grateful,” she said, bathing Meryl only took the part in The Deer (She then went and left her Oscar on top in the adulation. “I hope it’s not the end.” Hunter so she could spend precious time of the toilet at the end of the ceremony!) The End? Try the New Beginning. with her then fiancé John Cazale who, This was 1980, the true beginning. Beyond these inspired performances, despite having been diagnosed with bone Two years later she would be Meryl Streep was also going to pull off cancer, had been cast − and wanted to nominated again for Best Actress in − has just pulled off − arguably the most appear − in this epoch-defining film on The French Lieutenant’s Woman. A sublime performance of her illustrious the Vietnam war. year later she would win her second career, as former British Prime Minister The couple had fallen hopelessly in Oscar for her miraculous performance Margaret Thatcher. love a year earlier while playing opposite in Sophie’s Choice, where her Polish Think about that: the greatest leading each other in Shakespeare In The Park’s character Sophie Zawistowska (and yes, lady of our times incarnating as the production of Measure for Measure. she learnt to speak Polish for the role) is greatest (love her or loathe her) female As Pacino would later recall, “I forced to make the most unspeakable Western leader of our times, the grocer’s remember John telling me, ‘Oh man, I’ve choice of all − which child to hand over daughter who reshaped British society met the greatest actress in the history of to the Nazis? Meryl had literally gone in her own image. the world’. I thought, ‘Well, he’s a guy down on bended knees to beg director We will come to this latest tour de who’s in love, so how good can she be? Alan Pakula for the part. force soon, just as we will meet the She can’t be what he’s saying’, [but] sure “There is hardly an emotion that “real thing” in person, but before enough it’s Meryl Streep”. Meryl doesn’t touch in this movie,” said we do, it’s worth noting that when John Cazale never lived to see his Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning the New Jersey-born Mary Louise or Meryl’s performance in The Deer film critic, at the time. “This is one of the Streep auditioned for one of her first Hunter. He died in March 1978, with most astonishing and yet unaffected and films back in the mid-1970s − it was Meryl taking leave from acting to nurse natural performances I can imagine.” for King Kong − the Italian producer him to the very end. The films and Oscar nominations kept Dino De Laurentiis reportedly commented “He was lucky enough to have, as the coming, and in each film what we saw to his son in Italian, “She’s ugly. Why last vision of his life, Meryl’s lovely face,” was not just a capacity for playing did you bring me this thing?” actor James Woods said. “The most characters of remarkable depth, but a Meryl understood every word he’d amazing thing to see was capacity for accents said, and replied in Italian that she was Meryl during all this,” “She waS − English, Polish, mid- sorry he felt this way. added Pacino. “The way Western, Danish, New De Laurentiis was alone in his thinking. she was with him by his DESTINED FOR Zealand-Australian (as To those who’d seen Meryl Streep act, side, right through the GREATNESS.” in Lindy Chamberlain) even in her early days, she was nothing whole thing. When I saw Italian-American, Bronx, short of brilliant. And beautiful. “She that girl there with him like that − there you name it, she could do it. looks like she’s swallowed a lightbulb,” is nothing like that − as great as she is in And through all this, she was also able director Mike Nichols would soon observe. all her work, that is what I think of when to defy the Hollywood curse by finding “There’s something that’s completely I think of her.” happiness as a wife − to sculptor Don transparent about her, a glowing quality And with all that pain still raw, Gummer whom she’d met a few months that’s quite striking and delicate.” Meryl then auditioned for the role after John Cazale’s death, a marriage The dean of the Drama School at Yale of the haunted Joanna Kramer, in James Woods was to describe as the University (where she’d earned a Masters Kramer vs. Kramer, starring opposite “Great Love Affair of the the 20th degree after studying at Vassar College) Dustin Hoffman. “She came in [for the Century”. (The couple has four children said “she was destined for greatness”. audition],” said Hoffman, “and after she − musician Henry, actresses Mamie and Joseph Papp welcomed her to his New left, there was some controversy because Grace, and student Louisa.) York Shakespeare Festival in late 1975, a producer said, ‘First of all, what is her “I am wired for family,” Meryl once describing her as one of the few “true name? Murel? She never opened her said. She was also wired for investigating actors” he’d ever met. (As a child she’d mouth, she didn’t say a word, she just the human psyche like no other actress pretended to be her grandmother by sat there.’ She was literally still in a state of our time. ➤ BRIGITTE LACOMBE. BY PHOTOGRAPHY 3 AWW.COM.AU JANUARY 2012 JANUARY 2012 AWW.COM.AU 4 AND NOW SHE is sitting in front of me And what would the family think given “With Thatcher, I didn’t think about on the seventh floor of Robert De Niro’s that Baroness Thatcher was now 86 years defending her.