Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streepis an American actress. Cited in the media as the "best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility in her roles, transformation into the characters she plays, and her accent adaptation. She made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville in 1971, and went on to receive a 1976 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for A Memory of Two Mondays/27 Wagons Full of Cotton. She made...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth22 June 1949
CitySummit, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
I didn't go to Catholic school but I had a tough teacher, a tough math teacher.I remember everything that guy taught me. I really do.
But for me, it [singing] was a way to get out the feeling of the song, and also to get out the feelings that, you know, roil in high school, to express something that I had no other way of expressing.
When I was in - at Vassar, and I came from a public high school in New Jersey, there was - that class still existed. I think it's pretty much gone, but there was a way of talking that the private school girls had that was different than the way I talked from New Jersey.
I don't like to be gone all weekend and at night too. Because for 20 years, I've had children who are in school.
You have been told that Real Life is not like college, and you have been correctly informed. Real Life is more like high school.
Yeah, I did need a lot of breath [to play Margaret Thatcher]. I needed much more breath than I have, after all of my expensive drama school training. I couldn't keep up with her.
I just think that we're all trying to make ourselves emaciated, in order to pretend that we're all disappearing, as we move forward in every level of society and it's so frightening. This is all a big reaction to the fact that there are more women in medical school than there are men now and I am pretty sure it will be the same soon in law schools and in business.
So yeah, when I was a kid, when I was 16, 17, I'd come home from high school, and my dad collected all of Barbra Streisand's records. And she was very young then. I think she probably had three records out, and she was 21, and we had them all. And I knew every single song, every breath, every elision, every swell. And I sang along to it.
The career I chose was a drama major in college, at Yale, when I played a 90-year-old woman. One of my most celebrated roles. Then I played a really fat person. I played a lot of different things. That's how I thought I loved to wrangle my talent, my need to express myself. I like to do it that way.
A man has always been seen as someone who works hard and has a full-time occupation. I think women should have the same opportunity and not have any stigma attached to them if they choose to pursue their careers.
I never look a gift horse in the mouth. And I've been really, really lucky. My career has been given to me by the people I've worked with. The actors, the directors, the cinematographers, the writers, all of whom gave me the opportunity to work in the way that I have and I'm really grateful.
I don't really talk about my process very much, because I feel like if I give something away, it might not come back.
It's sort of my fun to sing along with records and imitate people who are on the telephone that have different ways of speaking.
Life is all about making choices and I'm very happy with mine. I have had a wonderful time raising four children and I've also been lucky to have the support of a wonderful husband.