Issue 271

Heart to
heart
star chat
Insecure isn’t a word you’d usually
associate with Meryl Streep – global
superstar, Hollywood icon, actress
extraordinaire, yes. But in real life
the woman who’s delighted cinema
fans for almost 40 years is surprisingly
unsure of herself.
“I’ve had a long career, haven’t I?” she
agrees when we meet in a hotel near
her home in New York. “I don’t know
why – I just started working when I was
right out of drama school and I haven’t
stopped. I’ve been very lucky. I found
what I love to do and am good at doing,
and I found it early enough to make it
my life’s work, which makes me a very
lucky woman.”
‘I’m really happy when
scripts come along that
allow me to continue in
the profession. I’m always
expecting that people will
think ‘Ugh – not her again!’
– you know?’
But ask about her numerous awards
over the years – from Oscars to lifetime
achievement awards and she only
shrugs. “Oh, I’m sure that my career has
been wonderful, and people talk about
accolades and such, but somehow that
doesn’t register with me. My mother
used to say to me, ‘Why don’t you enjoy
it more? Some people would give an arm
In Manhattan with Woody
Allen in 1979. The film is
being re-released this month
‘I worry
people
will get
sick of me’
As an iconic film – that was to be
the last small role for Meryl Streep
– returns to the cinemas, we chat
exclusively to the lady herself about
family, fears and fame
By Gabrielle Donnelly
A glittering career: Meryl in The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs Kramer, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Sophie’s Choice and The Devil Wears Prada
and a leg to walk down the red carpet at
a movie premiere, why can’t you enjoy
it?’ But I just don’t get into it, I’m afraid.
I have my own doubts, worries and
insecurities and that’s what I fixate on.
“I’m really happy when scripts come
along that allow me to continue in the
profession, because there’s not a lot of
older women working, and I’m always
expecting that people will get sick of me.
‘Ugh – not her again!’ – you know?”
We’re chatting as the Woody Allen
film Manhattan is re-released in UK
cinemas. The 1979 hit featured a
young Meryl Streep, all soaring
cheekbones and swishy long blonde
hair, playing a small-ish role as
Woody’s ex-wife, who had left
him – in a shockingly daring
plot twist for the time – for
another woman.
It was the last small-ish
role that Meryl would
ever be offered. By the
time it hit the screens,
she had already
made a stir in the
Vietnam war
drama The
Deer Hunter,
followed,
in the next
three years,
by Kramer
vs Kramer,
The French
Lieutenant’s
Woman
and Sophie’s
Choice. The
roles cemented
her status on
Hollywood’s ‘A’ list,
but the fame has
never gone to
her head.
Thirty-eight years after Manhattan –
and with laughter lines around her eyes
– she both looks and acts far more like
the friendly neighbour next door than
someone who has won more
acting awards than many actors have
had hot dinners.
And despite her fears of not getting
film roles, the parts have continued to
roll in – we can’t wait to see her in Mary
Poppins Returns, the long-awaited
‘I’m quite conscious of
keeping my health, because
it doesn’t last forever and
we’re all of us lucky for as
long as we do have it. I try
to remember that’
sequel to the classic. Meanwhile at the
Golden Globes Awards earlier this year,
her fiery speech taking Donald Trump
to task for mocking a disabled reporter
earned her a standing ovation, both at
the ceremony then, and at the Academy
Awards ceremony later in the year.
So away from the spotlight what’s
life like in the Streep household?
She’s happily married to sculptor Don
Gummer and mother to four now grown
children. “My husband and I don’t seem
to fight about the things I’m told many
couples fight about,” she once told me,
thoughtfully. “Things like money, sex,
or children. Weirdly, our fights are about
the little things. ‘Why didn’t you service
the car?’ ‘But you said
you were going
to service the car
when the red light
came on!’ Things
like that...”
Clearly the fights
are not too
wounding,
as they will
have been married for 40 years this
September, and the children, Henry,
Mamie, Grace and Louisa, openly
adore them.
“I really like this part of life, now
that they’re all grown up,” she says.
“You wait so many years while they’re
growing up and you think, ‘What are
they going to be like?’ and now they are
all adults and what you find out is that
pretty much they’re the way they were
when they were three years old! I think
you are who you are from the start and
you just have to find it in yourself.
“All those years ago when I made
Kramer vs Kramer, I was playing a
mother before I was a mother in real
life, but in my heart I already knew the
sort of mother that I was going to be.
And I was right because that is the sort
of mother that I am.”
She admits that as she grows older,
she likes to be pampered from time
to time. “I love a massage. Failing
that, I cook. I do try to stay healthy.
Sometimes I let myself fall apart when
it’s appropriate, but generally I try to
swim a mile every day, because I like
the feeling and it gets me into my body.
“I’m quite conscious of keeping my
health, because it doesn’t last forever
and we’re all of us lucky for as long as
we do have it. I try to remember that.
And I’m pretty happy most of the time
and believe in the best in people.
“Of course nothing’s
perfect, but Leonard Cohen
has a great line which
is, “There’s a crack in
everything and that’s how
the light gets in.” And
that’s what I feel.”
n Manhattan
is at selected
cinemas from
Friday, May 12
With husband
of 40 years,
Don Gummer
11
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