Yesterday, a kick-off gala co-hosted by Meryl Streep, Wei Sun Christianson, Jane Harman, Maya Harris, Donna Karan, Liya Kebede, Dr. Judith Rodin and Diane von Furstenberg was helt to celebrate the launch of the “Women in the World Foundation”, a new venture from Newsweek and The Daily Beast. You can learn more about Women in the World on their new website. Pictures have been added to the gallery.

And Tina has uploaded a video of Meryl’s speech on Youtube, have a look!

Scans from the September 2011 issue of the German Plus magazine have been added to the image library with thanks to Nadine for the heads-up! Plus is currently on newsstands.

According to Movieweb, “Outsourced” star Ben Rappaport has joined the cast of Great Hope Springs for Sony Pictures. The story centers around a married couple (Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones) who try and rekindle their relationship by seeking therapy from an unorthodox guru (Steve Carell). Ben Rappaport will play the married couple’s son. David Frankel will direct Great Hope Springs from a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor. Mandate Pictures is financing while Sony will release Great Hope Springs in North America. Lionsgate will handle international sales. A concrete release date has not been determined yet, although the studios are eyeing a fourth quarter 2012 premiere.

It has been mentioned before, now it’s officially confirmed that Meryl will be among the 2011 Kennedy Center Honorees. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 34th Annual Kennedy Center Honors announced the five cultural icons whose creative work will be celebrated at this year’s event airing Tuesday, Dec. 27 on CBS. Actress Meryl Streep, singer-songwriter Neil Diamond, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins and singer Barbara Cook are this year’s recipients. “This year, the Kennedy Center selects five extraordinary individuals whose collective artistry has contributed significantly to the cultural life of our nation and the world,” says Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein. Further he says in the article, “The sheer brilliance and breadth of Meryl Streep’s performances count as one of the most exhilarating cultural spectacles of our time.”

Meryl Streep has released a statement from the Connecticut set of “Great Hope Springs”, according to The New York Times.

I am deeply honored by this news, and wish my mother and father were alive to hear it! All that education, allowance, tuition, voice lessons, summer jobs, scholarship application deadlines and loving care and discipline – all that they gave me, bore fruit in a way they never dreamed. I am so grateful!

According to the Washington Post, Meryl Streep may become a Kennedy Center Honoree later this year, assuming a tweet from Larry King is accurate. The former CNN host tweeted the following this afternoon: “My sources say Meryl Streep will be one of the Kennedy Center honorees this year. You heard it here first.” The Kennedy Center’s public information office is neither confirming nor denying King’s scoop. The announcement of this year’s recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors — which rewards those who have led distinguished careers in the arts, including film, music, theater and dance — will be issued in early September. While Streep has never received the coveted Kennedy Center Honors medal before, she has participated in the annually broadcast event numerous times, paying tribute to previous Honorees like director Mike Nichols and Robert De Niro.

Actress Jean Smart has been cast as Meryl’s best friend in the upcoming “Great Hope Springs”, according to an interview with this source. Smart has won praise during her lengthy career, mostly for her television roles on “Designing Women”, “24” and “Samantha Who?”, the latter winning her an Emmy Award in 2008. “Great Hope Springs” is currently shooting.

In its 19/26 issue, Entertainment Weekly has previewed the highlights of the 2011 movie season, and of course, “The Iron Lady” is featured. The scan can be found in the gallery with many thanks to Alvaro!

As mentioned and explained by visitors from the UK before, British newspapers are pro and contra Thatcher, so this might be a reason for such diverse press coverage on “The Iron Lady”, as summarized by the Los Angeles Times: If controversy equals box office, then “The Iron Lady,” Meryl Streep’s Margaret Thatcher biopic, is off to a promising start across the pond. According to a report in the British newspaper the Daily Mail, friends of Thatcher who attended an early screening of the film Saturday were outraged by its portrayal of their former prime minister as power-hungry leading up to and during her administration in the 1980s and conflicted and confused in her senescence. “I didn’t come here to see a film about granny going mad,” one anonymous viewer said of the movie, which is directed by Phyllida Lloyd (“Mamma Mia”) and stars Streep as the Conservative leader and Jim Broadbent as her husband, Denis Thatcher. According to the report, “The Iron Lady” contains scenes of Thatcher suffering nightmares over some of the major victories of her tenure — including the 1984-85 coal miners’ strike that lead to a weakened labor movement in Britain and the 1982 Falklands War — and sacrificing family for ambition. Viewers took particular offense at the depiction of the Thatcher marriage, including a scene in which a pink-turbaned Denis appears in a dream sequence to rail at his wife for her selfishness. Conservative MP Conor Burns told the paper: “Any portrayal of Margaret Thatcher that does not show her as one of the titans of British politics in the 20th Century will be a travesty. The idea that Denis would ever have been cruel to her is twisted and untrue. They were devoted.” Their article continues here.

According to The Daily Fairfield,A certain property on Wilson Avenue is beginning to look like a movie set — and with good reason. “Great Hope Springs” will begin shooting there Monday. The movie stars Connecticut resident Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell. Carell plays a marriage counselor trying to help Streep and Jones in the comedy. A Norwalk resident noticed Tuesday that trailers were being set up along the waterfront behind 300-310 Wilson Ave., a huge warehouse formerly used by ShowMotion, Inc. He saw equipment being carried in and recognized it as movie equipment. Norwalk Police Lt. Paul Resnick, who said he serves as Norwalk’s liaison to the film industry when they are in town, confirmed that “Great Hope Springs” will begin shooting at the spot Monday. Workers, who said they were from New York, gave the same information, adding that sets were being built inside the warehouse.

This coming November, Meryl Streep will be special guest at a gala honoring women from the past and present who have shaped history. Streep will be attending the National Women’s History Museum’s de Pizan Honors in November in Washington DC. The Museum’s mission is to educate the public about the women who have significantly shaped our world; the National Women’s History Museum will honor history-makers to ensure that their legacy remains alive. Each year, NWHM will pay tribute posthumously to selected women with an award in their name presented to a contemporary counterpart. The lives and contributions of the recipients of the de Pizan Honors will have a permanent presence, exhibited within the soon-to-be-constructed world- class National Women’s History Museum, at the National Mall in Washington, DC, which will ensure that these women have a permanent place in history. Streep is National Spokesperson for the National Women’s History Museum, and hosts their annual gala every year. At last year’s event, she donated $1 million to the cause. She has also participated in numerous high profile events for the Museum, including Shine On at Radio City Music Hall for two consecutive years. The Museum is a very important cause near to Meryl’s heart. The de Pizan Honors take place on November 16, at the Ronald Reagan Building Amphitheater, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC. More information will be released over the coming weeks. For more information about the National Women’s History Museum, click here. Article courtesy Look at the Stars.