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A CLASS ACT
Magazine / Source: The Hollywood Reporter, June 2004 |
Colleagues say Streep hits the mark every time
By Wolf Schneider
Jonathan Demme
"We may be seeing a lot more of "the real Meryl Streep" in certain subtle ways in this movie (Paramount's planned July 30 remake release "The Manchurian Candidate") than we've ever seen before. She's a very brilliant human being, and her character's a very brilliant human being. I think in various other parts, it's possible Meryl has needed to put a little governor on the extent to which she can allow her massive intelligence and confidence to show through; it's a value Jodie Foster was able to capitalize on in (1991's) "The Silence of the Lambs.""
Robert Redford
"Of all the people I know, Meryl is by far the one who can do anything she wants to do. We had a couple of scenes (during filming of 1985's "Out of Africa") where lions had to be charging us, and she had enormous courage. The character had to be almost foolish in her courage -- she was so anxious to belong in the world she stepped into -- so Meryl had to do it. She had to be adventurous and courageous around wild animals -- sometimes without knowing quite what she was doing -- and my character had to guide her through. When we were working, sometimes it was with lions charging, and we had to stand there and load and reload. That takes a certain amount of fortitude and courage, and she had it."
Nicole Kidman
"I grew up with Meryl Streep, and she was the greatest actress that my whole generation of women aspire to be. She raised the standard in terms of what you can do -- as a woman, as a mother (and) as an actress. You can still have a life and be an actress; she shows you how to do it and give these brilliant performances that are so diverse. She's a lot of fun, on top of that; she has a lot of joie de vivre."
Julianne Moore
"When you watch her work in something like (2002's) "Adaptation," where it's so kind-of idealistic -- it's slippery sort of stuff -- she just brings you along. You feel as if you're experiencing it with her: When she starts laughing like, "This is nuts; this is crazy," you start thinking, "This really is crazy!" She's very funny, very bright and really bossy, which is another quality I like about her. I think that comes from being four people's mother."
Sydney Pollack
"She's a great actress because of her intuitiveness, her powers of observation and her sense of being in touch with herself quickly -- all that, along with talent. She has a vast imagination; she has incredible intuitive powers; she understands instantly things about human behavior that people who aren't observant don't understand and people who are narcissistic don't understand. You have to be paying attention to the outside world, and most people are not. Most people are wondering how they're doing; they're looking in your eyes, thinking, "I wonder what she thinks of me?" You're not going to learn about human behavior like that. She's in the world, interested in the world. She lives a full life, (and) she's experienced what she needs to experience: motherhood, love, frustration."
Carrie Fisher
"She's the best version of me I've ever seen; I wish she could do it all the time. I had to explain to her what drugs are like because she hadn't really done that. (But) I do that very well; I have a lot of practice. I didn't know that it was going to turn out to be helping Meryl as research; that's probably what I did it for -- as research for Meryl. I had to teach her to be a truant, like a bad girl. I had to teach Meryl bad behavior -- and anybody who wants that kind of training, that's my specialty. She understood the notion of it very well. It's ridiculous what she can do, and I think she thinks it's ridiculous, too. She's not just this goddess, or I couldn't hang around with her. That'd be awful, if she was this queen of acting and accents. I don't think she gets too far into character that she can't crawl out easily."
Mike Nichols
"One of the parts that Meryl played in (HBO's 2003 miniseries "Angels in America") was the rabbi. We shot a scene in a cemetery in which the rabbi sat on a bench in a row of rabbis waiting for a bus, looking like blackbirds on a fence. Two of the other rabbis were ("Angels" playwright) Tony Kushner and his friend Maurice Sendak; at the end of the day, when we said, "It's a wrap!" Maurice Sendak almost fainted when the "old Jewish man" beside him stood up, grew a foot taller and spoke in the voice of a lovely woman. He had spent all day with an old Jewish man, only to find at the end of the day that the old man was Meryl Streep. Such are the pleasures of working with Meryl."
Nicolas Cage
"My first of impression of Meryl was that she had an incredible sense of humor. We were doing our first scene together, which awkwardly was a love scene; before even hello, she dropped a condom on me. We both have a tendency to laugh out loud while shooting. I also thought she was sexy. I think what makes Meryl a great actress is that her instrument is so liquid; everything flows without sharp edges or unintentionally abrupt changes. I remember her going through some transformation to get into a scene, and I saw a very beautiful process of shape-shifting that brought her to the point she intended. I was deeply impressed."
Published June 10, 2004, © The Hollywood Reporter
