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DOUBTFUL PERFECTION
Magazine / Source: The Sunday Times Magazine, October 2004 |
She's considered the greatest actress alive and could add to her Oscar tally with her Hilary Clinton-ish turn in The Manchurian Candidate remake. But MICHAEL DUNCAN and SHANNON HARVEY discover even Meryl Streep doubts her ability some days.
Meryl Streep is more than a little nutty. She darts from subject to subject, going from cheery to angry to positively animated. She will pause and offer you earnest life advice, determined for you to absorb it, and then move seamlessly on to her next point.
Then again, you're allowed a few eccentricities when you're regarded as the best actress alive.
Streep holds the record for the most Oscar nominations in history (13 for two wins) and an incredible 19 Golden Globe nominations for five wins.
She recently won an Emmy for best actress in the mini-series Angels in America and the biggest stars in Hollywood - many of them her close friends - honoured Streep with the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement award this year.
"From the bottom of my heart," her good pal Jack Nicholson mused, "I pity you. So perfect. Nobody's that perfect, right?"
The self-effacing 55-year-old blushed and replied: "I wish I were that person, I really do."
But many more would wish they were Streep. Indeed, what chance does any actress have of competing with the great one when she decided to tackle the small screen in Angels in America?
"It was overwhelming and great and horrible and all those things," she cheerily says of her dynamic mini-series stint.
Now Streep is in career-best form, taking all the great female roles in Hollywood. She has no less than eight feature films on the go.
She might just earn another Oscar for her frightening new role in the edgy political thriller The Manchurian Candidate, an acclaimed remake of the 1962 classic starring Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury.
And in this role she's bad - very bad. And loving it.
"That was a lot of fun to play," she confesses.
Streep won't admit that she took the demeanour - if not the hair-do - from Hilary Clinton to play Eleanor Shaw, a corrupt US senator whose brainwashed son (Live Schreiber) is being groomed for the White House.
She will only admit that her heart skipped a beat at the prospect of working with Denzel Washington, who plays Sinatra's role as a US army major who uncovers the sinister plot.
"There are certain actors who can just appear on screen and carry with them everything they've already got. They don't have to create the character for you," she says. "Denzel comes on and displays his brand of dishevelled dignity. I think he's got a very powerful talent."
The remake, which is touted for multiple Oscar nominations, is based less on the original film and more on current political paranoia.
And politics is something Streep cares a lot about. She lent her Tinseltown clout in the '80s to anti-nuclear demonstrations and this year she's put it behind George Bush challenger John Kerry. Just as she helps her son get elected president in the The Manchurian Candidate, she's helping Kerry in real life.
"People should not be afraid to speak up," she blasts. "We can't not be speaking up. I hope people continue to speak up and not be afraid, especially journalists. Because they're the ones who have the ears of the nation."
For now, however, family is a big part of Streep's life, though she's not adverse to speaking up at home either.
She is the mother of four children - Henry, 24, Mary Willa, 20, Grace, 17 and Louisa, 13 - who often accuse her of yelling.
"Sometimes in the middle of a heated discussion they will tell me that I'm raising my voice. I shout back: 'I'm not raising my voice, I'm talking to you in a regular voice'," she says.
"They reply: 'But you were just screaming at me'."
But the demands of parenthood on anyone in the acting profession take their toll. Streep, who lives in New York, has to commute to Los Angeles for work.
"I have even been told by my kids that I should give up acting. But I think that is a bit overdramatic. They'll say anything to get their way," she says.
Streep's personal life has had more weepie moments than even the most heart-rending of her performances in films such as Silkwood, Sophie's Choice, Kramer vs Kramer and The French Lieutenant's Woman.
She still grieves for former lover John Cazale, an actor who died from cancer aged 42 in 1978.
"His death came as such a shock because I was so close to him," she says. "I don't know if I've ever really got over it. It has affected everything that came after it. The pain is always there in the recesses of your mind."
Cazale had a role with Streep in The Deer Hunter, the film that helped her break into Hollywood, but he died before seeing himself on screen.
"It broke my heart watching that movie and seeing John," she says.
Streep married sculptor Don Gummer shortly after John's death and many believe it was only through his support that she was able to deal with the loss.
She says she has found happiness after 26 years of marriage and often looks to Gummer for advice when confronted with a new role.
"I have often felt like changing my mind as soon as I have committed to a major film," she says. "I have varying degrees of confidence and self-loathing.
"I always say to my husband 'I've never felt like this before'. He goes 'You always do this'. And I say 'No, this is the first time that I've ever felt this way'. And he says 'No, you dismantle yourself before you begin. This is what you do, this is your process'."
While most actors would give their right arm for Streep's process, she is still her own worst critic.
Doubting her abilities, it seems, is part of the secret to her success.
"You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent," she says. "It could be about not feeling able to achieve a certain scene or about an amotion you feel you weren't able to get to.
"Or about feeling that your energy or your invention is flagged. Or that you're boring and they're going to find out that you don't know what you're doing. It could be any one of those things."
But that hasn't stopped her from tackling the kooky role of Aunt Josephine in the whimsical Christmas movie Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events with wildman Jim Carrey. And she is looking forward to two more big screen ventures - Prime, in which she co-stars with Sandra Bullock, and Chinese theatrical director Chen Shi-Zeng's first film about the world of Asian students on American campuses.
The Manchurian Candidate (MA) opens October 28.
Lemony Snicket (PG) opens December 16
Many thanks to Kenny for submitting this article
