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MERYL STREEP IN THE COMPANY OF LEGENDS
Magazine / Source: The Times Picayune, June 2004 |
Actress joins short list of women honored by American Film Institute
By Jay Bobbin
Make no mistake: Meryl Streep is thrilled to receive the American Film Institute's latest Life Achievement Award.
But at the same time, she's dismayed.
The two-time Oscar winner (out of a record 13 nominations) is only the sixth woman to receive the AFI award in its 32-year history, following fellow screen legends Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor and Barbra Streisand.
Happy as she is to be recognized by the AFI, Streep adds that she finds the small number of female honorees "just horrible when I think about it, though you don't want to bite the hand . . ." And would she use the occasion to vent that feeling? "Oh, you bet, baby! There are two kinds of people in the world, men and women . . . so each year, they should alternate (which gender is honored). If they really wanted to be compensatory, they could start by taking the next 12 years to give the award just to women."
Enough good female roles exist to support that, Streep insists. "I think that changes all the time, and it's actually getting better. The kinds of female characters represented in movies are more varied, certainly, than they were 30 years ago. That's partially because of the whole 'indie' (independent-movie) scene, and partially because there are more women executives, frankly. They're interested in those stories."
Streep long has crusaded for diversity in female roles, extending from her performance as the AWOL wife and mother in "Kramer vs. Kramer" to her Golden Globe Award-winning work in the HBO miniseries "Angels in America."
"I've had to elbow my way out of 'drama queen' into comedies, which is where I started, but it's all worked out somehow," she says. "Every director or studio chief who says, 'Well, why can't she play this?' is breaking ground for me." Recent additions to the list are director Jonathan Demme and Paramount Pictures chief Sherry Lansing, who cast Streep as an assassin's manipulative mother in the forthcoming remake of "The Manchurian Candidate."
At the AFI event -- taped June 10 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., for telecast on the USA Network -- Streep is given the award by Mike Nichols, who directed her in the movies "Silkwood," "Heartburn" and "Postcards From the Edge," and "Angels in America." Also participating are Streep co-stars Robert De Niro ("The Deer Hunter," "Falling in Love"), Clint Eastwood ("The Bridges of Madison County"), Robert Redford ("Out of Africa"), Diane Keaton ("Marvin's Room"), Kevin Kline ("Sophie's Choice"), Kurt Russell ("Silkwood"), Goldie Hawn ("Death Becomes Her") and Tracey Ullman ("Plenty").
Director Sydney Pollack and writers Carrie Fisher and Nora Ephron offer tributes as well, as does Jim Carrey, who appears with Streep in the upcoming "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events."
Streep maintains that from the start, she has taken her career "one day at a time. I have been so glad each time another job presents itself. Every actor will tell you that, but it's really true. It's so ephemeral; you have a job, then it's over, and you have to believe something else will present itself. When it does, that's the miracle. I really thought I was going to be unemployable when I was 40, and a lot of what has happened instead is thanks to other people -- writers, directors, agents -- and their efforts to get me work."
Perhaps the biggest irony of Streep's receipt of the AFI Life Achievement Award is her relative modesty about accepting such honors.
"My real terror," she says, "is that they'll have a tribute and no one will come. Wouldn't you be afraid of that? Maybe they could at least have it in a mall and hand out tickets. On the other hand, I wish my parents were still alive to see this. They'd be the ones who would really enjoy it."
