Chronology: 1982
Meryl reunited with director Robert Benton for the stylish noir thriller “Still of the Night” – a role she has often mentioned to not enjoying to play due to its lack of dimension. Co-starring Roy Scheider, she was the ice-cold femme fatale who keeps the watcher guessing if she is a murderer or a damsel in distress. But there was another performance in 1982 that lifted her still-young career to another level. Director Alan Pakula had begun working on the adapting William Styron’s “Sophie’s Choice” for the big screen. The heart-wrenching story of a Holocaust survivor haunted by the demons of her past became a sought-after role in Hollywood, but Pakula was determined to cast an unknown Polish actress for the part. After all, parts of the films demanded Polish and German language skills.
For Streep, this was the role she always wanted to play and she persuaded Pakula to cast her in the lead. To prepare for the role, and the harrowing scenes in a concentration camp, which were filmed in Yugoslawia, she took intensive speech classes to master the accent and lost a fair amount of weight. “Sophie’s Choice” was released in December 1982 and won instant praise from critics as one of the singular best performance by an actor or actress. For her role, Meryl received accolades from the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, a third Golden Globe Award and a second Academy Award, her first as Best Actress.
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