Hundreds of new production stills, on-set pictures and theatre programmes have been added to the photo gallery, covering 40 years of Meryl Streep’s extraordinary career. The earliest find is the theatre programm for “Miss Julie”, Meryl’s first starring role with the Vassar Drama Department in 1969. More programmes have been added from her years at the Public Theater, including “27 Wagons Full Of Cotton”, “Measure for Measure” and “Secret Service”. New production stills have been added for most of Meryl’s feature films, including some wonderful on-set pictures from “The Deer Hunter” and great additions from “Plenty”. The latest updates wrap with some unseen pictures from 2009’s “Julie & Julia”. Since almost all career pages have been updated, you can browse the gallery pages by the last updated albums. Enjoy the new additions!

Here we are, celebrating 20 years of Simply Streep online! I honestly can’t believe I would type this one day, but it has been in fact two decades since Simply Streep opened its doors in 1999. I couldn’t have done it without all the generous contributions, notes and well wishers. To all of you, a big thank you! You can read more about the site’s history here if you’re interested. For the new launch I have worked extensively on the re-building the press archive, with the creation, help and support of the wonderful Maria. Thank you very much. All other pages have been updated, including the career pages. Some minor changes have been made. The specials section has been merged with the information section, and some of the previous specials will be soon featured on Simply Streep’s brand new Instagram account. To celebrate 20 years online, I have kept back some amazing pictures and new information that you will see over the coming updates. Lastly, I’m currently having trouble with my email address, so if you feel your email didn’t get through, you can reach out to me using this new email address. Enjoy! Frederik

There are two answers to why I started this website so long ago and at such an early age. The first is my discovery of an outstanding acting talent. In 1996 or 1997, I watched “Death Becomes Her” on television and thought it was pretty damn funny, especially Meryl Streep’s performance. By that time I don’t think I fully realised that actors do this for a living, I just enjoyed movies. It was my parents to pointed me to another Meryl Streep film running on tv – “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. While watching it I couldn’t believe that this was the same person. None of it matched any of the character traits I had seen before. A short time later, I watched “Silkwood”, and I witnessed the third completely different person I could not believe was one. By the time I watched “A Cry in the Dark”, I was hooked. This must be the greatest actress I have ever seen.

My second interest around that time was the internet, which was “brought home” around the same time and opened up a completely new world to me. I’m of a generation, probably the last, that grew up without internet or mobile phones and I wouldn’t want to miss it. But to have the opportunity to have the world at your hands, read articles and film news from around the globe and communicate with people from the other side of the world was the greatest invention I could think of. Those who were alive and online in the late ’90s might remember that it was vastly different of what we’re used to today. There was no Google or Youtube, instead there was Yahoo!, which didn’t even have a search function but categories filled with links to fansites and message boards. Back then there was a fansite on Meryl already – MSO – and my English from school was well enough to understand most of it and wanting to do something like this myself. There was also the Yahoo! Groups message board for Meryl Streep fans. Here, I met Anke, a fellow German and enthusiast with which I became online friends. She encouraged me early on to create a German fansite and shared her collection of magazine scans and pictures with me. My father helped me setting up a domain and bought a program for html programming (somehting I am thankful for to this day). In 1999, meryl-streep.de was launched. It was in German, and I have no idea what it looked like. I just remember that the webspace you would get back then was 2MB! So I assume there around ten pictures in a gallery and that was it.

The timing to launch the website wasn’t all too good. Meryl Streep had just released “Music of the Heart” and then decided to take a break from film for three years. By that time, there was a different perception of Meryl because her films in the 1990s were not received as well as the 1980s classics. It felt like she was on her way out. This changed big time in 2002, when both “Adaptation” and “The Hours” were released. “Adaptation” did a lot to her career, although I’ve never liked that film, because her performance of the free-spirit, multi-layered writer reminded people that she can still play everything and re-invent herself. This second spring of her career has never stopped since then. By this time, I had translated the website to English and bought the domain simplystreep.com to give the site a signature name. And there’s no looking back since then. I’ve had the great privilege to be recognized as a fan’s source and was contacted by pretty much everybody from the American Film Institute to Equality Now and various film studios. I was able to receive films and books before their releases and, of course, I met many fans from around the world who shared their collections with the site – many with whom I’m writing to this day. To all of you, thank you very much. You have no idea how much I appreciate all of it.

So, does this mean I am the biggest fan there is? Most certainly not. After all these years I see myself more as an archivist than a fan, or a Streeper, as the post-“Mamma Mia” fan generation have nicknamed themselves. I have never been the kind of admirer trying to reach out to their stars, or waiting at red carpets. I even overslept Meryl Streep’s Oscar win in 2012 because I was about to start a new job the next day (which I still have, so it was a wise decision). While many of Meryl Streep’s more recent work in the past 10 years, including “Mamma Mia” and basically everytahing in which she sings, has not been of much interest to me, it’s part of a legacy, a career of constant reimagination and different characters. To cover this is the essence of Simply Streep, and the reason why I have never lost interest in maintaining the site, not even after “Into the Woods” or “Ricki and the Flash”. It’s amazing how fast time goes by. 20 years seem to be nothing. I’m not the 15 year-old I was when I started the site. But what a tremendous gift it has been so far. I have been asked over the years why I don’t include myself more into the site, with my opinion or more information about myself. The key to a good website, in my opinion, is to keep yourself out of it. There have been many times in the past, where I felt the need to raise my opinion on certain aspects, misinterpretation of quotes or mean presidents, but in the end it’s not about me, it’s not about the gossip or clickbait or other people’s thoughts. Simply Streep is, and will always be, an archive of an actor’s outstanding career.

Thank you to everybody and on to the next 20 years…

Frederik

The cast of “Big Little Lies” – Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley and Zoe Kravitz – were featured in a taped interview on today’s Good Morning America to promote the series’ second season. The full interview can be watched below and in the video archive. Additionally, an interview from yesterday’s New York premiere from Entertainment Tonight has been added. Links and screencaptures can be found below.

It’s one of the most anticipated shows of 2019, returning almost two years after the critically-acclaimed first season. The all-star cast stepped out in style Wednesday night in New York City for the season 2 premiere of the hit HBO drama. Even Alexander Skarsgard – whose abusive character Perry was killed at the end of the first season – was there, inducting he is likely to appear via flashback in the new season. Streep co-stars as Perry’s mother Mary Louise Wright, who arrives in Monterey looking for answers about her son’s death. Pictures from the premiere have been added to the photo gallery.

The cast of “Big Little Lies” stepped out in New York for the premiere of season 2 (see following update). In a conversation moderated by “Vanity Fair” editor-in-chief Radhika Jones, Streep joined stars Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Laura Dern hours before their season 2 premiere to discuss their experiences with the celebrated HBO drama and why they were so determined to bring it back. When asked to join a second season of “Big Little Lies,” Meryl Streep didn’t hesitate. “[My agents] asked me, ‘don’t you want to read it?’ And I said no,” the actor laughed, sitting alongside her co-stars Wednesday at the Wing Soho in New York City. “The first season was the greatest thing on television.” “You get to explore [the characters] and the consequences on a deeper level,” said Kidman of the decision to continue after the climactic finale, which coincided with the end of Liane Moriarty’s novel and was originally meant to end the series. “You see their lives unfold in a much deeper way.” Another big part of the decision to return was the huge reaction the show received. “The year at the Golden Globes when Oprah gave that incredible speech…and we were able to go up there and talk about this show was truly one of the greatest moments of my life and career,” Witherspoon said. Plus, as they all agreed, “Big Little Lies” represented a rare treat in their careers when they got to collaborate with many women rather than be the sole female voice on set; the fact that they even get along well enough to have an ongoing group chat is a bonus. (While they wouldn’t reveal the content of their conversations, Kidman at least allowed that she’s the most enthusiastic emoji user, while Witherspoon said that she “likes a gif.”) The full article can be read over at Variety, hopefully there will be a video of the panel posted soon. For now, enjoy the pictures.

The following article comes from CNN with many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up: There’s a golden rule in Hollywood: Meryl Streep can star in whatever project she wants to star in. So, when writing “Big Little Lies” Season 2, Liane Moriarty, who wrote the novel the series was based on and is a producer on the show, had a trick up her sleeve. She created a new character – the grieving mother of deceased Perry (played in season 1 by Alexander Skarsgård) – and named her Mary Louise. “Mary Louise is my actual legal name,” Streep said during a panel discussion at The Wing SoHo on Wednesday.
Streep said she joined the project without reading a script and thought the first season of the show “was the greatest thing on TV.” 
Nicole Kidman, who was also on the panel, first revealed Moriarty’s “secret” to landing Streep back in February. “That was Liane Moriarty. That was her telepathic message to you Meryl, because [the cast] did not know that. We did not know that that was your name,” Kidman said. “Liane wrote the novella and said, ‘Get me Meryl Streep.'” Streep praised the complex portrayal of the women in the series and said that “Big Little Lies” viewers will see her character head into a “dark place” following the murder of her son.

Her son is dead. I thank God I don’t have that experience, but imagining it, just going into the dark place of imagining it. That feeling of protecting him while he’s gone is still there. The motherhood never stops.

Streep also thanked Kidman and co-star Reese Witherspoon for having the foresight to option the book rights for the screen in 2014. “I was of a generation that waited to be asked to dance and I’m so admiring of you for getting on the balls of your feet and looking for material,” Streep told Witherspoon, who also sat on the panel. A giddy Witherspoon then asked for whoever filmed that to send it to her so she could “post it to Instagram tomorrow” for proof that it actually happened. “Big Little Lies” premieres June 9 on HBO.

Most of the “Big Little Lies” actors are currently busy promoting the series’ second season, which will premiere on HBO next Sunday, June 9. Unfortuantely, Meryl is not among those doing the talkshow circuit right now. Maybe she will be seen next week since not all late night shows have announced their guests yet. In Reese Witherspoon’s appearance on Good Morning America earlier today, a clip was shown which seems to be the first meeting between Madeline and Celeste’s mother-in-law, Celeste. While we’ve already read that Mary-Louise is up to no good, the clip gives us a better understanding of what to look forward to – and judging from the brief scene, there’s a lot! You can watch the clip below, in the video archive or catch Reese’s full appearance on GMA here. Additionally, a couple of new production stills have been added to the photo gallery.