Meryl Streep and the F-Word: Why Did the Greatest Feminist Actress Deny Being a Feminist?

While promoting the movie Suffragette, Streep was asked if she is a feminist. ‘I am a humanist,’ she replied, further fueling the misguided belief that ‘feminist’ is a dirty word.

In an interview with Porter magazine, Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard criticized feminism, saying, “We need to fight for women’s rights but I don’t want to separate women from men… Sometimes in the word feminism there’s too much separation.” And her sentiment was echoed this week by none other than Meryl Streep, who declared in Time Out London, “I am a humanist, I am for nice easy balance.”

Listen, I’ve learned to roll with the punches for Marion. Let’s not forget that this is a woman who could be described as both a 9/11 attacks truther and a moon landing denier. I love her movies, and short of a reveal of a secret racist or anti-vaxxer past, I plan to see every movie she makes from here on out. But I’m not about to subscribe to her political newsletter any time soon.

But Meryl… girl I am surprised at you. You, Mary Louise Streep—you are not a feminist? You, the star of Silkwood and A Cry in the Dark? You, who leap out of your seat every time another lady beats you for an Oscar? You, who are campaigning Congress for the creation of an equal rights amendment? You, who railed against Walt Disney last awards season for being a “gender bigot?”
Self-described feminist Maya Angelou said that when people tell you who they are, believe them. So OK, Meryl, fine. You’re not a feminist. You’re only starring in a movie literally called Suffragette to fight for awareness of gender-neutral humanism.

Protestations about feminism as being “too separatist”—as Cotillard puts it—are no surprise coming from young starlets who have yet to get curious about the world beyond their success, but coming from women like Streep and Cotillard, the usual refrains about wanting balance and not wanting to cut men out are confusing. These are women whose careers and whose lives have clearly benefited from feminism, and who clearly seek out extraordinary women to portray in their work.

So what is it that’s so undesirable about the word feminist? Why does the myth of separatism persist?
Women like Meryl Streep are supposed to be our base, not our swing votes. If we can’t convince Meryl Streep to call herself a feminist in public, how are we ever going to reach women?

The common refrain in moments such as these is that feminism is simply a belief in equal rights. And while that is true, it’s also a vast oversimplification of the history of a movement that has had time to develop over the course of a century. There is not one feminism, but many feminisms, and there have always been fractures within the feminist movement over which ways to approach the issue of women’s rights. And, whether or not it’s fashionable to admit, part of that contention has been in defining the role that men play in the continued inequality between the sexes.

Most feminists are not Andrea Dworkin, the radical feminist most often cited when critics of feminism want to find a feminist who is explicitly anti-man. But then again even Andrea Dworkin wasn’t really Andrea Dworkin by the standards of her critics, as she is just as often misquoted as she was adequately critiqued. Short of a couple harmless Twitter jokes, you’d be hard-pressed to find a feminist who subscribes to radical separatism, and to me, there is something disturbing in the idea that women are denying feminism because of even the possibility that they might find themselves in a world where they must align themselves against men; a world where men are treated the way our culture treats women.

Just thinking about the issue from a practical level, the idea that we should be worried about preserving men’s voices in the case of a feminist victory is absurd.

There is no feminist ideology that seeks to deny men health care based on their gender. There is no future where men are kicked out of boardrooms or denied promotions because of their gender. No one is proposing that we even try to achieve that future as a goal, and even if they were, men have had a couple thousand years to learn how to defend their position of power. We don’t have to fight that battle for them.

We are living in a moment where the conservative right is actively attempting to defund women’s health care (see: Planned Parenthood) on their way to denying the women of this country our right to choose. We’re still fighting for equal pay, we’re still fighting for paid leave and child care, we’re still fighting for access to high-paying jobs in the sciences and in boardrooms. The ideals of feminism are more than a simple matter of identity—feminism is the barrier that safeguards women’s quality of life.

We can’t afford to lose our allies, but we also can’t afford to stop criticizing the people who hold the power, and who maintain the status quo—and in the case of feminism, those people are often men. This doesn’t mean that we can’t love men, that we can’t fight for the things men are denied by the rigid system of gender that we’ve constructed for them. This just means that like not-feminist Meryl Streep said quite literally two questions down from declaring her not-feminism, it’s time for men to acknowledge their complicity in the gendered system of inequality, and it’s time for men to work to change that system.

“Men should look at the world as if something is wrong when their voices predominate. They should feel it,” said Streep. “People at agencies and studios, including the parent boards, might look around the table at the decision-making level and feel something is wrong if half their participants are not women. Because our tastes are different, what we value is different. Not better, different.”

Well said, Meryl. Good thing you didn’t say our tastes were better—all those feminists out there might have gotten the wrong idea.

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep made her film debut in 1977. She has since been nominated for 25 Golden Globes and 15 Academy Awards (including wins for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in Sophie’s Choice and Kramer v. Kramer, respectively) and, in 2004, received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. A New Jersey native and fifth-generation American, Steep’s ancestry can be traced back ten generations to the small town of Loffenau in Wurttemberg, Germany. It was from Loffenau that her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, illegally emigrated, possibly in the midst of the 1848 Revolution. Meryl’s 6th great-grandparent, George Streeb, was mayor of the town during the 1700s and there are 15 Streebs – her very distant relatives – still living in Loffenau today. The other branch of the Streep family came from a small town in Switzerland called Giswil. Meryl’s great-grandfather, Balthazar William Huber, emigrated to the US during the tumultuous period of the Franco-Prussian War.

Meryl’s maternal side has deep roots in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson was one of the first Europeans to settle Rhode Island. Lawrence’s grandson, John Wilkinson Sr., was a Quaker who settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania (Wilkinson Road in Bucks County is named for the family). Another line of Meryl’s maternal family, the Crispins, can also be traced to Pennsylvania. The Crispins were distant relatives of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and records show they were among the first purchasers of land in Pennsylvania.

All 42 Meryl Streep movie performances, ranked from worst to best

worst to bes

 

Want a convincing case for the value of a postgraduate education? Meryl Streep finished her MFA from Yale in 1975 at the age of 26 (she paid her way through school by waitressing and typing) and then hit the New York City stage. Within a year she had won a Tony. Within two she had her first feature-film role. Within three she had won an Oscar. Looks like she got her money’s worth at Yale. With the release of Ricki and the Flash - which opens in Australia on August 27, Streep has appeared in a total of 51 movies, in just about every genre, with some of the biggest movie stars on the planet, with some of the greatest directors of all time. And we can say — and we’ve watched them all — she’s incapable of a bad performance. Even sleepwalking Streep is riveting to watch: She always finds something in even the most thankless roles. And she’s so good that she even makes her risks look like the easiest parts: You know it’s not effortless, but it can feel that way.
So, time for us to start ranking! We had to limit the films to 42, excluding minor roles (with a few notable exceptions), voice acting (sorry, Fantastic Mr. Fox), and TV movies (though she is great in Angels in America). This isn’t a ranking of the best Streep films: It’s a ranking of Streep’s performances in them. We watched all 42 and can say that every performance is a little bit different. They’re all great. But below, we count down to the best.

42. The House of the Spirits (1993)

This movie gets pretty much everything wrong about Streep, Latin American culture (which will happen when your Chileans are played by Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, and Winona Ryder), literary adaptations, and the way human beings interact with each other on this planet. Acclaimed filmmaker Bille August’s first English-language film feels like it was produced in an antiseptic lab that attempts to create Important Oscar Contenders in a petri dish. Streep’s character makes no sense whatsoever, and she, like the rest of the cast, looks adrift and lost. By the end she looks ready to fall asleep. You’ll have beaten her to the punch.

Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons in a scene from 'House of the Spirits' (1993).

41. Before and After (1996)

A bewildered, strangely tone-deaf studio drama that features Streep and Liam Neeson — back when he was a sensitive ponytailed man in a tweedy jacket, before he punched wolves in the face — as suburban parents of a son (Edward Furlong, back when Edward Furlong was everywhere) who accidentally kills his girlfriend. There’s an interesting story somewhere in here about how parents rationalise the sins of their children, but that movie isn’t this one. This is a jumbled, confused mess that has so little focus that it ends with a courtroom scene for no apparent reason. And if you were wondering what Streep would bring to clichéd role of the Mum Who Loves Too Much, stop: She mostly looks bored.

Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson in a scene from 'Before and After' (1996).

40. Dark Matter (2007) 

Streep’s is actually a supporting role in the film debut of Chinese opera director Shi-Zheng Chen, but it’s a substantial enough part that we included it. She plays a professor obsessed with Chinese culture who helps a brilliant Chinese math student work with the mathematics department at her university. The student turns out to be unbalanced as well as brilliant, and the movie ends in tragedy. Loosely inspired by a 1991 shooting at the University of Iowa, the movie is amateurishly shot and even poorly lit; it looks like it was shot with a camcorder. It’s particularly strange that Streep is in it because her part has little connection to the plot and, you know, the movie looks like it was shot with a camcorder. Dark Matter was barely released in the States, partly because the Virginia Tech shooting happened right before it was scheduled to come out.

Meryl Streep and Liu Ye in a scene from 'Dark Matter' (2007).

39. Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)

Based on a famous Irish play, Lughnasa gives Streep one of our least favorite roles for her: prim, proper, joyless and rigid matriarch. Later she would bring a little flash of humor to a role like this — Doubt being the best example — but she’s so deadly serious here that it brings the whole film to a stop. She plays Kate Mundy, the eldest of the Mundy sisters living in abject poverty in 1930’s Ireland, caring for their dementia-riddled older brother (Michael Gambon). Streep is so wrapped up here that at several points she resembles one of the townspeople in Footloose. She spends most of the running time acting as if dancing is in the same moral neighborhood as a murderous orgy. By the end of the film, when (obviously) she learns the Value of Dance, she finally comes to life. As you’ll continue to see in these rankings, we greatly prefer, with a few exceptions, Fun Streep to Dour Streep, and this is as dour as Dour Streep gets.

Darrel Johnston, Brid Brennan, Sophie Thompson, Catherine McCormack, Meryl Streep and Kathy Burke in a scene from 'Dancing at Lughnasa' (1998).

38. The Iron Lady (2011; won Best Actress)

Generally speaking, we’re over getting worked up about who does or doesn’t win an Oscar at any given ceremony. Nonetheless, Streep’s win for this outright howler of a biopic remains baffling. Structured around an elderly Margaret Thatcher looking back on her life, The Iron Lady is a highlight reel of awards-season clichés: a patina of prestige, meticulous attention paid to makeup and costume, a melodramatic recapping of historical events, lots of capital-A Acting. It’s not that Streep isn’t convincing as the iron-willed former British prime minister — of course she’s impeccable — it’s that she attached her titanic dedication to a deeply dopey and simplistic treatment of a compelling political figure, her Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd clearly lacking the confidence to do her subject justice. The Iron Lady is such a clunky, clumsy misfire that even Streep’s studied Thatcher impression starts to get deeply irritating.

Meryl Streep in a scene from 'The Iron Lady' (2011).

37. Music of the Heart (1999; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry)

If you wanted to encapsulate what a typical Oscar-bait movie of the 1990s felt like, Music of the Heart does a nifty job. Based on the life of Roberta Guaspari, a violinist who taught music to poor Harlem grade-schoolers, this inspirational drama drips with good intentions and why-won’t-anyone-think-of-the-children? liberal concern. Streep is likable as Roberta, who also must contend with the fact that her husband ran out on her and their two kids. But horror auteur Wes Craven has no feel for the material, and the suffocating importance of the proceedings never lets up. We wonder if Streep even remembers she got an Academy Award nomination for it.

Meryl Streep in a scene from 'Music of the Heart' (1999).

36. The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

On paper, this looked like a can’t-miss: Let Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme remake The Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington, and cast Meryl Streep in the iconic Angela Lansbury role. But like the film itself, Streep is solid but hardly monumental, playing a ruthlessly ambitious senator whose brainwashed son (Liev Schreiber) will unwittingly execute her murderous plan. Sure, Streep has fun playing the World’s Scariest Stage Mother — emasculating the cowardly men around her and banging the drum for America’s hawkish foreign policy — but can it top Lansbury’s portrayal? Not a chance.

Meryl Streep in 'The Manchurian Candidate' (2004).

35. Heartburn (1986)

Based on Nora Ephron’s rocky marriage to Carl Bernstein, this dream pairing of Streep and Jack Nicholson falls flat. It has little to say about marriage, infidelity, and career choices women have to make: It’s as if director Mike Nichols was so entranced by his stars’ charisma that he let Nicholson smirk his way through his whole film. It’s also a terrible use of Streep, who plays a sad-sack woman put upon by her boorish (but irresistible, right?!) husband. A year later, Nicholson and Streep would get this right.

Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in a scene from 'Heartburn' (1986).

34. Falling in Love (1984)

Streep had just made Silkwood and Sophie’s Choice. Robert De Niro had just finished Once Upon a Time in America, The King of Comedy, and Raging Bull. So it’s little wonder that these two needed a break, teaming together for a somewhat charming but slight love story about two friendly married people who become best friends and then, well, read the title. There’s nothing particularly offensive about the film, but there’s nothing much compelling either. The movie feels like two great actors sitting out a few plays, taking a breather on the bench while they rest up for more interesting projects. Almost instantly forgettable.

Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep in a scene from 'Falling in Love' (1984).

33. Into the Woods (2014; nominated for Best Supporting Actress, lost to Patricia Arquette in Boyhood)

Director Rob Marshall’s adaptation of the heralded musical can be summed up by Streep’s performance as the witch: technically accomplished, kinda amusing, full of gusto, way too showy. Into the Woods is the sort of film that doesn’t do the actress a lot of favors. Since she’s such a big star playing such a small but juicy part, how can she not overact the hell out of it? And despite all of Streep’s accolades, her performance of Stephen Sondheim’s indelible songs isn’t particularly memorable. Just think how great peak-era Bernadette Peters would have been in this part.

Meryl Streep in 'Into the Woods'.

32. She-Devil (1989)

Streep is actually pretty funny as a wealthy romance-novel writer who steals Ed Begley Jr. from his long-suffering wife, played by Roseanne Barr. The movie doesn’t hold up well at all; Roseanne isn’t bad, but She-Devil is much more sitcommy than even we remembered at the time. It’s also oddly toothless; it’s telling that the movie is mostly forgotten today, in an age that theoretically could embrace the camp of it. Streep doesn’t bring much depth to her character, but she sure seems to be having a blast. (Of note: This was, in fact, Barr’s and Streep’s final collaboration!)

Ed Begley Jr. and Meryl Streep in 'She-Devil' (1989).

31. Prime (2005)

A perfectly pleasant romantic comedy-drama, Prime stars Uma Thurman as a recent divorcée who falls for a much younger guy (Bryan Greenberg) — who just so happens to be the son of her therapist (Streep)! Writer-director Ben Younger investigates the familial and romantic bonds that can both strengthen and tear apart people, and Streep eases into her role as a woman who takes her Judaism seriously. (One of Prime’s main tensions is that she doesn’t want her boy marrying outside of their faith.) Though she can be too cartoony and jokey on occasion, Streep keeps with the film’s modest tone, the character discovering that being too motherly to both her son and her patient isn’t doing them — or her — much good.

Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman in 'Prime' (2005).

30. Still of the Night (1982)

Three years after they both won Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer, Streep and filmmaker Robert Benton teamed up for this far-less-successful Hitchcockian thriller about a therapist (Roy Scheider) who’s transfixed by the mysterious mistress (Streep) of his murdered client. Because Still of the Night is all evocative, noirish mood, the entire movie is driving toward the question, “Well, did Streep’s character kill the guy or what?” Her performance as the would-be femme fatale doesn’t entirely work — she comes across as too icy without the corresponding dangerous sexual allure. But Streep’s chilliness has its own rewards, adding to the general dread and tension that swallows up the film in its superb, Vertigo-quoting final sequence.

Meryl Streep in 'Still of the Night' (1982).

29. Hope Springs (2012)

Reuniting with Devil Wears Prada director David Frankel, Streep plays a woman in Hope Springs who couldn’t be more different from the icy tastemaker Miranda. She’s Kay, a sweet, mildly happily married woman who encourages her grumpy, complacent husband (Tommy Lee Jones) to accompany her on a retreat to meet with a popular couples therapist (Steve Carell). Amid the surprisingly honest talk about the challenges of maintaining an active sexual relationship over a long marriage, Streep does good work in minor-key mode, portraying Kay as a loyal, loving woman who, in her 60s, is finally figuring out that it’s okay to ask for more from her husband and her life.

Meryl Streep in a scene from 'Hope Springs' (2012).

28. Manhattan (1979)

All right, so she’s barely in this. (She has maybe three scenes for about four total minutes of screen time.) Still, we had to include Streep’s one Woody Allen movie, especially considering that many people believe it to be his best film. Streep plays Allen’s ex-wife, a lesbian who is writing a book about their marriage. (He apparently tried to run her over with a car, or at least Freud would say so.) It’s a nearly perfect movie: It’s quite possibly the best movie Streep was ever in. (There are many other contenders we’ll be getting to later.)

Meryl Streep and Woody Allen in 'Manhattan' (1979).

27. It’s Complicated (2009)

Because of all the acclaim for her dramatic acting, Streep doesn’t get enough attention for her comedy. It’s Complicated is predictable Nancy Meyers fare, but it did permit Streep to demonstrate her grown-up, witty sex appeal, playing a divorced bakery-owner torn between a nice-guy architect (Steve Martin) and her remarried husband (Alec Baldwin). For all the deserved complaints about Hollywood not creating roles for women “of a certain age,” It’s Complicated is a welcome exception, and Streep steers around Meyers’s frothy plot points with enough grace and warmth to make her character’s navigation of this romantic triangle a fizzy treat.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in a scene from 'It's Complicated' (2009).

26. Ricki and the Flash (2015)

The best part of Streep’s portrayal of Ricki — a onetime housewife who abandoned her husband (Kevin Kline) and young children in Indiana to become a rock star in Los Angeles — is that she never bothers convincing us whether or not that was the right decision. Reuniting with Manchurian Candidate director Jonathan Demme, Streep is convincingly disheveled as a middle-aged wild child who may never have made it big but, all in all, is happier being broke and playing in a local bar than living a traditional life. But as Ricki rushes home to help her eldest daughter (Streep’s own daughter Mamie Gummer) after a suicide attempt, Streep keeps the push-pull between the character’s old world and new life a lively ongoing debate that’s reflected in the actress’s weary eyes. Ricki and the Flash may be only a minor charmer, but it’s enlivened by the subtlety Streep brings to a character who refuses to be the aging-rocker cliché many around Ricki see her to be.

Rick Springfield,Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer in 'Ricki and the Flash' (2015).

25. August: Osage County (2013; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine)

This adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Tracy Letts play never turns down the ACTING, but even amid a sea of heavy thespian-ing, Streep reigns supreme. Her Violet is a volcano of pent-up resentment just waiting to erupt, and the occasion of her adult children’s return to the family home after her husband’s death gives her the perfect opportunity to blow. The actress treats us to Violet’s wave upon wave of violent loathing, but August: Osage County also spotlights how generous Streep is as an ensemble player. As showstopping as her role is, Streep meshes well with the rest of this impressive cast, especially Julia Roberts, as the one daughter who won’t sit back and take her mother’s verbal abuse.

Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep in 'August: Osage County'.

24. The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)

It’s strange to think that there was such a thing in human history as “an Alan Alda vanity project,” but this is definitely one, a film Alda wrote, directed, and starred in as a liberal New York senator battling with his principles versus his ambition. Alda is pretty thrilled with himself here; everyone in the movie thinks he’s just the dreamiest dreamboat who ever dreamboated, and there are multiple scenes of him lifting weights. It’s a pretty toothless satire — it’s less a satire than a trial balloon for Alda to run for office — but Streep is terrific in a supporting role as the Louisiana civil-rights activist with whom Alda’s Tynan has an affair. Streep is funny, light, and undeniably sexy, and her Louisiana accent is, as always, perfect. And convincing us that she finds Alan Alda this irresistible might be one of the crowning achievements of her career.

Meryl Streep and Alan Alda in 'The Seduction of Joe Tynan' (1979).

23. The River Wild (1994)

Meryl Streep: Action Hero. Okay, not exactly, but The River Wild did put Streep in unfamiliar territory, that of a wife and mother who must protect her family during a whitewater-rafting trip after they befriend fellow outdoorsmen (Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly) who turn out to be dangerous criminals on the run. No great shakes as a thriller — it’s all a big buildup to the final run through the terrifying rapids — the movie remains a charming novelty because of Streep’s presence and because, even 21 years later, there still aren’t a ton of suspense/action movies starring women that don’t involve them avoiding some crazy-ass stalker/ex-lover. Still, this is Streep on a busman’s holiday, a way for her to keep things interesting as opposed to forging a new path in her career.

Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon in 'The River Wild' (1994).

22. Postcards From the Edge (1990; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Kathy Bates in Misery)

Streep is alternately not quite passive enough and not quite volcanic enough to play Carrie Fisher, but she still earned her ninth Oscar nomination with this adaptation of Fisher’s book about her life in Hollywood with her mother Debbie Reynolds. The relationship between Fisher and her mom (played by Shirley MacLaine) works a lot better than the Hollywood satire stuff, which felt toothless even back then and now might as well be about the silent-movie era. For some reason, Streep never quite feels right in movies where she lives in Los Angeles.

Gene Hackman and Meryl Streep in 'Postcards from the Edge' (1990).

21. A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

It wasn’t until A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman’s final film, that Streep got to work with the venerable actors’ director. In this wistful comedy, she plays Yolanda Johnson, part of a country-singing sister duo (alongside Lily Tomlin), who never quite got over the fact that Garrison Keillor ended their romantic relationship. Sexy, sultry, and on the same loopy wavelength as Tomlin, Streep flirts beautifully with the visibly flustered Keillor and radiates the weary, resilient vibrancy of a veteran performer who’s seen a lot of heartbreak and put it all into her songs.  

Garrison Kiellor, Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan in scene from A Prairie Home Companion' (2006).

20. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Katharine Hepburn in On Golden Pond)

The actress Streep is trying to chase down for most Oscars — Hepburn had four, one more than Streep — won her final one the year Streep received her first lead-actress nomination for this movie. It’s largely forgotten today, and with understandable reason. The film’s decision to turn the novel it’s based on into two separate stories about a love affair in 19th-century England and about the two actors playing them in a movie adaptation of that very novel is more muddled than meta; the film story just isn’t as interesting as the novel itself. That said, Streep is pretty great. But she’d be better in other movies like this one.

Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' (1981).

19. Marvin’s Room (1996)

The early career Leonardo DiCaprio movie that no one remembers, this tragicomedy focuses on the sibling relationship between Streep’s Lee and Diane Keaton’s Bessie as they deal with their dying father (and Bessie’s rebellious son). That sounds like more of a downer than the film is, and the movie, all told, probably deserves to be rediscovered a bit. Streep once again, though, has to play the Serious Sister, a role that we’re tired of watching her play, even when she’s as effective at it as she is here. Also of note: This is a film in which Streep and Keaton were co-leads … but Keaton got the Oscar nomination!

Leonardo DiCaprio, Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep in 'Marvin's Room' (1996).

18. The Hours (2002)

The Hours can be smothering in its studied sadness, but Streep lends some much-needed heart to this glassy adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Michael Cunningham novel. As Clarissa, a former lover of celebrated poet Richard (Ed Harris), who is dying of AIDS, Streep turns clichés into truisms, playing a successful, romantically fulfilled woman who nonetheless can’t quite articulate why happiness eludes her. In a film undone by dramatic flourishes, Streep is quiet, subtle, reserved — this is a performance in which the somber, thoughtful reactions are more important and moving than the flowery speeches. Naturally, that means she didn’t get an Oscar nomination for it.

Claire Danes and Meryl Streep in 'The Hours' (2002).

17. One True Thing (1998; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love)

Here’s a role that Streep doesn’t get to play that often: Nagging mother. In this adaptation of Anna Quindlen’s novel (directed by One False Move’s Carl Franklin), Streep plays a mother dying of cancer who calls back her estranged journalist daughter (Renée Zellweger, the film’s weak link) to help her in her last days. You can believe this woman would have an estranged daughter: Streep is uncompromising in how suffocating she is. But she sneaks in glimpses of the good soul underneath and, more than anything, how much more difficult her life has been than anyone realised. Despite the Oscar nomination, this is one of Streep’s more interesting and underrated performances.

Renee Zellweger and Meryl Streep in 'One True Thing' (1998).

16. Mamma Mia (2008)

You might hate Abba, you might not be into the all the kitsch involved, you might hate all the adult male leads in the film, but it’s near impossible not to delight in just how much fun Streep has throughout this one. This is the start of Box-Office Streep, and you can see her luxuriating in her newfound powers. Streep is always thought of as such a Serious Actress, but this is just a big old Movie Star goofing around and having a ball. No complaints here.

Meryl Streep in 'Mamma Mia' (2008).

15. Out of Africa (1985; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful)

If you can handle the purposely glacial pace — the story is told as a series of anecdotes from the life of Streep’s Karen Dinesen — and the oft-oppressive “This Is A Serious Oscar Movie” sheen that director Sydney Pollack slathers on awfully thick, there’s actually a pretty wonderful performance from Streep at its core. She has to run, over two decades, from young and inexperienced to destitute and broken to wisened and wistful, and she does it effortlessly: It’s tough to imagine how difficult the 161-minute movie would be without her. Streep is often cast simply as an indicator of prestige, a sign that this movie would have a hard-core awards push at some point. But in her prime, Streep was able to transcend this. The movie might have been artificial, but she never was.

Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in 'Out of Africa' (1985).

14. Doubt (2008; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Kate Winslet in The Reader)

All due respect to Streep, but the definitive portrayal of Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the severe Catholic-school principal in Doubt, remains Cherry Jones, who played her so brilliantly on Broadway, winning a Tony in the process. In the film version, Streep’s fame works against her somewhat — she can’t quite erase her regal warmth to adequately play such a bone-dry, strict presence. And yet she’s still sufficiently monstrous in the part, playing a smug busybody convinced that the school’s priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) may have had an inappropriate relationship with a student. Streep burrows down into Beauvier’s self-righteousness, the character’s stubborn certainty about her perception of events tragically leading her away from the godliness to which she’s devoted her entire life.

Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in 'Doubt' (2008).

13. Ironweed (1987; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Cher in Moonstruck)

This is more Jack Nicholson’s movie than Streep’s, but it includes one of her strongest performances, even though her character isn't particularly deep. Both actors are alcoholic homeless drifters in Depression-era Albany, and Nicholson's character drives the narrative, not Streep; she's mostly there to support him. Still, it’s Nicholson in one of his best performances, and Streep is a wonder as the only light in a relentlessly dreary film. (Seriously: That light is still extremely dim.)

Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Tom Waits in 'Ironweed' (1987).

12. Death Becomes Her (1992)

A ballsy, outrageous, effects-heavy black comedy, Death Becomes Her is a biting satire about aging, cosmetic surgery, and the fruitless desire to be forever young — issues that are rarely far from the minds of people in Hollywood. Streep is mercilessly funny as Madeline Ashton, a vain, washed-up Broadway star locked in a lifelong battle with frenemy Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn), with hapless surgeon Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis) caught in the middle. “We would try to do at least one take that had some grounding in human experience,” Streep once said of the film, adding with a smile, “and then, the sky was the limit.” She makes Madeline hideously shallow and vindictive, but the actress also pulls off the neat trick of making us feel sorry for her, locating the insecurity plenty of women face when they realise they live in a society that’s put an expiration date on them without fair warning.

Meryl Streep in 'Death Becomes Her' (1992).

11. Plenty (1985)

Somewhat forgotten amid her run of acclaimed roles in the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s, Plenty finds Streep tackling a decidedly opaque character: Susan, a World War II resistance fighter who is disappointed when the happiness she assumed would be hers after the war never materialises. Adapted from David Hare’s play and directed by Fred Schepisi (whom she’d work with again later on Evil Angels), Plenty is a nervy, challenging character piece that spans about 20 years. Streep keeps Susan’s inner world a teasing mystery, this possibly demented woman stumbling from phase to phase in her life haunted by an image of a rosy future she’d crafted in her mind. Initially prickly and uninviting, Streep’s performance requires a viewer’s willingness to meet it halfway — but once there, Plenty is an uncommonly melancholy look at an unsatisfied soul, Streep honoring her character’s nagging discontent rather than worrying about courting our sympathy.

Meryl Streep in 'Plenty' (1985).

10. Evil Angels (1988; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Jodie Foster in The Accused)

That this is still known as the “Dingo's Got My Baby” movie nearly 30 years later is both an insult to the depth of Streep’s performance and a testament to its power. She has an impossible job here. She plays a closed-off, unsympathetic person whom we believe capable of murder, and then she has to stay the same character even as the evidence against her collapses; she’s actually no more likable when we realise she’s innocent than when we thought she was guilty. And yet you still feel for her. It’s an unfussy, cranky little performance, and it’s one of her best.

Sam Neill and Meryl Streep in 'A Cry in the Dark' (1988).

9. Julie & Julia (2009; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side)

Sight unseen, it was easy to dismiss Julie & Julia as just another Streep stunt, the revered chameleon taking on the accent and demeanor of beloved celebrity chef Julia Child. But although she nails Child’s adorable, slightly wobbly essence, Streep goes far deeper than that, finding the pathos in a quiet revolutionary who faced a good amount of sexism both in her professional and personal life by daring to be a working woman in the 1950s. Especially compared to the underwhelming “Julie” half of director Nora Ephron’s comedy-drama — the usually great Amy Adams is stuck playing a mopey modern gal — Streep’s moving performance was a reminder of how easy it is to take what she does for granted.

Meryl Streep in 'Julie and Julia' (2009).

8. The Devil Wears Prada (2006; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Helen Mirren in The Queen)

With Streep at the peak of her scene-chewing, grande-dame powers, The Devil Wears Prada rolls its eyes at your insistence that good acting is about subtlety and restraint. She has an absolute blast portraying Miranda Priestly, fiendishly savoring her torment of her new personal assistant, meek little Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway). With her snow-white hair, fabulous outfits, and blasé, judgmental expression, Miranda is a holy terror and a consistent hoot — we laugh even before she opens her mouth because we can just sense how disappointed she is in everyone around her. Forget the devil: Miranda’s coldly haughty tone and frightening smarts made her the chick-flick equivalent of a comic-book supervillain. WhenThe Devil Wears Prada opened in the summer of 2006, it came out the same weekend as Superman Returns. In retrospect, Streep made a better Lex Luthor than Kevin Spacey did.

Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in 'The Devil Wears Prada' (2006).

7. The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

This is probably a little higher than where you’d have this, but we’ve always been smitten with this movie, and Streep in particular. This could have been a ridiculous adaptation of a ridiculous book, but Streep — along with a legitimately sensitive performance from Clint Eastwood that never feels self-congratulatory — elevates it into something wistful and longing. The passive housewife of the book is given a fierce intensity by Streep, but she also never forgets that this is about a woman rediscovering her passion: Streep remembers that midwestern housewives get to be sexy, too. This movie is lightyears better than it has any reason to be, and Streep’s the reason.

Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood in 'The Bridges of Madison County' (1995).

6. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979; won Best Supporting Actress)

What could have been a misogynistic tirade, or even a ’70s version of some MRA rally, remains as sensitive to every character’s viewpoint today as it did then: This movie takes hot-button issues and, in the way of all great art, boils them down to the human beings at their center. Streep plays someone whom the audience could hate — after all, she does leave her family in the opening scenes — and makes her achingly real; you always understand where she’s coming from, even if you disagree with her choices (or even if you don’t). This role was initially supposed to be played byCharlie’s Angels’ Kate Jackson, but she couldn’t get away from the TV show. Streep grabbed the part, knocked it out of the park, and won her first Oscar.

Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in 'Kramer vs. Kramer' (1979).

5. Silkwood (1983; nominated for Best Actress, lost to Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment)

Meryl Streep is one of the greatest actresses of our time, an incredibly beautiful woman, and one of the most recognizable humans on the planet, but she disappears completely into Karen Silkwood, a Oklahoma woman who believes she and her co-workers are being exposed to unsafe levels of radiation at their processing plant. She becomes, almost accidentally, a union activist, but despite the people who want to use her for their own causes or silence her for their financial interests, she’s on her own. The “Silkwood shower” has become part of the vernacular, but what’s best about Streep’s performance is that her Karen Silkwood never makes any big Norma Rae speeches or tries to be more than what she was: a modest midwestern woman who just wanted herself and her co-workers to be safe. The final shot is as haunting as ever.

Meryl Streep and Cher in 'Silkwood' (1983).

4. Defending Your Life (1992)

This hilarious, classic Albert Brooks comedy — about an eternal wait station where, after death, you are judged on the life you lived — proved that in an alternate universe, Streep could have been Julia Roberts if she had wanted to. She's irresistibly delightful as Julia, a woman who was a saint on Earth, in contrast to Brooks’s coward Daniel Miller. Their love story is believable and refreshingly adult: These are two good-hearted people embracing each other like grown-ups, aware of the risks, cautious but still smitten. And Streep is just wonderful. She’s funny, she’s charming, and she’s real. (We love how much pleasure she takes from Judgment City’s restaurants.) This is Streep at her movie-star peak. We’re still in love with her.

Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks in 'Defending Your Life' (1991).

3. The Deer Hunter (1978; nominated for Best Supporting Actress, lost to Maggie Smith in California Suite)

Landing the role of Linda in The Deer Hunter after co-star Robert De Niro saw her in a small part in The Cherry Orchard at Lincoln Center, Streep doesn’t have a lot of scenes in director Michael Cimino’s pulverizing Oscar-winner. But she makes them count, transforming what could have been a simple love-interest role into something more emotional and symbolically resonant. If The Deer Hunter is partly about masculinity, war, and rites of passage, Streep serves as a sort of countermeasure, Linda’s love for doomed fiancé Nick (Christopher Walken) and unspoken affection for his buddy Mike (De Niro) a reflection of the vulnerability and intimacy the men around her can’t express. Decades later, her singing of “God Bless America” at the end remains an all-time highlight in her career.

'The Deer Hunter' (1978).

2. Adaptation (2002; nominated for Best Supporting Actress, lost to Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago)

If the knock on Streep is that her skill is nothing but shtick — a bundle of mannered accents and actorly tics — here’s where she proves her detractors forever wrong. Playing New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, she gives one of her loosest, funniest performances — and also one of her most natural. With nothing to hide behind, Streep is entirely open, portraying an acclaimed author who nonetheless feels a little adrift in the world, surprising herself as well as the audience by how charmed she is by Chris Cooper’s sweetly loony horticulturist John Laroche.
Ironically, Adaptation may be the one Meryl Streep movie where she gives the least-showy performance of the ensemble — Cage’s doubles act and Cooper’s backwoods hick stand out in the memory more — but it’s her warmth that grounds the film’s panicky/comic musings on the value of art and the importance of finding your purpose.

Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage in 'Adaptation' (2002).

1. Sophie’s Choice (1982; won Best Actress)

So this is the Streep performance that made everyone realise — at the age of 33 — that we were dealing with an all-timer. Streep does everything here. She’s mournful, she’s sexy, she’s defeated, she’s destroyed, she’s resilient. (She even does her best accent.) The story with Stingo (Peter MacNicol) writing his novel is less interesting than it is an effective narrative gimmick; the film is mostly a Streep delivery device. She actually transcends the plot she’s in: There is a raw power to her performance that is almost too much to take sometimes. And know this: You will cry. (The scene from the title should come with a Surgeon General’s warning.) Streep has shown throughout her career that she can do anything. In this movie, she does it all.

Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline in 'Sophie's Choice' (1982).

Rick Springfield almost said no to Meryl Streep and Ricki and the Flash

Posted August 5 2015 — 5:37 PM EDT

Rick Springfield is used to being the center of attention when he takes the stage with guitar in hand, but the 1980s rock star and onetime General Hospital heartthrob yields the spotlight in Ricki and the Flash. The “Jessie’s Girl” singer isn’t Ricki; he’s part of the Flash, Meryl Streep’s bar-band in Jonathon Demme’s movie, in theaters Aug. 7.

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Meryl Streep took guitar lesson from Neil Young to prep for 'Ricki and the Flash' role 

 

Streep is the star, a singer who left her marriage and her children behind years ago in order to follow her dream. Springfield plays her collaborator and boyfriend, lending authenticity to the music scenes and holding his own with the legendary actress and her 19 Academy Award nominations.
Springfield spoke to EW about how he got the call to join the band.  

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did Ricki and the Flash come about?

RICK SPRINGFIELD: I was on the road and I got a call saying Meryl Streep and Jonathan Demme wanted me to fly the next day to audition. I thought, “Dude, if they’re calling me this late, then I’m probably at the bottom of the list,” so I just said, “I’m not going to do it. I’m so tired. I can’t fly in for one day for an audition.” But [the woman] called up about an hour later and said get your f—ing ass on that plane. So I went up to a house in the Hollywood Hills and there was Meryl, Jonathan, and a bunch of musicians. I plugged in and we did a bunch of songs. It was a lot of fun.

Did you geek out over meeting Meryl Streep?
 
Oh yeah. I said, “I just want everyone to know I’m about to jam with Meryl Streep.” And she said, “I’m about to jam with Rick Springfield.” She’s very relaxed. She relaxes you.

Who do you play in the movie?
 
I’m her boyfriend and in a band. It’s a movie about following your dreams. Right now she’s in a bar-band in Tarzana, Calif. She gets a chance to go back and correct things with her family. It’s a family story and she grabs hold of it so gigantically.

Do you sing together in the movie?
 
Yeah. Most of my scenes are with her and she’s great on stage. She was nervous. She learned to play the guitar and she totally brings it. She’d ask me questions about how to hold it and I’m thinking, “Jesus, Meryl Streep’s asking me how to do something!” It was pretty surreal.

Do you play a Rick Springfield-type?
 
No. The first thing Jonathan said was how he wanted me to grow a beard. He didn’t want me to be Rick Springfield in this part and I totally got that. I even changed the position of how I hold the guitar. As performer, I wear it low, but as a player, I wear it much higher. I grew a beard and let the grey in my hair grow out.

You played Dr. Noah Drake for a long time on General Hospital. Does the show have you on speed dial?
 
I left in ‘83 and I went back for one year in the mid ‘90s and then I went back for the 50th anniversary. I’m very thankful for GH because there was a time when I really needed the boost and that was there. I’d always consider going back for special things.

I read that you were once offered a part in The Right Stuff, and you said, “I don’t need to be part of an ensemble. I’m going to star in my own movie.” Did you actually say that?
 
Mm-hmm. I was a real f–king idiot. They said it’s about a bunch of astronauts, and at this point, my ego took over. I said no, there’s another movie where I’m going to star. I’d actually read the script for Hard to Hold and thought it was so awful I threw it across the room. But then they offered me money and I went, “You know what? I can make this a gem because I’m Rick Springfield.” It turned out not to be the case, while The Right Stuff turned out to be a freaking great film.

Hollywood is full of stories like that!
 
Of course it is. I learned a big lesson about how your ego is not your friend when it’s the boss. It’s a good driver. Once it starts to dictate, you’re f—ed.  

Tell me about these annual trips you make to Club Med.
 
We do one a year. We rent out Club Med and people come down and just hang for five days. I sit by the pool and with my guitar or we have cocktail parties. We have band shows. It’s family. Sometimes some people bring their kids. Some people’s husbands come and sometimes it’s just women. They’re hardcore fans. It’s not about getting crazy.

Has it gotten to the point that you can anticipate what music they want you to play?
 
They don’t want to hear Jessie’s Girl.  They want to hear all the obscure stuff, all the different albums.

Are their questions relatively simple?
 
No, they’re really deep. They ask about my depression. They feel like friends. I’ll talk to them about anything. I’d much rather talk about that than, you know, what you do you prefer: music or acting? I’d much rather talk about something deep. They ask about my family, about me growing up, about how I became a musician and what are the struggles and all those kinds of thing rather than, you know, boxers or briefs.

Meryl Streep under fire for not saying she's a feminist

Meryl Streep may be America's most celebrated actress and a long-time advocate for progressive causes and gender equity, both in the film industry and beyond. 

But she's recently irked certain arbiters of political correctness as she promotes her latest film, "Suffragette," which opens in limited release in the United States Oct. 23 and recounts the campaign for women's voting rights in the United Kingdom at the turn of the 20th century.

The Streep furor began when the three-time Oscar winner, who plays activist Emmeline Pankhurst in a brief but noteworthy appearance, sidestepped the question of whether she considers herself a feminist, according to The Guardian. Streep instead said, " I am a humanist, I am for nice, easy balance."

US actress Meryl Streep poses on arrival for the premiere of 'Suffragette' at the London Film Festival in central London on October 7, 2015. AFP PHOTO / LEON NEALLEON NEAL,LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images ( AFP )

 

The Guardian said this reply disappointed campaigners against Hollywood sexism, especially after Streep's "Suffragette" co-stars Carey Mulligan and Romola Garai said without hesitation that they were feminists.

Female bloggers were left perplexed by Streep's reluctance to embrace the f-word. Jezebel writer Joanna Rothkopf wrote: "In early September, Streep sent a package to each member of Congress urging him or her to support the Equal Rights Amendment. ... She whooped when Patricia Arquette spoke about equal pay at the Oscars. ... But for some reason she doesn't feel comfortable calling herself a feminist."

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In advance of the film's premiere at the London film festival this week, Streep responded to the f-word issue by saying, "There is a phrase in the film --'Deeds not words' -- and that is where I stand on that. I let the actions of my life stand for what I am, as a human being. Contend with that, not the words."

But Streep and her co-stars touched off another P.R. firestorm when they posed for photos for the Time Out story wearing T-shirts that said "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave."

The line comes from a quote from Pankhurst. Some on Twitter took offense at the slogan, saying it somehow makes light of America's history of slavery, according to the web site Pink News. 


Time Out responded to the controversy by saying that Pankhurst's full statement is intended as a "rallying cry" for women to stand up against oppression.

Time Out said the quote is "absolutely not intended to criticize those who have no choice but to submit to oppression, or to reference the Confederacy."