Chronology: 1983
Meryl Streep wins her second Academy Award, this time as Best Actress for “Sophie’s Choice”. In May, she delivers the commencement speeches at both Vassar and Yale. On the set of “Silkwood” with director Mike Nichols and co-star Kurt Russell.
After the success with “Sophie’s Choice”, Meryl Streep went into a complete different direction and took on the role of Karen Silkwood, a blue-collar worker at a Nuclear plant in Oklahoma, who had gathered documents of safety breaches but died under mysterious circumstances before being able to hand them to the press. “Silkwood” was directed by Mike Nichols, who would become a friend and recent collaborator in Streep’s life and career. Nichols cast Kurt Russell as Meryl’s boyfriend and Cher in the role of her roomate and best friend. The singer turned actress was “frightened of meeting Meryl. I thought it was going to be like having an audience with the Pope. Somebody so big she’s out of this world. I mean, me and Meryl Streep? Never! [But] we’d knit, crochet, and joke about men. Meryl and I talked about our kids so much I thought something was wrong with us, that we didn’t have an existence outside of them. Then I realized we were just two proud mothers.”
Integrate what you believe into every single area of your life. Take your heart to work, and ask the most and best of everybody else too. Don’t let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth – don’t let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency. Good luck, and welcome to the Big Time. (Meryl Streep, Vassar Commencement Speech, May 22, 1983)
“Silkwood” proved to be another prime example of Streep’s versatility upon its theatrical release in December of 1983. The film’s hefty box office gross was helped in part by the January 1984 U.S. Surpreme Court decision to reinstate the ten-million-dollar award against the Kerr-McGee Corporation. Meryl Streep received consecutive nominations for the Golden Globe, the British Film Award and the Academy Award. While “Silkwood” went home empty-handed at the Academy Awards, Cher received a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actress and often credits her collaboration with Streep and Nichols as the turning point in her acting career.
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