Action hero Harrison Ford was once the superstar staple of the summer blockbuster season, but now Oscar’s favorite leading lady, Meryl Streep, is making a habit out of cashing in on the busiest moviegoing period of the year with female-oriented counterprogramming. First, it was her fashionatrix in 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada. Then came last year’s disco diva in Mamma Mia! Combined ticket sales: a solid $268.8 million in the USA and Canada and $929.2 million worldwide. Next, Streep juggles pots, pans and pâté in what promises to be a deliciously rich portrait of Julia Child during the decade-long span when she evolved into America’s queen of French cuisine in Julie & Julia. Joining her is Amy Adams, her nun sidekick from Doubt, as blogger Julie Powell, who spent a year toiling over all 524 recipes in Child’s classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Director/writer Nora Ephron, who did the screenplays for Streep’s Silkwood (1983) and Heartburn (1986), says the actress basically did an informal audition for her a couple of Junes ago when they bumped into each other at New York’s Shakespeare in the Park. “It was before I even started writing the script,” the filmmaker says. “She asked, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Blah, blah, Julie Powell, Julia Child, 524 recipes.’ She went into Julia as we were walking out of the theater. She did her for a full 10 seconds. I think she even said, ‘Bon appétit,’ ” the late chef’s famous sign-off from her PBS cooking show. “I thought, ‘OK, look no further.’ ” Once Prada opened, Ephron says, “I knew if I could get her, not only would she be the best person for it, but she would also force the studio to make the film. She was a movie star at age 57 or whatever she is.”

The role is more of a stretch than usual for Streep, who is 59. Not only does her half of the plot begin with Child at age 37 in 1949 as a student at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, but the chef also was a strapping 6-foot-2. How did Streep, who is 5-foot-6 or so, manage to create such a towering presence? “Meryl believed that in order to capture the essence of the character, you had to believe Julia Child is 6-foot-2,” Ephron says. “Actually, our ambitions were more modest. We made her 6 feet. We used a whole bunch of fabulous tricks. Everything we could think of. Ann Roth did amazing things with costumes.”

Naturally, the whiz at accents nailed the native Californian’s distinctive vocal inflections. A dark, matronly wig tops off the transformation. The performance, Ephron says, “is not an imitation, it’s more of a habitation.”