Yesterday in New York, Meryl Streep presented the 2017 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award to composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim at the PEN America Literary Gala, at the American Museum of Natural History. Sondheim has delighted audiences worldwide for more than six decades with witty lyrics, contagious melodies, and unforgettable characters that comprise some of America’s most beloved and timeless musicals such as West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George, which just completed its Broadway revival starring Jake Gyllenhaal. He is also the winner of at least 60 individual and collaborative Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Pictures can be found in the photo gallery and Meryl’s introduction can be watched below and in the video archive.

As previously announced, Meryl Streep was among the guests of the Academy of American Poets’ 15th Annual Poetry and the Creative Mind on Thursday, and the Literary Hub has a nice article on the evening and the poems that were read. The sweeping Alice Tully Hall was full, the lobby had been swarmed for almost an hour before, and tickets had sold out in about three minutes. The state of our world is precarious, and it’s hard not to feel uncertain or desperate; the poems chosen for the night seemed to speak precisely to that. As the final speaker of the evening, Meryl Streep said that she was thinking about what Uzo Aduba said about the first poem she ever loved; hers was the lullaby her mother used to sing to her. “It’s not on the program, but I think I have to sing it.” And she did. After the song, she read Gary Snyder’s “Mother Earth: Her Whales,” and then, to cheer us up, “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith. “Life is short and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,” a mother begins, before saying she will keep it from her children: I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. Would it be too sentimental to say that a large room of poets, singing their childhood memories and pleas for resistance, reading poems that enriched and inspired and devastated them, felt like it had filled in the bones of Lincoln Center and New York and the world for just one evening? When Meryl Streep reads poetry to you, it’s hard to resist romance. Pictures from the evening have been added to the photo gallery.

A couple of nice magazine additions, ranging from last year’s July to recent March 2017 issues and including a great article from the French Le Figaro and some Oscar coverage from this year. Many thanks to Alvaro for the contribution! Much appreciated :-)

A nice batch of additional production stills have been uploaded to the photo gallery. Some have been updated before without further mentioning, so be sure to check all last added pictures. Among the highlights are surely the on-set pictures from “Julia”, “The Deer Hunter”, “Sophie’s Choice” and “Heartburn”, as well as new production stills from “Ironweed”. Many thanks to Alvaro for finding some of these. Enjoy.

The 89th Annual Academy Awards will go down in history for its shocking false announcement in the Best Picture category, which made one forget about the pointless Lagerfeld tabloid story (although Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t resist to ask, “nice dress. Is that an Ivanka?). Kimmel pulled no punches during his opening monologue, joking that the 20-time-nominee was getting a bit too much credit for her acting chops. “We’re here to honor the actors who seem great, but actually really aren’t. And of all the ‘great’ actors here in Hollywood, one in particular has stood the test of time for her many uninspiring and overrated performances,” Kimmel dead-panned. “From her mediocre early work in ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Out of Africa,’ to her underwhelming performances in ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ and ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ Meryl Streep has phoned it for more than 50 films over the course of her lackluster career.” Kimmel finished things off by asking everyone else in the auditorium to show their appreciation for the actress. “This is Meryl’s 20th Oscar nomination,” he pointed out. “Made even more amazing considering the fact that she wasn’t even in a movie this year, we just wrote her name down out of habit. Everybody, please join me in giving Meryl Streep a totally undeserved round of applause.” The evening went as expected – until its very unexpected end – with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Meryl’s friend Viola Davis and Javier Bardem paying tribute to Meryl’s performance in “The Bridges of Madison County”, before joining her on stage to present the Best Cinematography category to Linus Sandgren for “La La Land”. Pictures from the (apparently very brief) arrivals and the show have been added to the photo gallery. Many thanks to Lindsey for her contributions. Enjoy, and goodbye to the 2017 awards season!

Meryl Streep has attended Friday’s 10th Annual Women in Film cocktail party on the same day she has become tabloid fudder (let’s just not talk about it). Streep slipped past the press line, momentarily pausing to affectionately refer to BBC News as “another beauty” (a subtle dig at President Trump, who had pointed at a reporter from the outlet during his recent press conference and proclaimed, “There’s another beauty”). The actress made her way inside the party and blended into the crowd — and then, folks demanded a speech. So she obliged. “I feel like never saying anything again … forever,” she joked. “Because everybody is speaking up and that’s great. Because with the numbers, they can’t ignore us. And we are 51 or maybe 52 percent now of the population.” Streep went on to share a quick story about her high school years and how an exchange student from Afghanistan reminded her of how far women around the world had come. “Stuff can change, and you have to really feel the earth move under your feet,” she noted. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

In the lead-up to Oscars weekend, Meryl Streep, Octavia Spencer, Jane Fonda and Lily Collins were among those who turned out at the Costume Designers Guild Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on Tuesday night. Streep was honored with the Distinguished Collaborator Award. She was presented with the trophy by her frequent costume designer Ann Roth following a good old-fashioned roast from comedian and former “Into the Woods” costar James Corden. “It’s time that someone said it,” he began. “She’s a complete bitch. She is the worst. Now listen, I disagree with almost everything that Donald Trump has ever said, but, when he tweeted that…” he deadpanned, referencing the President’s recent remarks that she’s “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood.” “I’m joking, of course,” Corden said. “It’s great to see someone like Meryl finally be recognized with an award. What is she even going to do with this? This is going to be a doorstop for her Golden Globe room.” Streep kept her speech short and politics-free as she dedicated the award to her mother “who really wanted to be a costume designer.” She said that Halloween was like “the run-up to fashion week in our house.” The actress said she enjoys the role wardrobe plays in helping to create and explore a character. Streep compared the process to “a happy surprise, like simultaneous orgasm or something.” She paused. “Well, maybe it’s not that much fun, but it is a little tiny miracle every time it happens.”

An awards season is always fun to cover, isn’t it? Especially when Meryl is nominated, like this year for “Florence Foster Jenkins”. And especially especially this particular year when Meryl has emerged as such a fierce voice. I think we’ll remember these two months for a long time. As the season concludes next Sunday with the Academy Awards, all of 2017’s public appearances from Viola Davis’ Walk of Fame honor, to the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Human Rights Campaign Gala and BAFTA Awards have been updated with some hundred additional HQ pictures. Choose any event from the list below to access all last added pictures.

Tonight, Meryl Streep has attended the 30th Annual British Academy Awards as a Best Actress nominee for “Florence Foster Jenkins”. The trophy was handed to Emma Stone, but “Florence” won in the Hair & Makeup category . Over 100 pictures from the arrivals and the show have been added to the photo gallery. Many many thanks to the wonderful Claudia and Lindsey for their contributions. Much appreciated. Edit: A clip of Emma Stone’s acceptance speech has been added as well, since no better segment from the Best Actress category has showed up – but besides the nominees and a short clip from “Florence Foster Jenkins” we’re not missing much.

Meryl Streep drew cheers at yesterday’s annual gala for the Human Rights Campaign, a national group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ rights, where Streep received the group’s National Ally For Equality Award. Among the other honorees and speakers were Senator minority leader Charles Schumer, who was more impassioned and freewheeling than we are used to seeing him on the Senate floor; Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney; and late-night host Seth Meyers. But it was Streep who carried the night. As Deadline wrote, Meryl spoke of the early and powerful influence of teachers when she was growing up in suburban New Jersey, and particularly of Paul Grossman, her music teacher when she was in sixth and seventh grades. He had taken the class on a field trip to the Statue of Liberty, she recalled. “Our whole class stood at the feet of that huge, beautiful woman and we sang a song that he had taught us with the lyrics taken from the poem by Emma Lazarus engraved at the face of the monument.” Streep paused as if considering her next move, and then began to sing. “Give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore Send thee the homeless tempest toss’t to me. I life my lamp beside the golden door.” At one point she turned away from the audience, her eyes red with tears before continuing, and when finished, she half-whispered, “I can’t remember what I did Tuesday, but I remember that.” Streep said that Paul Grossman later became Paula Grossman and was promptly fired, never seeing a classroom again.