Here’s a very first look at Meryl Streep in character on the set of “Great Hope Springs” in Connecticut. Edit: With many thanks to Martine, lots of additional pictures have been added!

According to this source, “Great Hope Springs” begins filming its scenes in Stonington next week, according to borough Warden Paul Burgess, and will continue until the following week. The shooting schedule, which was not finalized by Thursday afternoon, will not be made public, he said, due to security and crowd-control issues. Streep and Jones will be in the borough, but not comedian Carell, who has already shot his scenes inside his movie-set therapist’s office. “All of those office scenes have already been filmed in Norwalk,” said Burgess. Much of the film work will be done inside, but Burgess said it will still be obvious what is going on. This is not the first movie that has been at least partially shot inside Stonington’s borders. “Remains,” a post-apocalyptic zombie flick being produced for the “Chiller” network, was shot in Mystic earlier this year. More famously, “Mystic Pizza,” the movie that launched Julia Roberts’ career and still brings tourists to Mystic, brought Hollywood to Stonington in the late 1980s.

Here’s the official poster for the upcoming “The Iron Lady”. Doesn’t it look great?

Here’s a little tidbit from an interview with Abi Morgan, who penned the script for “The Iron Lady”, in The Independent. While the article is mostly about the British series “The Hour”, she briefly talks about working with Meryl on “The Iron Lady”.

Another Morgan-penned feature to be released in the new year is The Iron Lady, the hotly anticipated Thatcher biopic starring Meryl Streep. She found the actress to be hugely impressive: “I worked a little with her and she’s just amazing: so finely tuned in decision-making. The great gift of an actress like her is that she’s very down to earth, and true to what she does.”

According to the Connecticut Post, scenes for the movie “Great Hope Springs” will be shot in Milford later this month, an employee of the production office said Monday; she declined to say what locations will be used. The movie, which has a December 2012 release date, is using Mystic and Stonington as its principal locations, but has also shot scenes in Norwalk and Darien. Ellen Woolf, the production director of the state Office of Film TV and Digital Media, referred questions to the Norwalk office of GHS Productions. The movie is one of four now filming in Connecticut, according to the state Department of Economic and Community Development which includes the film office.

Yesterday, a kick-off gala co-hosted by Meryl Streep, Wei Sun Christianson, Jane Harman, Maya Harris, Donna Karan, Liya Kebede, Dr. Judith Rodin and Diane von Furstenberg was helt to celebrate the launch of the “Women in the World Foundation”, a new venture from Newsweek and The Daily Beast. You can learn more about Women in the World on their new website. Pictures have been added to the gallery.

And Tina has uploaded a video of Meryl’s speech on Youtube, have a look!

Scans from the September 2011 issue of the German Plus magazine have been added to the image library with thanks to Nadine for the heads-up! Plus is currently on newsstands.

According to Movieweb, “Outsourced” star Ben Rappaport has joined the cast of Great Hope Springs for Sony Pictures. The story centers around a married couple (Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones) who try and rekindle their relationship by seeking therapy from an unorthodox guru (Steve Carell). Ben Rappaport will play the married couple’s son. David Frankel will direct Great Hope Springs from a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor. Mandate Pictures is financing while Sony will release Great Hope Springs in North America. Lionsgate will handle international sales. A concrete release date has not been determined yet, although the studios are eyeing a fourth quarter 2012 premiere.

It has been mentioned before, now it’s officially confirmed that Meryl will be among the 2011 Kennedy Center Honorees. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 34th Annual Kennedy Center Honors announced the five cultural icons whose creative work will be celebrated at this year’s event airing Tuesday, Dec. 27 on CBS. Actress Meryl Streep, singer-songwriter Neil Diamond, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins and singer Barbara Cook are this year’s recipients. “This year, the Kennedy Center selects five extraordinary individuals whose collective artistry has contributed significantly to the cultural life of our nation and the world,” says Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein. Further he says in the article, “The sheer brilliance and breadth of Meryl Streep’s performances count as one of the most exhilarating cultural spectacles of our time.”

Meryl Streep has released a statement from the Connecticut set of “Great Hope Springs”, according to The New York Times.

I am deeply honored by this news, and wish my mother and father were alive to hear it! All that education, allowance, tuition, voice lessons, summer jobs, scholarship application deadlines and loving care and discipline – all that they gave me, bore fruit in a way they never dreamed. I am so grateful!

According to the Washington Post, Meryl Streep may become a Kennedy Center Honoree later this year, assuming a tweet from Larry King is accurate. The former CNN host tweeted the following this afternoon: “My sources say Meryl Streep will be one of the Kennedy Center honorees this year. You heard it here first.” The Kennedy Center’s public information office is neither confirming nor denying King’s scoop. The announcement of this year’s recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors — which rewards those who have led distinguished careers in the arts, including film, music, theater and dance — will be issued in early September. While Streep has never received the coveted Kennedy Center Honors medal before, she has participated in the annually broadcast event numerous times, paying tribute to previous Honorees like director Mike Nichols and Robert De Niro.