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GENIUS MANTLE SITS LIGHTLX ON MERYL
Magazine / Source: The Toronto Star, July 2004 |
Streep possessed by sense of mission, as a true '60s child Fearing acting was
too frivolous, she applied to law school
Meryl Streep has a sore throat.
Normally, this wouldn't be headline news, but when you're talking about an actress with the vocal flexibility that Streep is famous for, it can prove to be a major setback.
It seems the current press tour for her latest film, the political thriller The Manchurian Candidate (opening next Friday), has taken its toll and there's a rasp to her customary mellow tones.
She's sitting in a hotel room, sipping tea as she graciously asks me to sit down on the sofa. Despite her incipient cold, the 55-year-old actress looks terrific in a patterned oriental jacket, fitted to the waist, which then flares open to reveal black trousers underneath.
Her blond hair is piled up on her head and her famous English milkmaid complexion remains smooth and clear.
"Don't worry, I'll be a softer-spoken harridan than I normally am."
The twinkle in her eye serves notice that there's nothing to fear, because, for such a famous actress, Streep is surprisingly unintimidating.
With a staggering 13 Oscar nominations (and two wins) as well as a recent Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, Streep certainly deserves her status as what Diane Keaton has called "my generation's genius."
"It was a great honour," is what she says about the AFI award, but then can't help but add a Streep spin to the matter.
"I don't want to spit in the eye of good fortune, but it was weird. I felt like I'd butted in line in front of Lucille Ball, Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn. Hello? How did this happen? I was only the sixth woman to receive it, but they found 26 men to give it to. I thought that was embarrassing."
Yet with all the accolades that have been heaped upon her, it's surprising to hear that Streep nearly didn't become an actress at all.
She was born in Summit, N.J., on June 22, 1949 and admits to having had an itch for performance from her childhood.
"Let's face it, we were all once 3-year-olds who stood in the middle of the living room and everybody thought we were so adorable. Only some of us grow up and get paid for it."
She showed a youthful flair for performing, but even then, it revealed the kind of preparation that was to mark her work in later life.
"I think I was about 10," she recalls, "and I used my mother's eyebrow pencil to make lines all around my face. At the time, I thought it was because I wanted to see what I'd look like when I was older, but maybe what I really wanted to see is what I'd look like when I played older parts."
While she was working on her undergraduate degree at Vassar College, she spent a year as a transfer student at Dartmouth University, heavily immersed in theatre.
"I thought it was really fun, you've got to understand, but I didn't think it was a serious way to conduct your life." She rolls her eyes at the memory.
"You know, I had a sense of mission. I was a true child of the '60s."
Nevertheless, the tug of theatre was strong enough that she applied and got into the Yale Drama School at the height of its fame under Dean Robert Brustein.
Her fellow students included Sigourney Weaver and playwright Christopher Durang (as well as Humber College professor Diana Belshaw) and one of the most interesting projects they all appeared in together was the first performance of Stephen Sondheim's adaptation of The Frogs, staged in the Yale swimming pool.
By coincidence, a revival of the show opened last night at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts starring Nathan Lane, and Streep was curious to hear how previews had been going.
"It's not still in a pool, is it?" she asked. "Good. All I can remember from the one we did is the smell of chlorine."
When asked what kind of a student Streep was, Weaver volunteered that "she was probably the hardest working actress I'd ever seen, in a different league from the rest of us."
She played everything from exotic temptresses to ancient women (the eyebrow pencil did come in handy) and was generally perceived as the star of the department, but Streep herself didn't share that confidence.
"Right until the end," she admits, "I remained ambivalent. I kept asking myself if it was a worthwhile way to spend my life.
"What will this do to help me make a contribution to the world? How can I put my hands on events and make things better?"
I point out to Streep that the influence of her ongoing work today as an environmental and political activist is greatly enhanced by her celebrity status, and she looks honestly puzzled.
"Do you really think that helps? If it does, then maybe I've figured out a way to make it all work together after all."
Streep pulls her memories back to the 1970s and recalls the decision she finally made.
"We had just come through Vietnam, Watergate, all of that, and I thought it would ultimately be self-indulgent to be an actor. I had a fit of conscience and applied to the law school. Don't laugh. I got the application, sent in my money ..."
She stops and I ask her what happened next. She giggles and flushes a bit at the memory.
"The night before the exam, I had a performance of Strindberg's The Father with Rip Torn.
"Oh God, it went well. I went back to my room and slept right through the test the next morning. I thought it was a sign."
She graduated from Yale in the spring of 1975 and, by October, she was already appearing at Lincoln Center with the likes of Mandy Patinkin and John Lithgow in a production of Trelawney Of The Wells.
The big, career-defining moment came a few months later, in January of 1976, when she played two roles on Broadway in a double bill of Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full Of Cotton and Arthur Miller's A Memory Of Two Mondays.
In the Williams play, she tackled the role that Carroll Baker played in the film version, Baby Doll — a sexy piece of 19-year-old trailer trash.
Then, after intermission, she appeared in Miller's work, totally transformed as a brisk, sophisticated New Yorker in her 30s.
A friend who was in the audience on that opening night recalls that "as soon as Meryl entered in the second play, you could hear everybody flipping through their programs to find out who it was. Nobody thought it could possibly be the same woman."
The critics were loud in their praises and Streep went on to another Lincoln Center production, Andrei Serban's legendary revival of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.
It was the first time I ever saw Streep, and I shared with her how I can still recall her as the lovestruck maid, Dunyasha, falling to the ground in a faint that was hysterical and heartbreaking at the same time.
"I loved doing that!" she exclaims, "I love doing comedy, but people just don't give me enough of a chance. It's one of the reasons I enjoy The Manchurian Candidate so much. It's because I actually get a chance to be funny."
Her performance as Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw, who will stop at nothing to put her son in the White House, is a virtuoso turn that some people would call a triumph of villainy, but Streep is more sympathetic.
"I think she's an understandable woman. A woman of great potential. Beware the thwarted ambition of an intelligent person, because it has to go somewhere, and it can go to perverse ends.
"She's a great leader. She's just a bit bonkers."
Watching Streep discuss her character, you understand the fine intelligence that she brings to each role. "People who want to control events ironically often wind up losing control. The Greeks understood that if you have the hubris to imagine you can control the world, then the gods will make you pay for it."
The portrait of America in The Manchurian Candidate is that of a nation governed by what Streep calls "disinformation," a country filled with paranoia.
"Some things in the script seemed outrageous when we shot them a year ago," recalls Streep, "but suddenly events galloped to catch up with us. Very good for the movie. Very bad for America."
I ask Streep what she hopes the future will bring for her country and she pauses before answering.
"I hope America is going to correct itself. Get back on track and rejoin the community of nations and gain its well-deserved place as a country to emulate and admire.
"Still, right now, it's tough."
But then, in the very best sort of way, so is Meryl Streep
