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MERYL STREEP IS THE BOSS FROM HELL
Magazine: The Toronto Sun, June 2006 |
Meryl Streep says she had no problem playing down the more sensational aspects of her delicious role as a dragon lady-fashionista in The Devil Wears Prada.
That's because she never felt like she was playing a real person. In this case, that would be Vogue boss Anna Wintour -- upon whom Streep's powerful fashion editor character, Miranda Priestly, is widely believed to be based.
"I was just interested in making a human being, as contradictory and messy as we all are," said the dressed-down and natural-looking Streep, 57, looking wildly different from Priestly, who favours a Cruella De Vil-type silver hairdo, severe glasses, expensive clothes, purses, jewelry, stilettos and furs.
"And I think that she's an exacting, highly disciplined, demanding, ambitious, person, who doesn't necessarily take the time for all the nice social lubricants that help make the workplace graceful and fun."
To backpedal a bit, Wintour's real-life former assistant wrote the notorious 2003 book of the same name on which The Devil Wears Prada is based.
But Streep said Wintour -- supposedly nicknamed Nuclear Wintour by Vogue underlings for her frosty demeanor -- wasn't her model for the character who is hilarious in almost every scene she's in, whether demanding a copy of an unpublished Harry Potter book for her children or planning a dinner party that includes both Snoop Dogg and Donatella Versace.
"I know the book was based on an assistant's-eye view of Anna Wintour, but it didn't interest me to do a documentary on Anna Wintour," said Streep, a 13-time Oscar nominee and two-time winner. "And I don't know anything really about her. I only met her at the first benefit screening and ... she was good sport about it. It's much more fun for me to make the uber-boss out of my own pastiche of experience."
Instead, Streep modelled Priestly after powerful male film industry leaders. "Compared to the people I know, Miranda is so well behaved. She's almost like a diplomat compared to some people who are very, very, very powerful in our business."
To help make the on-screen chemistry work with Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries, Brokeback Mountain), who plays Priestly's tortured new junior assistant, Emily Blunt (My Summer Of Love) as the senior assistant, and character actor Stanley Tucci as Miranda's right-hand man, Streep kept her distance between takes.
"Everybody says, 'Oh, wasn't it so much fun?' No, it was not fun to be this person. I didn't stay in character when they yelled cut (but) I just felt it wouldn't help the dynamic of the set if I immediately went over and was joking with Emily and Anne and Stanley. It was sort of a lonely position I staked out for myself, but I suppose it paid off."
Streep also said the ultra-expensive designer duds -- Bill Blass, Valentino (who makes a cameo) and Prada, naturally, among them -- that famed stylist Patricia Field (Sex And The City) put her in, also helped her find her inner Miranda.
With no budget, Streep said Field used her "very good relationships with designers" to compile about 60 loaned outfits for Priestly.
"Basically, this achievement is amazing because (Field) had no money," Streep said. "These clothes cost so much. One of the handbags is $12,000. It's almost inconceivable to me. There were many, many, many bags that were that expensive, so then a $4,000 bag seems like a bargain. It's just insane."
As for that hair, Streep was more inspired by such people as 70-something model Carmen Dell'Orefice, late Bazaar editor (and Wintour rival) Liz Tilberis and longtime fashion arbiter Polly Mellen.
"We knew we wanted to make a very definite kind of look," Streep said. "A woman that doesn't look like anybody else in New York and that, at the fashion shows, it would be easy to spot her and look at her -- so everybody would look to see what Miranda thinks."
The actress had her concerns about some of the movie's messages about weight, like when Tucci's Nigel proclaims to Hathaway's character that "size six is the new 14."
"I think about them every day," said Streep, emphasizing the point. "I have three daughters. And it affected me as a teenager. So, yeah, I had my ideas about this stuff. I think it's highly destructive."
But Streep also said the movie, which is a visual feast of glamorous clothes and scenic New York and Paris locations, has no real lessons to teach.
"It's not instructional, this movie," she said with a laugh.
And, no, despite the abundance of strong female characters, she doesn't consider it a feminist film.
"Oh, there's a way to kill the box office," she said jokingly. "No, this is a guy flick, man. There is a lot of eye candy here, a lot of lingerie shots."
