Following two very quiet years, career-wise, 2023 brought two exciting new projects. AppleTV+’s “Extrapolations”, which was first announced in October of 2021, premiered on the streamer in March of 2023. While Meryl Streep received top-billing in the series’ rather odd marketing campaign (in which she didn’t participate), her role as Sienna Miller’s mother – and the voice of the Earth’s last humpback whale – was not more than a cameo in the series’ second episode. The series drew in dismal reviews and didn’t make a splash. In August, Meryl joined Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez for the third season of the highly popular “Only Murders in the Building” as a potential murder suspect – and Short’s love interest – Loretta Durkin. But Hollywood had other plans: A moth before the season’s premiere, actors went on strike over a labor dispute with the AMPTP, resulting in the longest strike in SAG-AFTRA history – and zero appearances, interviews or promotion of any kind during that time.

Meryl Streep recorded two audiobooks in 2023 – Ann Patchett’s “Tom Lake: A Novel” and Brian Selznick’s “Big Tree”, for which she received a Grammy nomination for Best Narration. In October, Streep traveled to Spain to accept the Princess of Asturias Award, presented by Leonor and the Princess of Asturias and the Princess of Asturias Foundation to individuals, entities or organizations from around the world who make notable achievements in the sciences, humanities, and public affairs. In December, Streep was honored at the Academy Museum Gala, by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. She received the Icon Award, which celebrates an artist whose career has had a significant global cultural impact.