Lots of additional pictures from many of the past day’s events have been added. Besides the New York premiere for “Florence Foster Jenkins”, a screening was held in the East Hamptons on Monday to kick off the US promotion of the film. On August 10, the cast has attended several Q&As for BAFTA New York, the SAG/Aftra Foundation and appearing together on “The Charlie Rose Show”. Also on August 10, Meryl gave a very insightful and entertaining interview at Times Talks. Check out the next update for video additions. All added pictures can be found below.
Also yesterday, Meryl Streep was all smiles while hitting the red carpet at the premiere of her film Florence Foster Jenkins held at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 Theater on Tuesday (August 9) in New York City. She was joined by her co-stars Hugh Grant, Nina Arianda and Simon Helberg. Meryl recently opened up about her and Hugh‘s love in the film and how it should not be dismissed in spite of the infidelities. “I think especially, peering into other people’s relationships, it’s almost always not what you think it is from the outside, and I think it’s an accurate portrayal of realistic, delusional love,” Meryl explained (via CBS News). “It’s realistic because it is what it is and there is illusion and they both prop up… in this bubble of happiness.” “I mean one of the genius things that Stephen did that’s embedded in the film is even in the margins, you feel the warmth,” Meryl added. “There’s so many analogies to now, figuring out what makes life worth living. Love and art, as far as I’m concerned, is right smack in the middle. So the compromises that people make to keep their happiness intact — I think that’s all in the service of good.”
Article courtesy The Boston Globe: Meryl Streep had a very busy week, even for her. She gave a shout-out to Hillary Clinton at the DNC; inked a contract to appear in “Mary Poppins Returns” – a movie musical from “Hairspray” creators Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman that will also star Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda – and geared up for the Aug. 12 rollout of the biopic “Florence Foster Jenkins.”
Still, there she was Saturday, alongside her former Yale Drama School classmate John Shea at a benefit for the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket. (Surprisingly, it was Streep’s first time on the island.) The handsome Shea, who’s perhaps best known for playing Lex Luthor in the ’90s TV series “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” got his start as a TWN apprentice in 1968 and has remained ever grateful. TWN, which had no rivals when it was founded in 1956, had fallen on hard times before Shea took the reins as artistic director seven years ago — for the munificent fee of $300 per season, according to his wife, sculptor Melissa McLeod. Saturday’s benefit drew some 240 high-rollers to the Nantucket Hotel’s ballroom at a cost of $2,500 per person — and $50,000 for the privilege of booking Streep’s table, a fee gladly forked over by prominent DC lawyer (and TWN board member) Max N. Berry. Other high-profile attendees included film producer Armyan Bernstein, who directed Shea in 1984’s “Windy City” (and followed his friend’s lead in acquiring a summer home on the island), and benefactress-about-town Wendy Schmidt (wife of Google ex-CEO Eric Schmidt), looking Titania-like in a sleek silver-beaded silk chiffon shift.
Streep’s contribution to the cabaret show, performed with Shea and their fellow Yale classmate Joe Grifasi, was a silly spoof of “Medea” penned way back when by then-fledgling playwrights Christopher Durang and Wendy Wasserstein.
Everytime my emails are flooded with expletives and “I’ll never watch any of your movies again”, I know that Meryl Streep has been possibly doing something political the day before :-) On Tuesday, Streep has attended the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night to draw attention to the historic moment of Hillary Clinton’s nomination for president, the first time a woman has earned the honor for a major political party. “What does it take to be the first female anything? It takes grit and it takes grace,” Streep said. In her praise of Clinton, Streep mentioned that the Democratic nominee “has taken some fire over 40 years, over her fight for families and children. Where does she get her grit and grace?” While celebrating other famous female firsts throughout American history, Streep also focused on the road ahead — and beyond.”You people have made history, and you are going to make history again in November, because Hillary Clinton will be our first woman president,” she told the crowd. “She will be the first, but she won’t be the last.” Her speech can be watched in the video archive, screencaptures and pictures from the convention and the rehearsals have been added to the photo gallery.
U.S. first lady Michelle Obama, her mother and daughters Sasha and Malia were joined by Meryl Streep in Morocco’s Marrakesh on Tuesday on a six-day tour to try to promote girls’ education. More than a third of Morocco’s population of 34 million is illiterate – one of the highest rates in North Africa, and the rate is higher for women at 41 percent, official data shows. The U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) was launched during her visit and includes US$100 million to be spent on 100,000 Moroccan students, half of whom will be teenage girls. The funds come from US$450 million given by the MCC last year to boost education and employability in Morocco. Michelle Obama stepped up her campaign for girls’ education after Islamist group Boko Haram seized 276 girls from their school in Nigeria in 2014 and she highlighted their plight through a Twitter hashtag, #BringBackOurGirls. She spent Sunday and Monday in Liberia, where she visited a U.S. Peace Corps site and a school with President and Nobel Peace laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, promoting Let Girls Learn, a U.S. government initiative begun with her husband in 2015.
Yesterday, Meryl Streep paid tribute to friend and collaborator Elizabeth Swados, who passed away this January, with a special reading of “Walking the Dog” at the Barnes & Noble Union Square in New York. Pictures from the event have been added to the photo gallery. Tomorrow marks Meryl Streep’s 67th birtdhay, so make sure to watch one of her movie in celebration.
On Monday, Meryl Streep unveiled Stephen Frears’ charming “Florence Foster Jenkins” in New York’s Director’s Guild Theater for an A list crowd including Renee Fleming (who introduced the film), Christine Baranski, Bill Irwin and Barbara Walters. Tony winning costume designer William Ivey Long – who’s also the head of the American Theater Wing – did a little Q&A on stage after the screening. Streep and Long met at Yale Drama School in 1972, so they had an easy rapport. Pictures from the screening and Q&A have been added to the photo gallery.
Sit back and have a good laugh at this: At the moment that Hillary Clinton was all but clinching the Democratic nomination for president, Meryl Streep was on a stage in Central Park, impersonating Donald Trump. In orange face makeup and pompadoured hair, Ms. Streep, the chameleonic three-time Oscar winner, did a more than credible version of the presumptive Republican nominee, down to the pursed lips and low-hanging belly. She got the braggadocio-inflected voice, too, even while singing. Ms. Streep was part of the Public Theater’s gala benefit celebration on Monday night, a tribute to Shakespeare at the Delacorte Theater, home to Shakespeare in the Park. She was the closing act with Christine Baranski, doing “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” a number from the Cole Porter musical “Kiss Me, Kate.” “We could do a deal – you’ll let me know – why it is all the women say no?” she sang, stretching out her arms in a Trumpian gesture. Later she strolled the stage, gesticulating to the audience in Mr. Trump’s signature Make-America-Great-Again style. More information courtesy The New York Times.
The Public Theater has announced that its annual gala, The United States of Shakespeare, will take place June 6 at the Delacorte Theater, featuring a host of famous stars including Meryl Streep, Phylicia Rashad, Christine Baranski, Jimmy Smits, Michael Cerveris, Steven Pasquale and more. Directed by Jeremy McCarter, the gala will include scenes from Shakespeare’s most celebrated works and the poems, songs and stories they inspired, performed by actors of the stage and screen, and musicians. The complete line-up for The United States of Shakespeare features F. Murray Abraham, Sarah Amengual, Lemon Andersen, Kate Burton, Michael Friedman, Bill Irwin, Lisa Kron, Hamish Linklater, Suzan-Lori Parks, Martha Plimpton, Lily Rabe, Jay O. Sanders, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Jeanine Tesori, and John Douglas Thompson; and The Public’s Shakespeare scholar in residence Jim Shapiro, with musical direction by Chris Fenwick. More casting to be announced at a later date. Tickets to the one-night only event are available by by calling (212) 539-8634, online at publictheater.org/gala2016 or via email at gala@publictheater.org.
Yesterday, Meryl Streep has been among the guests at EPIX’ New York premiere of “Under the Gun”. The documentary gives a candid look at the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre. The tragic event took place on December 14, 2012 where 20 children were murdered at their school by a resentful, gun-obsessed shooter. The terrible incident was the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in U.S. history. The shooting prompted renewed debate about gun control in the United States but still no changes in American federal gun laws have been made.