Yesterday, Meryl Streep and John Wells have attended the Paris premiere for “August: Osage County”. Meryl talked to Associated Press about the film and her recent Oscar nomination. “”I saw the play seven years ago. I remember it hit all of us like a freight train … I was entranced, it made me laugh and it shocked me”. Streep said actors were supposed to relish playing difficult characters but that the “reality is that where it begins, where it emanates from is a very unpleasant place.”

“She has cancer in her mouth. She chooses to smoke constantly in the face of that, she has chemotherapy … she’s a drug addict … it’s all a toxic mix, a nasty place to live.” But she added that it was also liberating “to play a person who says exactly what she thinks, never with a cover, never, never being nice, no thought of diplomacy. So that’s a wonderful free feeling”. Streep said she was thrilled at the Oscar nomination and that people were “still willing to look at my work and to look at it fresh”. “That is the most unbelievable thing, that they are not tired of me yet or of my work so I’m very happy about that. Very gratified,” she said.”

Meryl Streep has attended the official Academy Awards Luncheon in Beverly Hills, yesterday. Pictures from the event (which turned more into a red carpet than the familiar oscar statue posing) have been added to the gallery with more information to come. Many thanks to Lindsey for contributing some of them.

Two new magazine scans have been added to the gallery. Many thanks to Luciana for sending in scans from the March issue of Vanity Fair, boasting some fantastic celebrity portraits, including this 1981 shot by Annie Leibovitz (which I haven’t seen in this pose before). Then, with many thanks to Simona, scans from the Italian Cosi Magazine (January 2014) have been added as well. Enjoy.

Image Library – Magazine Scans – 2014 – Vanity Fair (USA, March 2014)
Image Library – Magazine Scans – 2014 – Cosi Magazine (Italy, January 2014)

Bad news for everyone who has planned to attend Meryl’s conversation at UMass Lowell tomorrow. As they write on their website, due to forecasts for a Wednesday storm, “A Conversation with Meryl Streep” has been rescheduled for Tuesday, April 1. Feb. 5 tickets, including student tickets, will be honored on April 1. Ticketholders seeking refunds should do so at the point of purchase by Feb 18. Ticketholders who purchased over the phone or online should contact the call center at 866-722-8780 to request a refund. Ticketholders who purchased at the Tsongas Center should process a refund in person at the box office during normal business hours. General ticketing questions can be addressed by calling the Tsongas Center Box Office at 978-934-5738.

Here comes another fantastic addition to the archives with many thanks to Simona. The Italian Il Venerdi di Repubblica featured a cover story and nine page article on Meryl in January 1989 to promote the release of “A Cry in the Dark”, featuring some great full page images. Have a look at the scans in the image library.

Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has died on Sunday. He was 46. Hoffman, who won the best actor Oscar for “Capote” in 2005, most recently appeared at the Sundance Film Festival to promote his new films “God’s Pocket” and Anton Corbin’s “A Most Wanted Man.” Hoffman and Meryl Streep have frequently worked together on the stage and on film. In 2001, he played her son in Mike Nichols’ Shakespeare in the Park production of “The Seagull”. In 2005, they participated in the Coen Brothers’ stage production “Theater of the New Ear”. And in 2008, both Hoffman and Streep received Oscar nominations for their work in “Doubt”. Upon accepting her Screen Actors Guild Award in 2008, Meryl Streep thanked her co-star. “Thank you to Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is just the most fun to work with and the most.. he’s just such a great example to all of us of how to live your work with integrity and imagination, every time, every time out!”

A new book on Meryl has been released this January, and it deserves a special mention here. “Meryl Streep: Anatomy of an Actor” is written by Karina Longworth, a film critic and journalist based in Los Angeles. Instead of fast forwarding through Meryl’s life, Miss Longworth has picked 10 significant Streep performances and explores each role within its film and its place in Meryl’s career at that time. Highlighted are Linda from “The Deer Hunter”, Joanna Kramer, Sophie, Karen Silkwood, Karen Blixen, Madeline Ashton, Francesca Johnson, Miranda Priestly, Julia Child and Margaret Thatcher. Each chapter is filled with detailed information on the creation of the character as well as many quotes from previous interviews.

What’s remarkable about this book is that, even if you have seen the films a dozen times, you will find new aspects in each performance through Miss Longworth’s analytics. The book also includes bonus pages on Meryl’s work on “Holocaust”, her collaboration with Mike Nichols, and more insightful information on how specific roles and choices have influenced the legacy of her career as we know it today. On top of that, it’s filled with some amazing pictures from behind the scenes. “Meryl Streep: Anatomy of an Actor” is available now and can be ordered through Amazon or directly at Phaidon.

The Internet Movie Database has updated its list of release date for the upcoming “The Homesman”. The western-drama, directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones and co-starring Hilary Swank, John Lithgow and Meryl Streep, will be first screened at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2014. Since the festival’s schedule hasn’t been announced yet, it’s difficult to say if there will be a world-premiere with the cast and crew in attendance, or simply a private screening for distributors. The film will be shown at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals in August and September, before receiving a limited release in the USA on October 3, 2014. With these latest dates announced, all three of Meryl’s upcoming films – The Giver, The Homesman and Into the Woods – will be released theatrically between August and December 2014. Many thanks to Glenn and Frank for the heads-up.

Many thanks to Claudia for sending in Meryl’s Best Actress bit from the latest Entertainment Weekly. “Working with Streep can be intense. Julianne Nicholson recalls a small scene where she sits in the backseat of a car beside Streep and Julia Roberts. “We’re sort of chatting a little bit, and all of a sudden we’re rolling and Meryl starts acting,” says Nicholson. “The whole car just felt full of feeling, and it was suffocating in the best way. It was so real. If you were sitting in that car, I would dare you not to cry.”

A real treat has been added to the gallery – one of the first major articles on Meryl’s career by the New York Times Magazine, dated February 4, 1979. This has been just after the release of “The Deer Hunter”, for which Meryl received her first ever Oscar nomination, and still almost a year ahead of the theatrical release of “Kramer vs. Kramer”. The scans have been submitted by Alvaro with many many thanks!

Additionally to the scans, transcripts from older articles have been added to the magazines archive as well. They range from as early as 1976, covering Meryl’s rise on the New York stages, to 1998 and the release of “One True Thing”. My thanks to Paul for contributing them. Enjoy reading.

Magazines – 1998 – The Associated Press (September 17, 1998)
Magazines – 1998 – The Orange County Register (December 08, 1989)
Magazines – 1996 – The Washington Post (August 10, 1986)
Magazines – 1981 – Syracuse Post Standard (October 31, 1981)
Magazines – 1981 – The Los Angeles Times (September 19, 1981)
Magazines – 1980 – Parade Magazine (July 20, 1980)
Magazines – 1979 – Parade Magazine (September 09, 1979)
Magazines – 1979 – The New York Times Magazine (February 04, 1979)
Magazines – 1977 – The Alton Telegraph (March 27, 1977)
Magazines – 1976 – Syracuse Herald-Journal (July 30, 1976)