Image Credit: James Fiedler Jr./The Washington Times/Landov; Sylvain Gaboury/PR PhotosOkay, Meryl Streep. I get it. You are an incredible actress — and you’ve got 16 Oscar nominations (and two wins) to prove it. Heck, your body of work over the last five years alone is more impressive than most thespians will manage in a lifetime: You made me howl as the hilariously bitchy Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, you made me tremble as the unrelenting Sister Aloysius in Doubt, and you made me want to quit my job and pursue a life of culinary excellence after seeing last summer’s Julie & Julia. (Did I mention I experienced a two-Kleenex meltdown following your rendition of “Goodbye to My Mama” in A Prairie Home Companion?)
Now comes word you’re close to signing on to play former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in a biopic from your Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd that will focus on the 17 days preceding the 1982 Falklands War. (Jim Broadbent is being eyed for the role of Thatcher’s husband, Denis.) At the risk of inflating your ego, I have to admit that I especially love when biopics take on a narrow focus instead of going the birth-to-adversity-to-triumph-to-bad-old-age-makeup route. In fact, I’d head directly to Fandango and pre-order my tickets for Thatcher right this minute if I could be certain a night at the movies won’t cost a third of my weekly salary by the time this project makes it to the cinema. (Four bucks for a paper cup of carbonated water, caramel coloring, and aspartame? How much higher can they go?)
But before this blog post turns into a love letter, I’ve got to ask: Isn’t it time you dug a little deeper into the stacks of scripts that you’re inevitably sent every week? ‘Cause it seems to me that “Meryl Streep” is getting a little soft, that the awards nominations are coming a little too easy anymore. Why couldn’t you have tackled the role of Churchill instead of Thatcher? I mean, we all know you can sleepwalk your way through a British accent, but what about a British man’s accent, eh? And, sure, it’s easy to look great when you’re opposite Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin in a Nancy Meyers’ home-furnishings porno, but let’s see what you can do playing a suspected perp on CSI: Miami. You won’t have any “dingo ate my baby” zingers to hang onto on that set, lady! In other words, until you’ve walked a mile in David Caruso’s shades and lived to thank the Academy afterward, you can consider yourself on notice.
Who else wants to give Meryl Streep a wakeup call? Okay, and in all seriousness, who’s excited about Thatcher?
“Nancy Meyers home furnishings porno”… you sir, are a genius! That was awesome!
Agreed, and even though it was a pleasant trifle, she was flawless in it.
Every Nancy Meyer’s film feels like an issue of Architectural Digest. And I don’t say that lovingly.
I don’t understand the criticism.
I *think* this post is supposed to be a joke.
May I remind people that, although Meryl has two Oscars, she hasn’t won since 1983!!! Meryl has lost more than anyone else. She is definitely overdue for another!
YES! I think she deserves an Oscar for every role of hers ever, but to think she hasn’t won one in 27 years is blasphemy.
slow day when you realize what your reading is a complete waste of time. Why do i bother.
She could pull off Winston Churchill. Meryl Streep is perfect.
I can’t stop laughing! But if you think about, if Cate Blanchett could play I dude; imaging Meryl playing and old British dude?
meryl has played a dude. she played an elderly, male rabbi in “angels in america”
i cant believe you get paid for writing this crap. no point to this article at all.
*psht* philistine…
UH Meryl Streep can play anything, she can even play DUST and get an oscar for it. So this role will be a walk in the park for her, but she’s sooo beautiful and elegant she will be able to do it with her hands tied behind her back.
Meryl Streep is a middlebrow actress who appeals to middlebrow audiences. Her performances rarely go beneath the surface of the characters she plays, but because of her facility with accents and a tendency to pick one facial expression and milk it, people mistake her gimmicky performances as great acting.
how many movies have you been in?
middlebrown is the fact that so many who can’t act think they are capable of judging what it is. Guess that makes you middlebrow
I “understand” that Ms. Streep might not be as good an actress as Kristen Stewart…LMAO
Right. Thank goodness we have YOU to straighten us out. We might have accidentally continued to think she was awesome! >clutches the pearls<
The writer is being way too critical. Streep is out finest
finest actor–female or male. She
She can tackle any role. Maybe the script is so outstanding that she would be a fool to turn it down
and then Emma Thompson would take the role and win a third Oscar).
Apparently you don’t understand sarcasm when you read it. Try again.
She is the best and TheSexHookup
Im more excited about Broadbent that Streep.
Been there done that. Have you seen Angels in America. That old Rabbi was more difficult to pull off than any Churchhill and she nailed it.
And yes, I look forward to see her play Thatcher although I cringe at her playing the Iron Lady. Not my favorite, that old Brit.
Dunaway-Crawford: “No wire hangers!”
Streep-Thatcher: “No new taxes!”
I get these two confused all the time.