I almost ran into Meryl Streep last night – literally.
Stepped into the staff entrance at the Royal Ontario Museum to pick up my extremely valuable ticket to the Evening With Meryl Streep event, turned away from the wicket and there she was, making a surreptitious entrance into the museum.
Yes we made eye contact.
Understand that, just having come off of a celebrity-ridden TIFF, I’m accustomed to walking down hotel corridors and almost running into the likes of Clive Owen and Penelope Cruz, but this was different. There’s no one like La Streep. I was able to contain myself but I’m sure that, like the four other journalists in the foyer, I had a stupid grin on my face.
Once on the stage, Streep did everything she could to dispel the image of her of the deadly serious thespian. She was funny, woman-positive
and surprisingly generous. I say this last because she’s known to be very guarded about her craft and she actually talked at length about how she does what she does. She dismissed the assumption that she prepares for everything and said, rather that she does the best work when she goes blank.
,
.
She traced her desire to bury herself in a character – make herself invisible, in fact – from her experience in the aftermath of her role in Cry In The Dark, as the woman whose baby is killed in a camping trip.
and confessed that she’s drawn to difficult characters
She was consistently engaging and funny. Listen to her describe why she adjusted her cleavage while accepting her Golden Globe for Adaptation
, or her description of being cast in her first movie, Julia
or playing Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s mother on stage in the Seagull
or who in Hollywood she hasn’t kissed.
.
She can even imitate Bart Simpson
.
