Meeting with Meryl Streep, Palme d’Or at Cannes 2024: “I’m not a rock star” [LIVE]

This year the Cannes Film Festival has decided to pay homage the American actress Meryl Streep, true legend of international cinema, with the honorary Palme d’Or. After the touching speech of her colleague Juliette Binoche (who was moved several times when retracing Streep’s career) during the opening ceremony of the Festival last night, today the traditional panel dedicated to the winner of the honorary Palme d’Or will be held .

The meeting consists of over an hour of conversation with the Festival audience, to talk about their life and career, including memories and behind the scenes of the films of a lifetime. We will be present for you in the room. It starts at 2.30pm, with the summary of Streep’s statements updated live.

Follow the event live with us. While you wait you can read it special on Meryl Streep.

Meryl Streep talks about herself at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

Yesterday you received the honorary Palm and an endless standing ovation during the opening ceremony. How do you feel?

A little dazed. I didn’t go to bed until 3am, after yesterday’s ceremony I spent the night partying and talking about Dupieux’s opening film, which I really enjoyed.

Yesterday you were very touched by Juliette Binoche’s speech, you said you had seen The Taste of Things. What relationship do you have with French cinema?

Unfortunately not as deep as I would like. It’s usually in January, at the beginning of the year, with the arrival of the Oscars, foreign and French films also arrive in the United States. It’s a stressful time, because I would like to see all the films that come to vote at the Oscars, so I don’t feel like a bitch when I meet someone at events and I haven’t seen their film. The answer is “not as much as I would like,” but you know, I have three children, five grandchildren. I do what I can.

I especially try to see films by actors and in particular actresses that I admire and love, like Juliette.

What do you remember about the first time you won an award at Cannes?

The first time I came to Cannes they told me: “I would need bodyguards, at least 9”. I joked, I said “come on, I won’t even need one”. I was very wrong. At the time there were no barriers, there were no barriers, there was no security. People got so close, just inches from my face. I have barely recovered since then and 35 years have passed and so many things have changed.

When I won the prize I was mostly scared. I thought I was leading a boring life, doing a boring job. I didn’t think I was ready for fame, I’m not a rock star.

The “Kramer vs. Kramer” anecdote of you rewriting your character’s speech to make it more human is quite famous. Can you tell us this story again?

For anyone under 70, Kramer vs. Kramer is the story of a couple battling in court over custody of their son. The book on which it is based is rather opaque regarding the reasons why her mother leaves for 8 months, leaving her ex-husband played by Dustin Hoffman to alone build a relationship with the son with whom she was not particularly close.

When the moment came for the mother’s speech in court, we wondered why she had left. Hoffmann, the director and I all wrote a version of the speech and put it to the vote. Dustin was convinced that he understood this woman, that he knew her motivations. But I won the vote and the speech you hear today is mine.

What was it like making that groundbreaking film at that time?

We need to make one thing clear: films are made to make money, even serious ones. I believe that every film, even the lightest one, comes out at a specific moment and tries to say something. That film intercepted the perfect moment of blacklash to second wave feminism.

He brought you your first Oscar. Is it true that you were about to forget the statuette in the bathroom in the theater?

Probably yes. I went to the bathroom, I had this huge dress on, I was excited. I will have put it somewhere to wash my hands and I will have left it there when I left the bathroom, remembering it shortly afterwards.

Speaking of another legendary film, let’s talk about The Deer Hunter.

Do you know that I only now realized that I wrote a bit about my character in that case too? Cimino wasn’t sure what to do with the character, he asked me to integrate. It doesn’t always happen, eh, but in the beginning it happened. It was a time when if you were on set, you were the only woman in the movie, people automatically remember you because…do they remember your hair? (laughs)

It was a powerful experience, it resonated with many of my personal experiences.

The Deer Hunter is the first film in which you sing. The first film in a long series.

I remember this very scary moment in high school when the music teacher told us: “now all of you stand up one by one and sing in front of the others. And you will cry”. The boys said “we’ll cry laughing”, laughing. She replies that music unlocks something. And she was right: remember this boy who sang a song about his mother, just a few notes… and he burst into tears.

For me music has that strength, I like to sing at home too.

Let’s talk about the famous scene from “Sofia’s Choice” with the little girl. It’s true that you only shot it once.

No it is not true. It was shot twice because the first time the little girl didn’t know it was going to happen and she didn’t have the right reaction. On the second take, however, she had the heartbreaking reaction you see today and it was… powerful. Among other things, I know that you now work in Paris, you have an important job.

At the time, I only read the scene once: it shocked me, it was branded in my mind, I couldn’t reread it, I felt bad about it. I don’t really like to remember that film, it was very heavy on an emotional level.

When you shoot a scene like this, for me it works like this: I don’t want to be seen, it becomes a blank slate. In drama school they taught us how to enter this state of detachment in three different ways, because every year they hired a new teacher with a different method.

The night before a difficult scene I always say to my husband: “No, I won’t do it, no!” and he says “you say that all the time” and I’m like, “No, there’s something wrong with this script, no.”

Eventually you learn to create pockets to fill with the emotions of work, to compartmentalize. It’s very important to learn to get into that mood, because when you’re on set and you have to redo a scene for the sixtieth time in which you get out of a car and say something and the director doesn’t like it, you end up killing the director.

The difficult thing is being able to have a certain detachment, but at the same time be ready to face the rawest and purest emotions, without protection.

We know you’re great at accents. How does it work for you?

Each to their own method, I’m shamelessly lucky: as soon as I’m with a person, I acquire their accent, it practically comes naturally to me. I am shocked when I see my colleagues who remain for all the breaks on the set with headphones on their ears, obsessively listening to the lines to say, the vocal coach’s advice. All I need to do is talk on the phone with an operator calling from India for a few minutes to pick up on his accent.

Out of Africa was a challenging set with animals, right?

Yes definitely. First there was a bug that got in through the collar of my dress and scared the shit out of me. Then the lions, which we had been told were harmless because they came from a zoo in California. Actually, let me tell you: no. They told us that it would be a problem, because they are dangerous if they enter the water and attack.

They entered the water during the shampoo scene, where Robert Redford washes my hair. Let me tell you: By the time of the fifth take, I wasn’t thinking about hippos anymore. It’s like a love scene, it’s so intimate, relaxing. My hairdresser explained to Robert how to do it and he was very good. I was practically in love that day on set. We see so many people fucking in movies, but these intimate moments are missing.

Have you ever sought commercial success?

At the time of Out of Africa I was in the cast of some commercially successful films: my agent was very aware of it, but I wasn’t at all. I started to be one when I was the protagonist of some super hits like Mamma mia! and The Devil Wears Prada and it’s incredible if you think about it, because I was in my 50s and 60s when these smash hits came along.

You have always been very direct in saying that women do not have the same personal and economic return as men.

That’s true, but a lot has changed. Leaving aside Tom Cruise who is in a category of his own, the biggest names at the moment are women and the wages have improved, the roles have improved, the power has increased, but there is still a lot of difference to bridge. The real discrimination is how I had to wait for “The Devil Wears Prada” to hear even male colleagues say: “I identified with your character”. Who instead identifies with the girl from “the hunter”? Nobody. Even when I see the film I identify with the male characters and for a long time it has always been that way.

Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman…now they all have production companies and are deadly serious. I did it years ago, but I had children to look after… I didn’t answer the phone after seven in the evening, so…

On the abuse and violence front, something has changed, but in an infinitesimal way. Let’s say that now terrible things continue to be done, but the men who perpetrate them have a hint of fear.

How is your relationship with getting older?

I remember that as a child I was fascinated by my grandmother’s wrinkles. Once I took the eyebrow pencil from my mother’s makeup and drew all my grandmother’s wrinkles on her face. Now I’ve become like this, without make up, obviously. On the set of “The Iron Lady” it was a trip down memory lane to recreate old-fashioned makeup, like the ones my mother and grandmother used to do.

Tell us about turning into an unrealistic character.

I want to talk about Death Becomes Her. It was almost a way of putting on drag, this incredible hyper-feminization, exaggerated… and now in Florida there are people who dress and wear makeup like that. For me it’s surprising. Costumes are still very important, even when you play a very ordinary, very realistic role.

I remember that on the set of Falling in Love Robert (De Niro), I’m not exaggerating, he had something like 40 chino jackets available and he tried them on one by one, checking the collar, sleeves, before choosing which one to wear.

What makes a director out of class?

Be confident, make the set a relaxed place with a nice atmosphere, but above all have the urgency to say something, even if the film isn’t busy. If these conditions are not present, you return home exhausted in the evening.