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USA today - February 4, 1997
When
Bette Midler, generally considered the best actress of her generation, was
the same age as Meryl Streep - 47 - she was "washed up", as they used to
say. She had made All About Eve"five years earlier and was only a
half-dozen years shy of What Ever Happenend to Baby
Jane?
Streep, considered by many to be this generationīs best
actress, still is playing love interests and sexually charged women such a
Lee, the would-be cosmetician of Marvinīs Room.
"I really
understand Lee," says Streep, looking younger than the middle-age
character who must deal with her estranged cancer-stricken sister and her
hostile son. "Trying to control her son and making just about every wrong
move there is. So filled with outward determination and hope, and inside
being so self-loathing and visiting that on her kid," Streep says. "The
last thing you want is the worst part of you to be continued in your
children. And thatīs exactly what she does. She turns him into someone who
hates himself."
Marvinīs Room, which is being released
nationally after early engagements in several major cities, is the kind of
raw, emotional film - such a Sophieīs Choice and Kramer vs
Kramer - that made her a star.
Written by Scott McPherson, who
had AIDS when he wrote the script and has since died,
MarvinīsRoom resonates with issues of mortality, family ties,
prioritizing life goals and reconciling with roots. "The movie is hitting
a chord. Maybe itīs all the aging boomers reconciling," Streep says.
"Maybe itīs the mortality of our parents and coming to that age where you
just have to either forgive or trash it out in some way with your
family."
Streep doesnīt look much different than she did in 1978 in
her breakthrough role as Linda, the working-class, small-town girl in
The Deer Hunter. Her skin is pale and soft and unlined. The Lee
of Marvinīs Room looks haggard and life-battered, as if Streep
willed herself to look older.
Lee resonates strongly among the roles she has brought to life, Streep
says. "I love them," she says of the many women whose spirits have
inhabited her. And which of them maintain a special place in her heart? "I
really love Helen, the character of Ironweed, says Streep, her
face softening. "Sophie lives in my body. And Francesca in Bridges of
Madison Country. And Postcards (from the Edge). And
Heartburn - I loved playing that. But immediately I think of
Helen in Ironweed".
Streep, known to pick her roles
carefully, responds to the visceral reaction she feels when reading a
script. "Itīs a feeling of my hert, really, literally racing. That is
something that I understand. This situation that this person I am reading
is in, and now Iīm in it. And it is nothing that I have purposely tried to
do, but now Iīm in it." - "And then I call my agent and say, 'Yes, Iīll do
it'," Streep laughs.
In her next role, for ABCīs ... First Do
No Harm on Feb. 16, she plays a mother battling the medical
establishment over the treatment of her epileptic child.
A quote
from Dustin Hoffman - that acting with Meryl Streep is like being in the
ring "and she delivers punch for punch" - is read aloud to Streep. She
laughs. "He always talks in pugilistic terms about working with me. Like
heīs girding himself for battle with the Gorgon or something." Streep, who
won a supporting actress Oscar playing opposite Hoffman in Kramer vs
Kramer, calls the actor "relentless - though I might add, some really
wonderful people are relentless in the pursuit of what they
want."
And what about Robert De Niro, her most frequent co-star
(Deer Hunter, Falling in Love and Marvinīs
Room)?
"Oh...," she moans, wondering how to respond. "Iīve
known him for 20 years, and my feelings about him as an actor are mixed up
with my feelings about him as a friend. Heīs the most loyal person in the
world. His talent is just gorgeous. And every time I work with him, I
learn something. Even in my old age, just this last time, I learned
working with him."
Special moments of actor-to-actor chemistry she
has experienced?
"Oh! Thatīs a lot of people," Streep says
immediately. "Thatīs Diane (Keaton, who plays Streepīs sister, Bessie, in
Marvinīs Room) ... She is physically incapable of actorishness or
falsity or any kind of punching up the line for the laughs. Sheīs just
real. Because sheīs really on a very high order of
artist."
Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays her tough-sensitive son in
Marvinīs Room, impressed her. "Leonardoīs the real thing. A
fabulous little genius," she says.
Contemporaries of Streep such as
Hoffman, De Niro, Robert Duvall and Gene Hackamn have commented on an
attitudinal shift among younger actors, who will come up to them asking
how to 'make it'. Has Streep noticed a generational
difference?
"Oh, yes," she says and nods. "And I donīt think itīs
just b**** either. Glen (Close) and I have talked about this. I think it
has to do with coming up in the theater. The ethos of 'the playīs the
thing' ... weīre all in this together. Not 'maybe I can get a series out
of this if Iīm reviewed well on Broadway'. Thatīs not the way we thought.
Young actors think a career is something that means business. We thought
of a career as life work, and you look at the body of work."
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