French films

Meryl Streep - biography

1949-
Biography
Meryl Streep photo
Meryl Streep is best-known for the following films:


Meryl Streep Quotes
“Acting is not about being someone different.  It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.”

“All an actor has is their blind faith that they are who they say they are today, in any scene.”

“I didn’t have any confidence in my beauty when I was young.  I felt like a character actress, and I still do.”

“I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I’m honored to be that way for young actors.”

“I have four to five months, tops, per year to give to my acting work.”

“I have no method.  I’ve a smattering of things learned from different teachers.  Nothing I can put in a valise, open up and say: ‘Now which one would you like?’”

“I need to go where people are serious about acting.”

“I’m curious about other people.  That’s the essence of my acting.  I’m interested in what it would be like to be you.”

“My job is usually to express emotion as freely as possible.”

“The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it’s a completely random process.”

“There are wonderfully talented actresses.  It’s a really rich field.  There isn’t as rich a field of material.”

“Chris Cooper is one of my favorite actors in the world.  I’ve seen him in most everything he’s done.”

“Garbo, on screen, is flawless.”

“I had three children, and that’s a lot like making a movie.  There’s a lot of the same worries.  Will it have legs?  Will it go wide?  How will it do domestically and what if it goes foreign?”

“Sometimes with my children, I remember exactly how I felt as the child in this situation, not just how it feels to be me.”

“My family really does come first.  It always did and always will.”

“There’s no road map on how to raise a family: it’s always an enormous negotiation.”

“All this brouhaha.  It does become a pain.  It’s only the media who create it.  They pick on someone to be the person of the hour.”

“For a while, it was either me or the Ayatollah on the covers of national magazines.  Excessive hype.”

“You can’t get spoiled if you do your own ironing.”

“Expensive clothes are a waste of money.”

“For me, clothes are kind of character; I don’t follow fashion or understand trends.”

“I couldn’t care less about fashion.  If I had taken any clothes home, they would have remained in my closet for the rest of their existence.”

“I always feel like I can’t do it, that I can’t go through with a movie.  But then I do go through with it after all.”

“I don’t know why I don’t watch a lot of movies; I can barely keep up with the things my friends are in.  There isn’t enough time in life.”

“I have a very busy life, and not many people who have a career and four kids go out a lot to the movies.”

“The reason I chose the movies that I did was based on where they were being filmed.”

“Having been let out of the barn once, I know I wouldn’t be happy if I were home all the time.”

“I have a holistic need to work and to have huge ties of love in my life.  I can’t imagine eschewing one for the other.”

“I have a very good life - I’m lucky enough not to be deprived.”

“I want to feel my life while I’m in it.”

“Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life.  Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too.”

“Obsession is an attractive thing.  People who are really, really interested and good at one thing and smart are attractive, if they’re men.”

“My face is variable.  Sometimes, I look very good, sometimes I don’t.  But it gives the characters a certain ambiguity.  That’s worked to my advantage.”

“My pet peeve is that I comes across as So Serious.”

“Eleven million dollars is what Jack Nicholson got for Batman.  Eleven million!  I’m saying it’s a guy’s game.  If I asked for eleven million dollars they would laugh in my face.”

“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect.  Everything gets reduced to essentials.”

“The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter.”

“My feeling about fears is, if you voice your fears, they may come true.  I’m superstitious enough to believe that.”

“All that attention to the perfect lighting, the perfect this, the perfect that, I find terribly annoying.”

“America doesn’t reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances.”

“Enough people write about me every day without even interviewing me.”

“Every single decision I make about what material I do, what I’m putting out in the world, is because of my children.”

“Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world.  It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time.”

“How you first meet the public is how the industry sees you.  You can’t argue with them.  That’s their perception.”

“I believe in imagination.  I did Kramer vs.  Kramer before I had children.  But the mother I would be was already inside me.”

“I can’t stand most things that I see.”

“I don’t like to be gone all weekend and at night too.  Because for 20 years, I’ve had children who are in school.”

“I get a trickling few scripts that I’m lucky enough that some of them are great.  I don’t get loads of scripts.”

“I think the most liberating thing I did early on was to free myself from any concern with my looks as they pertained to my work.”

“I think your self emerges more clearly over time.”

“I’m a pain in the ass to all of the costume designers with whom I work because I have very strong feelings about the subject.”

“I’m all over the place.”

“I’m never so sure as I was in my mid-20s.”

“I’m older.  There’s some sort of seniority.  As a matter of fact, the seniority ebbs as you get older.”

“I’m thrilled when I get nominated.  I don’t count how many and I don’t remember how many I’ve had.  I just know it’s a lot.”

“If I am not confident that I can portray the character perfectly on screen, I won’t even try.”

“Instant gratification is not soon enough.”

“Interestingly, young people don’t come to you for advice.  Especially the ones who are related to you.”

“It is well that the earth is round that we do not see too far ahead.”

“It’s bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.”

“People say, When you have children, everything changes.  But maybe things are awakened that were already there.”

“Personality is immediately apparent, from birth, and I don’t think it really changes.”

“Show business has been really, really good to me because I can work and take a lot of time off, and I’m extremely undisciplined person.”

“Some people are filled by compassion and a desire to do good, and some simply don’t think anything’s going to make a difference.”

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.”

“The more you are in this business, the more humbled by it you become.”

“The work is the most fun; it seems illicit how much fun it is.”

“The work will stand, no matter what.”

“There are improbable things suspended in space, like the earth.”

“We are who we’re going to be when we’re very old, and when we’re very old we are who we were when we were 8.”

“You just have to keep on doing what you do.  It’s the lesson I get from my husband; he just says, Keep going.  Start by starting.”

“You win an Oscar, it can double the audience that you had before.”





For the latest DVDs and books on French cinema...

Home Discover France Write to us Guest book Terms of use DVD Shop

Copyright © filmsdefrance.com 1998-2012