Iconic Meryl Streep

As you know, I have been getting rid of most of my magazines in preparation for a change of address. So, the other day, I read up "Vanity Fair"'s article on Meryl Streep illustrated in full by photographer and friend Bridget Lacombe's portraits of her that span over 20 years of both their lives (hence the illustration of this post - a contact set of one of those sessions).

Streep is not only an incredible actress, one of the best ever. She is also a really interesting woman with a great philosophy of life. Atleast, that's what I gather from every interview I've ever read. So I can't help but quote from this interview (p. 148 of the issue to be exact - sorry but I forgot to note down the issue's date - somewhere between Nov 2009 and Feb 2010). Here goes:

"As a mother of three girls, she knows all too well how much pressure females feel to dim their light. "As girls grow up," Streep observes, "as soon as boys come into the picture, you figure out that you have to modify that assertiveness thing in order to even be acceptable, let alone appealing, within the cohort of girls as well as boys."

She has found it an enormous relief to outgrow those constraints. "I can't remember the last time I really worried about being appealing," she says with a snort of laughter. "I think it was really long time ago. Its freeing as an actress, but whether a director likes it or not is a different thing. I remember (director and co-star) Albert Brooks saying to me in Defending Your Life, "Could you just make it a little sweeter?" - and that's been repeated by other people in the years since then." This time here deresive snort is much louder. "But I don't listen to it."

So how does she free herself? "I don't thinks it's something anyone can tell you," Streep says. "I think you just have to get sick of hearing the accommodation in your approach to things... the way people have to get sick of drinking or drugs before they stop. As there begins to be less time ahead of you, you want to be exactly who you are, without making it easier for everyone else. I'm not sure I ever was really comfortable swanning around as a a girl, anyway.""

Now, what's not to love in this woman and her philosophy of life? I for one, wish I actually lived up to that attitude.