1949-present
Meryl Streep Now: Actor Seeks Fourth Emmy Win
Acting legend Meryl Streep secured a 2024 Emmy nomination for her performance in the Hulu comedy-drama series Only Murders in the Building. The 75-year-old joined the cast of the show in its third season, portraying Loretta Durkin, a quirky struggling actor with a hefty secret.
Streep is competing for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series alongside fellow icon Carol Burnett, as well as Janelle James, Hannah Einbinder, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Liza Colón-Zayas. If Streep wins at the 76th awards ceremony on September 15, she’ll have a fourth Emmy to add to her collection.
The actor’s last Emmy win was seven years ago. She was recognized for her narration of an episode of Netflix’s docuseries Five Came Back.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in March, Streep revealed she actually asked to appear on Only Murders in the Building, reaching out directly to one of the show’s stars Steve Martin, whom she had a “really fun” time working with previously. “I was a huge fan of the show, but I also just wanted to have some fun because the world is pretty shitty right now,” she said.
Who Is Meryl Streep?
Meryl Streep began her career on the New York stage in the late 1960s and appeared in several Broadway productions. Streep transitioned to movies in the 1970s and soon began earning major accolades, eventually winning Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, and The Iron Lady, among a league of nominations. She holds the record for most Academy Award nominations of any actor at 21 nods. Equally able to wow audiences in drama, comedy, and musicals, Streep is considered one of the greatest actors of our time.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Mary Louise Streep
BORN: June 22, 1949
BIRTHPLACE: Summit, New Jersey
SPOUSE: Don Gummer (1978-2017; separated)
CHILDREN: Henry, Mamie, Grace, and Louisa
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer
Early Career
Meryl Streep was born Mary Louise Streep on June 22, 1949, in Summit, New Jersey.
A graduate of Vassar College and Yale Drama School, she began her career on the New York stage in the late 1960s and appeared in several Broadway productions, including a 1977 revival of the Anton Chekhov drama The Cherry Orchard.
Movies and TV Shows
The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer
Streep broke into movies in the 1970s with a role in the 1977 drama Julia. The next year, she appeared in The Deer Hunter opposite Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken. Her performance earned the first of many Academy Award nominations, this time for Best Supporting Actress.
Also in 1978, she won her first Emmy Award for her role in the film Holocaust. In 1979, her portrayal of a woman who abandons her family only to come back and fight for custody of her son in Kramer vs. Kramer brought Streep the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, marking her first Academy Award.
Sophie’s Choice and Out of Africa
A chameleon onscreen, Streep spent much of the 1980s submerged in a variety of roles. In Sophie’s Choice (1982), she convincingly played a Polish woman traumatized by her experiences during the Holocaust. Streep won her second Academy Award—her first for Best Actress—for her work on the movie. In Out of Africa (1985), she took on the role of a Danish plantation owner living in Kenya. The role earned her another Academy Award nomination.
Postcards from the Edge and The Bridges of Madison County
As she reached her 40s, Streep continued to find challenging roles—a feat many middle-age actresses have struggled with in Hollywood. She received an Academy Award nomination for her work in several films, including the big-screen adaptations of Carrie Fisher’s novel Postcards from the Edge (1990) and of Robert James Waller’s romantic drama The Bridges of Madison County (1995) co-starring Clint Eastwood.
Streep also received an Oscar nod for her work in Music of the Heart (1999), which tells the true story of a teacher who brings music into the lives of kids in New York’s Harlem neighborhood by teaching them how to play the violin.
The Hours and Adaptation
By the start of the new millennium, Streep was as busy as ever. In 2002, she appeared in two critically acclaimed movies: The Hours and Adaptation. Streep was then nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of author Susan Orlean in Adaptation.
The following year, Streep lit up the small screen in the TV adaptation of the award-winning play Angels in America. She won her second Emmy Award for her work on the program, which had her tackling several roles.
The Manchurian Candidate and The Devil Wears Prada
Streep got a chance to show some of her comic skills as a villain in the political thriller The Manchurian Candidate (2004). Continuing to explore lighthearted fare, she starred in Prime (2005), a romantic comedy with Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg. Streep played psychoanalyst Lisa Metzger, whose client falls in love with her son.
She also played the inimitable fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), for which she earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for best actress. The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger, who once worked for longtime Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Wintour is presumed to be the inspiration for Priestly in the book and movie.
A Prairie Home Companion and Mamma Mia!
Also in 2006, Streep was cast as country music singer Yolanda Johnson in Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion, and she again showed off her vocal abilities as Donna in the film adaptation of the ABBA musical Mamma Mia! (2008). Streep later reprised her role in the sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018).
Doubt and Julie & Julia
Returning to more serious work, Streep appeared in the 2008 film Doubt, which addresses sexual abuse in the Catholic church. She played a nun who becomes suspicious of a priest’s behavior (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) toward a young student. Streep yet again earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nods.
In 2009, Streep took on one of the culinary world’s most beloved figures, Julia Child. She played the famous chef in the film Julie & Julia, based on the bestselling book of the same title. For this role, she won the Golden Globe Award for Lead Actress in a Comedy or Musical and received an Academy Award nomination. She then starred in Nancy Meyers’ romantic comedy It’s Complicated, with costars Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, which earned her another Golden Globe nod.
The Iron Lady
Streep received widespread acclaim for her work in 2011’s The Iron Lady. She portrayed former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, a dynamic and forceful politician who was both admired by some and detested by others. While Thatcher was called cold and unfeeling, Streep believed that Thatcher “was canny about the fact that in order to be taken seriously, she wasn’t able to show certain emotions because she was a woman.” Streep’s thoughtful and nuanced performance as Thatcher garnered her several awards, including a Golden Globe.
The Iron Lady also brought Streep her third Academy Award in 2012. In her acceptance speech, the gifted performer seemed to be especially modest and self-effacing. “When they called my name, I had this feeling that I could hear half of America going, ‘Oh no! Oh come on, why her? Again!’”
Commenting on her last Academy Award victory, “I was a kid when I won this, like, 30 years ago. Two of the [current] nominees were not even conceived,” Streep explained. Despite being an industry veteran, the Academy Awards still have a special meaning to this legendary star. “I thought I was so old and jaded, but they call your name and you just go into a sort of white light,” Streep said later.
August: Osage County and Into the Woods
The following year, Streep starred in the volatile family drama August: Osage County, earning yet another Oscar nomination, and 2014 saw the actor taking the lead in the dystopic sci-fi film The Giver. Later that year, Streep was also featured as a witch in the screen adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods, for which she earned additional Golden Globe and Oscar nods.
Suffragette
In 2015, Streep starred opposite her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer in the Jonathan Demme and Diablo Cody film Ricki and the Flash, playing an aging rock star who returns home to reconcile with her family. Later that year, she portrayed real-world British voting activist Emmeline Pankhurst in Suffragette.
Florence Foster Jenkins and The Post
In 2016, the actor received a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of 1940s New York heiress Florence Foster Jenkins in the film by the same name. That performance garnered Streep a record 20th Academy Award nomination. Also in 2016, Streep received a Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes.
The next year, Streep took on the role of The Washington Post’s first female publisher, Katharine Graham, in Steven Spielberg’s The Post, a movie about the paper’s attempts to publish the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. The film paired Streep and Tom Hanks together on the big screen for the first time, leading to Golden Globe nominations for both of them and another Oscar nod for Streep.
That role also earned Streep the opportunity to speak at the Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Awards in November. During the event, Streep recalled two incidents in her life involving physical violence—one of which involved chasing off a mugger with Cher—and thanked women reporters for helping to bring forth the recent influx of stories from victims of sexual harassment.
“Thank you, you intrepid, underpaid, over-extended, trolled, and un-extolled, young and old, battered and bold, bought and sold, hyper-alert crack-caffeine fiends,” she said. “You’re ambitious, contrarian, fiery, dogged, and determined bulls–t detectives… And I, on behalf of a grateful nation, thank you.”
Big Little Lies
In January 2018, it was announced that Streep would join Season 2 of the already star-studded TV series Big Little Lies. The decorated actor was tapped to play Mary Louise Wright, mother of Alexander Skarsgard’s Perry Wright, who shows up to town looking for answers in the wake of her son’s death. Streep made her Season 2 debut with the rest of the Big Little Lies cast in June 2019. She earned an Emmy nod for her performance.
The Laundromat and Little Women
Following her detour to cable TV, Streep returned to the big screen with Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat (2019), a comedy-drama based on Jake Bernstein’s reporting of the secretive financial transactions and offshore tax havens of celebrities and world leaders that were revealed in the Panama Papers leak of 2016. Later that year, she played Aunt March in Greta Gerwig’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of Little Women.
Only Murders in the Building
In 2023, Streep joined the cast of Hulu’s comedy-drama series Only Murders in the Building for its third season by portraying aspiring actor Loretta Durkin. Having seen the earlier seasons, Streep reached out to Steve Martin, one of the show’s stars and creators, to inquire about a role. Incidentally, co-creator John Hoffman already had Streep in mind for the part of Loretta. Fate was sealed.
Streep’s performance earned her praise from critics and fans, as well as an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. In 2024, Streep returned for the show’s fourth season.
Harvey Weinstein Controversy
In December 2017, Streep came under fire from actor Rose McGowan, who accused the Oscar winner of being complicit in the cover-up of producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexually abusive behavior. Additionally, McGowan derided the planned “silent protest” in which Streep and other prominent actors would wear all black to the upcoming Golden Globes in January 2018.
Streep responded with a statement in which she insisted she had no idea of Weinstein’s behavior. “Not every actor, actress, and director who made films that H.W. distributed knew he abused women, or that he raped Rose in the ’90s, other women before and others after, until they told us,” she said. “I am truly sorry she sees me as an adversary, because we are both, together with all the women in our business, standing in defiance of the same implacable foe: a status quo that wants so badly to return to the bad old days, the old ways where women were used, abused and refused entry into the decision-making, top levels of the industry.”
Children and Estranged Husband Don Gummer
Streep married sculptor Don Gummer in September 1978 after just six months of dating.
The actor and her husband have four children together: a son named Henry and three daughters, Mamie, Grace, and Louisa. All three of her daughters are actors, while her son is both an actor and singer-songwriter.
In October 2023, Streep confirmed she and Gummer have been separated for some time, having ended the romantic nature of their relationship in 2017. “While they will always care for each other, they have chosen lives apart,” a representative for the actor shared with People. The pair hasn’t yet filed for divorce.
Quotes
- As my friend [Carrie Fisher], the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once, take your broken heart, make it into art.
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