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Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep Quotes

Actress

Meryl Streep, born on June 22, 1949, is an internationally renowned actress from the United States. Known for her exceptional acting skills and versatile character portrayals, she has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards and won the Best Actress for her role in 'Kramer vs. Kramer' in 1980. Streep's career spans various mediums, including film, theater, and television, with her work covering a wide range of topics from classic literature adaptations to contemporary social issues.

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Famous Meryl Streep Quotes

“I never look a gift horse in the mouth. And I've been really, really lucky. I'm aware of that. And my career has been given to me by the people I've worked with, no question. The actors, the directors, the cinematographers, the writers, all of whom gave me the opportunity to work in the way that I have and I'm really grateful.”

People Way Looks Has Beens Actors Opportunity Given Careers Lucky Directors Mouths Horse Grateful Cinematographers

Author:Meryl Streep

“Sometimes it's easier for people who are in authority to be authoritarian, because people know where you stand.”

People Knows Sometimes Easier Authority Where You Stand

Author:Meryl Streep

“Pretending is a very valuable life skill.”

Skills Valuable Pretending Life Skills Valuable Life

Author:Meryl Streep

“Having wrinkles is at once strange and exciting.”

Age Strange Exciting Wrinkles

Author:Meryl Streep

“You have been told that Real Life is not like college, and you have been correctly informed. Real Life is more like high school.”

Has Beens Real School Life Is College High School Real Life

Author:Meryl Streep

“Tonight we light these candles to honor the value and the work of Jyoti Singh's short, promising life, she was India's daughter. Tonight she's our daughter too.”

Life Light Values Honor Daughter India Tonight Candle Our Daughter Singh

Author:Meryl Streep

“Sometime really good writing does you a disservice as an actor. Because you can get lazy. It's doing a lot of the work for you. I guess that's good. But at the same time with material that's not so good, you have to be more inventive, because no thought has been applied to it.”

Writing Doe Has Beens Actors Materials Lazy Good Writing Disservice

Author:Meryl Streep

“Singing and acting are very similar. Singing makes you reach into your deepest feelings. Singing is an extension of everything that you do when you're acting.”

Feelings Acting Singing Extensions Deepest Feelings Singing And Acting

Author:Meryl Streep

“A man has always been seen as someone who works hard and has a full-time occupation. I think women should have the same opportunity and not have any stigma attached to them if they choose to pursue their careers.”

Ifs Thinking Men Should Hard Opportunity Careers Hard Work Should Have Pursue Occupation Stigma

Author:Meryl Streep

“Life is all about making choices and I'm very happy with mine. I have had a wonderful time raising four children and I've also been lucky to have the support of a wonderful husband.”

Children Life Is Choices Support Four Wonderful Mines Lucky Husband Our Children Very Happy Making Choices Wonderful Times Wonderful Husband

Author:Meryl Streep

“I love acting, of course, but being with my husband and my children always brought me the greatest joy and happiness in life.”

Children Joy Courses Acting Husband My Children My Husband Life Happiness Joy And Happiness

Author:Meryl Streep

“The best thing about acting is when you're playing a scene and you actually become your character and lose yourself in that moment. That's when you know you've been succeeded at what you've worked very hard to accomplish in your profession. Those are the truly thrilling moments.”

Knows Hard Moments Character Loses Acting Scene Accomplish Profession Best Things That Moment Thrilling Losing Yourself

Author:Meryl Streep

“And it interferes with your ability to be a good actress if you're constantly aware of yourself as a person. To me, it isn't valuable to think about how I'm coming off all the time if I'm trying to create a character, because that's a process that I love. It's like falling in love and surrendering to another person or a character.”

Ifs Thinking Trying Persons Character Fall Process Ability Falling In Love Valuable Actresses Interfere

Author:Meryl Streep

“I didn't go to Catholic school but I had a tough teacher, a tough math teacher.I remember everything that guy taught me. I really do.”

School Remember Guy Teacher Taught Tough Catholic Math That Guy Catholic School Remembers Everything Math Teacher

Author:Meryl Streep

“Fear focuses the mind.”

Author:Meryl Streep

“I separated myself in Prada because I didn't want to have fun. They were all having a lot of fun - Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci - and they were a little coterie of laughs.”

Want Littles Fun Laughing Having Fun Blunt Emily Stanley Prada

Author:Meryl Streep

“You didn't have to work to keep your fear up, your energy up, or your anxiety. It is all kind of built into the process.”

Kind Energy Process Anxiety Built All Kinds

Author:Meryl Streep

“When my children were very young and I was working I had someone cooking for me. I don't have a cook now, I haven't had one for a number of years and I do it myself. But when they were all little it was hard to pay attention to everyone's homework at the end of the day and make dinner.”

Years Children Littles Ends Hard Young Numbers Pay Attention Havens Cooking Dinner Cooks Pay Attention My Children The End Of The Day Homework

Author:Meryl Streep

“I've been making a lot of pasta. It's easy. There are unusual tastes that you can combine. I cook because my kids like a certain kind of thing and then they want it over and over.”

Want Kind Kids Certain Easy Taste Cooks Unusual Pasta

Author:Meryl Streep

“The first thing [in career and motherhood] is a great husband. That I found many years ago and I am lucky in that way.”

Way Years Firsts Found Careers Lucky Husband Years Ago Motherhood Great Husband

Author:Meryl Streep

“When criticism comes your way as an actor they are not criticizing your writing or your painting or your piece, they are criticizing you! It is hard to put that away in a place where you are not hurt.”

Way Writing Hard Actors Hurt Pieces Painting Criticism Criticize Where You Are

Author:Meryl Streep

“I would never say don't do acting [to my kids], because I think it is a glorious profession and I am so thankful for everything it has let me express.”

Thinking Kids Acting Let Me Profession Glorious

Author:Meryl Streep

“I am not always happy. I am happy in front of the press. I can be extremely grumpy, ask my husband.”

I Can Asks Fronts Husband Presses My Husband Always Happy Grumpy

Author:Meryl Streep

“Everything that truly makes us happy is quite simple: love, sex, and food! Everything else - power, influence, strength - all those things can overpower what's important in life. But as long as you have food and shelter over your head, if the necessities are taken care of, what makes us happy on top of that is very simple.”

Ifs Long Important Care Sex Simple Taken Influence Over You Shelter What's Important Simple Love

Author:Meryl Streep

“My mother was someone that walked into a room and lit it up. She made friends easily and she communicated her enthusiasms with great joy. I always wanted to be more like my mother than I am. I loved and admired her very deeply.”

Made Wanted Joy Mother Rooms Enthusiasm Lit Very Deep Great Joy

Author:Meryl Streep

“I don't have a favorite director just like I don't have a favorite color or I don't have a favorite food. I like everything.”

Color Directors Favorite Foods Favorite Color

Author:Meryl Streep

“There have been directors that I did not enjoy working with, but for the most part I realize that I have been unbelievably spoiled in my career because I have worked with some of the greatest, greatest directors ever.”

Has Beens Enjoy Realizing Careers Directors Spoiled

Author:Meryl Streep

“You can be afraid in a press conference, nervous, sweaty, but you can't be afraid when you do your work because it doesn't work that way.”

Way Presses Nervous Conferences Press Conferences

Author:Meryl Streep

“I get nervous the more time I have to think about something so I deliberately don't give myself too much time between jobs. I take a big break and then I start working again usually.”

Thinking Giving Bigs Jobs Break Too Much Nervous More Time

Author:Meryl Streep

“People will say to me, ‘You’ve played so many strong women,’ and I’ll say, ‘Have you ever said to a man, “You’ve played so many strong men?”’ No! Because the expectation is [men] are varied. Why can’t we have that expectation about women?”

People Men Said Strong Expectations Strong Women Strong Man

Author:Meryl Streep

“The thing that you have to fight the most when you lose is you feel like the biggest failure in the world.”

World Feels Fighting Loses

Author:Meryl Streep

“One must be brave if one is to take the wheel.”

Ifs Brave Wheels Be Brave Iron Lady

Author:Meryl Streep

“I get nervous calling myself an artist. I feel I'm more like an interpreter or a violinist, you know.”

Knows Feels Artist Calling Nervous Interpreter Violinist

Author:Meryl Streep

“It's hard to negotiate the present landscape with a brain and a female body.”

Hard Body Brain Female Landscape Female Body

Author:Meryl Streep

“I have a lot of people to thank and I'm going to be one of those people that tries to mention a lot of names, because I know just two seconds ago my mother and father went completely berserk and I'd like to give some other mothers and fathers that same opportunity.”

People Knows Giving Trying Two Mother Father Opportunity Names Seconds Mother And Father Berserk

Author:Meryl Streep

“Anyone who wants to achieve something, needs a lot of work.”

Want Needs Achieve

Author:Meryl Streep

“The greatest gift given to man by God - is the ability to empathize.”

Men Given Ability Greatest Gifts

Author:Meryl Streep

“We're viewed as equals - but we're still not there yet. The challenge for our girls, I think, is dealing with that resistance. How can we lift and defuse it, how do we make it so our equality is not so threatening? Our girls are going to have to contend with that. I contend with it right now in every realm I operate in.”

Thinking Stills Girl Challenges Right Now Resistance Lifts Realms Threatening

Author:Meryl Streep

“There are some days when I, myself, think I'm overrated... but not today.”

Thinking Overrated

Author:Meryl Streep

“It's sort of my fun to sing along with records and imitate people who are on the telephone that have different ways of speaking.”

People Way Different Fun Records Different Ways Telephones

Author:Meryl Streep

“That's my way in the very beginning - how to enter it [a role]. Very quickly in the process, I don't think about voice being separate from the way you hold your head or the way you sit or the way you put on lipstick. It's all a piece of a person, and it's all driven by conviction.”

Thinking Way Persons Process Voice Roles Pieces Conviction Driven My Way Lipstick

Author:Meryl Streep

“Without question, of the heterosexual men that I've spoken to over the years, that's usually - they say, you know, my favorite thing you've ever done was Linda or Sophie. And they were a particular kind of very feminine, recessive kind of personality. So they fell in love with her, but they didn't feel the story through her body.”

Knows Men Feels Years Kind Done Stories Body Particular Personality My Favorite Feminine Sophie Favorites Things

Author:Meryl Streep

“I really think there's a difference between how men critics see things than how women tend to. And I don't want to make that - it's not a generality and I don't want to say that, but I just feel - I know I do the same thing. There are certain things that I just am not that interested in. Certain kinds of films - I just don't enter them.”

Thinking Knows Men Want Feels Kind Film Certain Differences Critics Generalities

Author:Meryl Streep

“I do think sometimes when scrolling through the TV and there's something on and I look at it and I think oh, my god. I thought I was fat? What is my problem?”

Thinking Looks Sometimes Problem Tvs Fats Scrolling

Author:Meryl Streep

“When I was younger I spent way too much time thinking about me being too fat. So stupid.”

Thinking Way Too Much Stupid Fats

Author:Meryl Streep

“It's very humbling to imagine somebody else's really life and their pain ... It's my drug.”

Pain Imagine Drug Humbling

Author:Meryl Streep

“This act of empathy, that women go through from the time we're little girls - we read all of literature, all of history, it's really about boys, most of it. But I can feel more like Peter Pan than Tinker Bell, or like Wendy. I wanted to be Tom Sawyer, not Becky. And we're so used to that act of empathizing with the protagonist of a male-driven plot. I mean, that's what we've done all our lives. You read history, you read great literature, Shakespeare, it's all fellas, you know?”

Knows Feels Mean Littles I Can Done Wanted Used Girl Literature Boys Our Lives Empathy Males Driven Plot Peter Bells Toms Protagonists Fellas Wendy Great Literature Sawyer Becky

Author:Meryl Streep

“You're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but Earl Blackwell finally died, and I was on his blacklist every year for being the worst dressed person.”

Years Persons Speak Worst Died Ill

Author:Meryl Streep

“The career I chose was a drama major in college, at Yale, when I played a 90-year-old woman. One of my most celebrated roles. Then I played a really fat person. I played a lot of different things. That's how I thought I loved to wrangle my talent, my need to express myself. I like to do it that way.”

Way Needs Years Persons Different Careers Roles Talent College Drama Majors Fats Different Things Old Woman Yale

Author:Meryl Streep

“I never thought I was somebody that would be on the cover of magazines in fashions, wearing fashions. It's like not me. But that is what movie stardom entails.”

Would Be Fashion Magazines Movie Star Stardom

Author:Meryl Streep

About the Author

Born: June 22, 1949
Known for: Actress
Quotes: 263

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