As you know by her constant presence on this site, Meryl Streep is one of my obsessions. Julia & Julia opens up in England this weekend and in the pre-press for the film, Meryl let loose on male Hollywood executives.
God, I love her. I love that she says the truth without fear cause she is a freakin’ huge box office star now.
“It’s always a shock to the studio,” Streep says with real firmness, “because men run the studios and live their own fantasies through them. It’s harder for a man to jump inside a woman character’s mind and imagine, ‘This could happen to me’ than it is for a woman to imagine herself as a male character.” But surely the profits count? “They see it and they understand that there is a market and it will make them an enormous amount of money, but we all respond to instinct and it’s their inner boy that jumps up and goes: ‘Yeah, I wanna see another GI Joe’.”
“Parts are rare,” Streep says, “the amount of product is rare. It’s a large machine that markets these films, that makes theatre [cinema] owners commit their theatres half a year in advance — that’s how it works. Are they gonna buy GI Joe or are they gonna buy Mamma Mia!?”
Mamma Mia! did great business, I say. “They’re still not sure,” Streep counters. “You need a good salesman. Those films have done well, yes, that audience is there, but it doesn’t go on the first weekend [which the industry nervously observes].”
Nora Ephron also chimed in a bit:
When she was inducted into the Academy of Achievement in 2007, Ephron said she took up directing because “90% of the men directing movies have no interest in women in any real way, except as girlfriends or wives. They don’t really want to make movies about them, and they don’t.”
Thank goodness we have these women speaking out. Anyone in England needs to get their butt to the theatre this weekend.
Meryl Streep on why Hollywood’s men don’t trust women (The Times of London)
The dirty little secrets of Nora Ephron (The Guardian)
I am very pleased that a famous, A-lister actress is speaking out about this. I love her. I wish I could write a screenplay for her. *sigh*
Superb quotes! Thanks for pointing them out. Meryl Streep continues to impress me.
@Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist
I hope you get to write that script for her!
I love Meryl, too…after years and years of not appreciating her talent. Thanks for sharing. Makes me appreciate her more.
well, if you ever speak to her, share my mission statement with her, I’m sure she’ll get a kick out of it.
Women, like any other minority, have learned to identify with heroes who don’t look like them or have the same genitalia or gender. We’ve learned to look beyond the structure of a body, look beyond gender and instead dive further into characteristics. I just want the same opportunity for straight, white men, that’s all….Thomai
If I ever speak to her the whole planet will know.