Meryl Streep - interview
Ms Streep is garnering raves - as usual - for her turn as US TV chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron's Julie and Julia. By Gaynor Flynn
What made you want to play Julia Child?
Julia Child fascinated me. She was truly revolutionary because she changed the food landscape in America. She changed the way we eat and the way we cook. She really engineered the whole obsession with food that America has now.
Did you ever see her show or read Mastering the Art of French Cooking?
I never read the cookbook before I did the film. I had it – I never opened it. Everybody in America has this cookbook, because everybody watched the television show. I watched that show when I was a kid: come home from school, watch it with my mother, and we'd laugh a lot. My mother loved the show, but as entertainment, not because she was obsessed with cooking.
Do you like cooking?
Some nights I like it, some nights I don't and sometimes we order out. I have started meals and then just said, oh God, and threw them in the sink and ordered pizza instead. If that happens I don't lie down in my room and get in a funk. When my children were very young and I was working I had someone cooking for me. I don't have a cook now, I do it myself.
Are you a better cook or an actress?
Definitely a better actress! But I did learn a few tricks while making this movie, like how to roast the perfect chicken. I realised I've been doing it wrong for 30 years. So maybe my cooking will improve.
Julia Child was a pioneer in her field and so are you. Was that something that drew you to this material do you think?
I didn't think about things like that. Because we were shooting this at a time in Julia Child's life when she was not Julia Child yet. She had not found her métier. So no, I didn't make any analogies, because I found what I wanted to do in my 20s. She was 50 when she started this television show.
You've been at the top of your game for 30 years. What's your secret?
I think so much of it is serendipity because I don't have a production company, I don't develop scripts, I don't have any control of over what comes to me. So for me it's been a happy circumstance but it's not anything I put in motion. I've just always worked the same way since I was a kid, which is I work hard. So we were just lucky when things hit.
You've always been associated with heavy dramas but lately you seem to be making more light hearted films: Mamma Mia, this, Fantastic Mr Fox, and you have a romantic comedy with Steve Martin coming up. What's changed?
The first few things that I was in were dramas and whatever film you first appear in is how people perceive you. But in drama school I was never in a serious or realistic play – I did comedies for three years. But really it comes down to what you get offered and I wasn't offered those parts. People didn't think I could do funny.
You've made over 40 films and you're the most nominated actor in the history of the Oscars. Do you ever think about retiring?
I don't think about retiring, ever. A couple of times the phone stopped ringing and I thought, okay that's it, but then it started up again. I'm an actress. That's what I do. That's all I've ever wanted to do.
Julie and Julia screens from 8 Oct.
