A Field Guide to Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep is probably the greatest living actress of our time, and she stars in "Rikki and the Flash"—a family comedy/drama that came out last weekend in theaters starring Streep opposite her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer or the very first time. It's a fun date-night flick written by Diablo Cody and, well, Streep has been entertaining audiences and giving them a great time for quite a while. This family effort definitely feels special, too.

From Summit, New Jersey, Streep is no slouch—she is a graduate of Vassar and Yale Drama School. She began her career on the Broadway stage and broke into film in the 1970s. Her first role in a film was the Jane Fonda drama "Julia" about a woman trying to smuggle money into Nazi-occupied Germany. Her very next film was "The Deer Hunter," where she played opposite Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken and earned her very first Oscar nomination. She won her first Emmy that year for her work in the made-for-TV movie "Holocaust" and then went on the very next year to win the first of what would be many Oscars/Oscar recognitions for her work in the 1979 divorce drama "Kramer Vs. Kramer."

In the 1980s, Streep made a point of not shying away from emotionally difficult roles, and this lead to another Oscar win for her work portraying a Polish woman traumatized by the Holocaust in 1982's "Sophie's Choice". She won yet another Oscar for her work in the romance "Out of Africa," where she pretended to be in love with big game hunter Robert Redford. (No love for Cecil back then, I guess.) Another memorable performance of Streep's during the 1980s was in the biographical drama "Silkwood," where she played Karen Silkwood, a woman who may have been purposefully poisoned by her company (a plutonium plant) so it could avoid worker safety hazards from being exposed. It is an intense flick and absolutely worth your time.

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In the 1990s, Streep took on a lot of different projects, including some comedies along with her usual emotionally deep and stirring productions. She was hilarious with co-star Goldie Hawn in the plastic surgery farce "Death Becomes Her." She received an Oscar nomination for her work in a couple films in that decade, including for the excellent movie adaptation of Carrie Fisher's novel, "Postcards from the Edge." Streep got yet another Oscar nomination for what was a romantic phenomenon at the time. The movie was "The Bridges of Madison Country," her costar was Clint Eastwood, and every woman out there was reading the novel, stirred by Streep's moving performance as a lonely farm girl who falls for a visiting photographer.

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In 2002, Streep made and received acclaim for the film that I enjoy most: "The Hours," a story about the effect suicide has on three women. She starred in it alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore, the Virginia Woolf novel "Mrs. Dalloway" the center focus for the three women that pulls them in various ways. It is an intensely beautiful film with Streep as a brooding lesbian who has to find a way to resurrect the joy in her life. Streep received another Oscar nomination in 2002 for her role in "Adaptation" as a romance writer who can not get the romance in her books into her own life. She also received an Emmy for her work in one of my favorite mini-series of all time, the 2003 HBO mini-series "Angels In America," based on the Tony Kushner play. It is a beautiful epic about the AIDS crisis and the effects of being a closeted gay man. In it, Streep plays the roles of a soon-to-be-executed Ethel Rosenberg and the sheltered Mormon mother of a closeted gay attorney in New York City. If you are looking for something to binge watch, get this one. (I cry in the best way every time I watch it.)  

She received yet ANOTHER Oscar nom for her comic role in "The Devil Wears Prada," where she aped the real life world of Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and she's has taken three musical roles on: one as a country music star in "Prairie Home Companion," one in the sprawling ABBA musical "Mamma Mia," and one in "Into The Woods", a Sondheim joint for which she received another Oscar nom for her role as a Wicked Witch.  She won her latest Oscar for playing Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady," giving her an industry record of nineteen Academy Award nominations as of this post.  

Enjoy this woman in "Rikki and the Flash" or hit up some of her older flicks. You know she's worth it.