Upon starting this blog, I had hoped that it would help me to form good habits of writing regularly, and then perhaps in time it might lead to opportunities to write for more than just a hobby. I was duly shocked when, after just two posts, I was contacted directly by none other than Anna Wintour, the iconic editor of Vogue Magazine. And this time, she didn't just want to borrow money. Anna's invitation was almost unimaginable for a young writer: I was to fly business-class to Los Angeles and meet one-on-one with the venerable Queen of Hollywood, Meryl Streep.
I learned later that all of the other magazine profilers had been on the same minibus to Elton's, had stopped at Reading services and Gay Talese had locked the keys in the boot. Nevertheless, what follows is the full piece that I submitted for the upcoming issue. Writing this prelude weeks later, I am still buzzing with excitement and adrenaline, still barely able to steady myself following one of the most eventful, most surprising afternoons of my life.
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EXCLUSIVE: Meryl Streep is Not Done Yet
Meryl Streep is busy answering the question she is posed almost every day: Just how do you do it?
We meet in a chic new shrimp bar, a few blocks from her house in sunny Los Angeles. Meryl arrives fashionably late, her dainty feet cladded in ornately patterned Birkenstocks. She sits across from me at the booth, and it’s instantly clear why Hollywood’s top casting agents still have her number on speed-dial. Dressed exquisitely for our lunch, Meryl in the flesh is a sumptuous portrait of sophisticated autumnal beauty. She is radiantly styled in a frilly patterned frock, a knitted cardigan draped loosely over her shoulders. I tell her the cardigan is a perfect accessory - so elegant, so practical, so Meryl - keeping her soft skin protected from the relentless August sun while leaving visible a glimpse of tantalising flesh at the front. Indeed, after all these years Meryl remains a beacon of sensuality, still stunning potential suitors all around La-la-land.
Surreptitiously glancing over the scrawled observations in my notebook, Meryl insists that she remains happily married to her husband of over 40 years, the sculptor Don Gummer. But unless I’m quite mistaken, her every movement since entering the shrimp bar has dripped with sensual possibility. She raises a hand to call over a waiter and orders a prawn cocktail, an adventurous choice for a shrimp bar, but a typically bold call from a woman not afraid to show off her wild side. She speaks carefully in delicate, well-bred tones, subtly inviting companions to lean in a little closer. Every word pulls you deeper into her aura. To be with Meryl for an afternoon is to enter a heavenly, sensuous trance. I tell her I wish that our afternoon could last forever, basking in the exclusive company of the most beautiful woman in the world.
Meryl, as she likes to be called, reminds me she’s here to promote her latest picture, Power of Five. She can barely keep her flawless body in check when telling me all about it: “It’s a futuristic thriller with psychedelic undertones''. Meryl plays Cheryl Pawlitz, a divorced grandmother-of-two who shockingly loses her sense of sight when a tattoo removal goes horribly wrong. Confounded and angry, she enlists the help of her four next-door neighbors (played by Tiffany Haddish, Abigail Breslin, Melissa McCarthy and Lucy Liu), who are respectively deaf, dumb, taste-less and smell-less, to help solve the sudden disappearance of the local mayor (Peter Cushing, in yet another controversial CGI resurrection). “It’s an empowerment movie,” she says, “one for all the girls out there who were ever unable to see, touch, say, hear or smell something”.
The film won’t be released until October, but hushed early reviews are rapturous. It’s still August, yet Oscar buzz is already abound. Meryl delivers a powerhouse performance as the cantankerous Cheryl, inviting audiences and critics to fall in love with her all over again. There is even talk of a sequel already in the works, a crossover featuring Bruce Willis, who joins the cast to reprise his role from The Sixth Sense. On this subject, Meryl keeps her pristinely glossed, tender lips tightly closed, but the playful sparkle in her eyes all but confirms that we’re onto a winner.
I ask what drew her initially to the role. “I famously love a challenge, but when Tom (Stoppard, the film’s writer) delivered me the script, I didn’t think I could participate in such a shockingly violent picture.” Her bottomless blue eyes furrow mournfully, yet immaculately, as she lists some of the gruesome acts depicted in the film, some of which had never before been shown on screen, “But in the days after, I began to hear the voices of my doubters and realised I must take on this role, because it scared me”.
Upon mention of Meryl’s “doubters”, I ask whether, as a woman in late-middle age, she is often bothered by calls to hang up her acting boots. She shoots a knowing smile across the table, gracefully downplaying the elephant in the room. A recent Gallup poll named her as America’s sexiest woman over 70, and Meryl knows the intoxicating power her enchanting looks still possess. I kindly remind her that any calls for her to quit Tinseltown can be silenced by a single flash of her striking beauty. She giggles softly, her cheeks gently blushing, and for a glorious moment all time stops completely, the two of us captivated in a cocoon of her charisma.
Another moment passes in silence. As I stare deeply into her timeless visage (face), I wonder how long it will take me to draw up the courage. Then the primal urge takes over completely. Every breath she’s taken since sitting down has suggested that it’s on the cards. Just as Meryl turns around to see what’s holding up her damn prawn cocktail, I answer her call and make the move.
Breaking the cardinal rule of celebrity profiles, something I once promised my dying uncle I would never do, I tentatively slide my hotel room key across the table to her.
In a drastic onset of cold feet, Meryl is immediately less than enamoured with my proposition. I earnestly protest that I was only answering her siren’s call. A scuffle ensues, and Meryl has to be briefly removed from the premises. I remain in the booth, my head in my hands. Had I somehow blown the greatest break a lowly magazine profiler could ever pray for?
But miraculously, after some wrangling with her publicity team, a hastily scribbled apology and some dollar bills changing hands, she is ready to sit down again. Before I can get the ball rolling, she crows, “Where’s my fucking prawn cocktail?”, in a tone sure to make any Hollywood publicist wince.
Eager to get the conversation back on track, I turn once again to my trusted notebook for a couple of comforting soft-ball questions. I ask about the lack of roles in Hollywood for older actresses, with the notable exceptions of Lady Macbeth, Clint Eastwood’s mother and the ghost of Barbara Bush. Meryl, ever the composed professional, flashes me a strained, yellowing smile. “They say now that life begins at 60”, she counters. I quickly point out that it probably still ends around 80, yet her optimism somehow remains unfettered. Meanwhile the tension is becoming palpable. I’ve clearly gone off-script, and I notice Meryl’s publicity team are slowly rising from their seats in the next booth, preparing to whisk her from the firing line.
Just in time, her prawn cocktail finally arrives, a smelly, fishy relic from the ‘70s which at this moment could not feel more apt. She declines to answer any more questions until she has finished her dish and proceeds to rabidly and sloppily raze her plate of unfortunate prawns. She goes berserk on it, eating furiously in spasming, jerking motions, pausing only to hawk up empty shells.
As Meryl wipes her oily face on my shirt, her publicist gestures we have time for one final question. I ask what the future holds for her, aside from the grave. She raises a witchy finger and points to the door. “I think that’s all the time we have”.
I thank Meryl for her time and suggest that in future she pursue opportunities away from acting. I leave her to pick up the check, rushing out the front door. Annie Lebowitz had been waiting by the lobby to take Meryl’s photo, and in my flusteredness I mow her into the salad bar.
On the luggage-class flight home I have some much-needed time alone to reflect upon my peculiar afternoon, before the time comes to write up the conversation for my editor. Questions are swirling about my frazzled, wounded mind. How could someone be so enchanting on the silver screen, and yet so beguilingly underwhelming in person? I dread to think of the countless shell-shocked journalists left strewn in her wake. Suddenly it hits me in the gut, like the retaliatory roundhouse I received from Lebowitz in the car park. Was it something I said?