The iconic roles Meryl Streep would have done anything to play: “I begged and pleaded”
The sheer notion of Meryl Streep having to beg and plead to be seen by a director for a role sounds preposterous these days. After all, this is the actor nominated for the most Academy Awards in history. Streep has been in contention for a mind-boggling 21 Oscars, with an astounding 17 nominations in the ‘Best Actress’ category. However, Streep wasn’t always the acting royalty she is today, and there was a period in the early part of her career where she had to scratch and claw her way into roles just like anyone else. In fact, two of her most defining parts weren’t earmarked for Streep – but she did anything and everything in her power to land them.
In the early 1980s, Streep was already a three-time Oscar nominee. Her performances in The Deer Hunter, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and Kramer vs Kramer were hugely acclaimed, and she took home the ‘Best Supporting Actress’ trophy for the latter.
In this period, Streep read a 1979 novel by William Styron and became convinced she was the woman to play the lead role in an upcoming Alan Pakula screen adaptation. So, as she told Time magazine, she got her mitts on a bootleg copy of the script “through nefarious means” and instructed her agents to reach out to Pakula. To her shock, the legendary Parallax View director wouldn’t see her, relaying to her agency that only an Eastern European actor should play Zofia Zawistowska in Sophie’s Choice.
However, Streep wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. She was “obsessed” with playing Sophie, so she “begged and pleaded for an interview.” When Pakula finally relented and agreed to meet Streep, she took him by surprise by throwing herself at his feet and imploring, “Please, God, let me do it.” Pakula must have been impressed by her passion for the role – and her clear lack of ego or vanity – because she reportedly left the meeting with that part secured.
Fascinatingly, history repeated itself four years later. By the time Out of Africa came around, Streep had notched another Oscar win for Sophie’s Choice and another nomination for Silkwood. Director Sydney Pollack still didn’t envision her as Baroness Karen von Blixen in his adaptation of Danish author Karen Blixen’s autobiographical romance, though.
“My agent made a pitch to Sydney, but he wasn’t interested,” Streep admitted to Life magazine. Once again, though, she refused to accept her fate, poking and cajoling and poking again until Pollack reluctantly agreed to a meeting.
Screenwriter Kurt Luedtke revealed that, sometime during this period, Streep had heard a rumour that Pollack “didn’t think she’d be sexy enough on the screen,” and this was why he didn’t see her in the part. Instead of feeling aggrieved or offended by this, though, Streep resolved to prove him wrong. Luedtke claimed she showed up to her meeting “wearing a dynamite push-up bra” and proceeded to give Pollack her full sales pitch.
“She was so direct, so honest, so without bullshit,” the Three Days of the Condor director marvelled. “There was no shielding between her and me. I thought, ‘If this comes out of the screen—Wow!'”
Naturally, Streep emerged from Out of Africa with another Oscar nomination. This story, and that of her zeal for Sophie’s Choice, prove that sometimes you may need to fight hard for what you want, but if you genuinely believe you’re the right person for the task, it’s worth fighting for.
