The 1981 performance Meryl Streep has always regretted: “You have to look the part”
In the ever-changing realm of the acting world, some performers stand taller than others, and Meryl Streep has the highest stature of all.
With a rather unbelievable record of 21 Academy Award nominations, Streep has established herself as simply one of the greatest actors to ever grace the big screen with her presence.
Part of what has always made Streep so compelling is her refusal to settle into a single screen persona. Unlike many Hollywood stars who build careers around familiarity, she has consistently approached each role as an entirely new challenge to disappear into.
Streep is embodied by a versatile prowess unlike any of her contemporaries, as showcased in the likes of Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, The Iron Lady and The Bridges of Madison County, proving that she’s always been a serious force to be reckoned with ever since first arriving on the scene in the mid-1970s.
However, like every truly brilliant actor, there have been a handful of moments from Streep’s career that she wished turned out differently, and one certainly looks to be her performance in the 1981 British romantic drama movie The French Lieutenant’s Woman, directed by Karel Reisz, adapted from the 1969 John Fowles novel of the same name by Harold Pinter.
“You always want to do something better after the fact. I couldn’t help wishing that I was more beautiful.”
Meryl Streep
For an actor with such an astonishing reputation, Streep has always been unusually candid about her insecurities and frustrations onscreen. Rather than viewing her performances as untouchable achievements, she often speaks about them as unfinished work that could have gone further.
“I didn’t feel I was living it,” Streep once noted. “You always want to do something better after the fact. I couldn’t help wishing that I was more beautiful.” Evidently, there’s a sense in Streep that her physical appearance does not match up to the expectations of the film.
After all, the physicality of a character is often what helps actors to truly embody their characters, to live them on screen as though they are real people. In the case of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Streep felt that she was unable to ever really get into character properly, which led to a performance below her own expectations.
“There comes a point when you have to look the part, especially in movies,” Streep explained. “In Victorian literature, passion, an illicit feeling, was always represented by darkness. I’m so fair that dark hair makes me look like some old fish, so I opted for auburn hair instead. I really wish I was the kind of actress who could have just stood there and said it all.”
Streep starred alongside Jeremy Irons in the film, which focuses on the tense and fraught relationship between an amateur naturalist, Charles Smithson and a former governess, Sarah Woodruff. Despite Streep’s dissatisfaction with her effort, she was nominated for an Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’, while Pinter got the nod for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’.
Even if Streep remained personally unconvinced by her work in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the reaction to the film demonstrated just how much her standards differed from everyone else’s. A performance she considered flawed was still powerful enough to earn one of the many Oscar nominations that would define her extraordinary career.
Check out the trailer for The French Lieutenant’s Woman below.
