The “preposterous” line Meryl Streep refused to say in ‘Out of Africa’
Few actors have reached the towering heights of Meryl Streep. Now in the fourth decade of her career, Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, having been nominated an astounding 21 times. She is also, incidentally, the actor who has received the most Golden Globe wins. So perhaps it is more accurate to say that no actor has reached Streep’s heights.
Streep won her first of what would later become three Oscars with her role in the 1979 legal drama Kramer vs. Kramer, devastating audiences with her nuanced portrayal of Joanna Kramer, a woman who abandons her child to escape an unhappy marriage. After lending her talents to holocaust survival film Sophie’s Choice, Streep proved her versatility with the garishly fun 1992 comedy Death Becomes Her, which has since become a camp classic.
Despite opting for lighter, more comedic roles in recent years, appearing in the musicals The Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia!, the first couple of decades of Streep’s career are defined by her repeated appearance in Oscar-award-winning films. Her portrayal of wealthy Baroness Karen Blixen in the epic romance Out of Africa is no exception to this rule, with the film going on to win ‘Best Picture’ in the 1986 Academy Awards.
Out of Africa is a sweeping romantic drama directed by Sydney Pollack and based on the autobiographical writings of Danish author Karen Blixen, who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen. The film is set in early 20th-century Kenya, during the British colonial period, and explores themes of love, loss, and the complex relationship between Europeans and Africa. It stars Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen and Robert Redford as Denys Finch Hatton, an adventurous big-game hunter.
During a conversation with Wendy Wasserstein for Interview Magazine, Streep reflected on her role in Out of Africa, stating that despite her belief in the greatness of the script, “There was this one line that I thought was just preposterous, and I didn’t know how I was going to get it out.”
Surprisingly, the line Streep found so preposterous was not connected to her character’s “proprietary” opinions about the African people she comes to love but concerned her failed relationship with game hunter Denys. Streep goes on to tell Wasserstein that the moment occurs “when Dennis suggests taking their young friend along on one of his flights and she [Karen] rises up from her chair and says, ‘I won’t allow it, Dennis’.”
Streep adds: “I thought it sounded like a mother admonishing her child, which did not reflect their relationship at all. It felt to me like something you have the woman say to give him a reason to walk out.”
Despite Streep’s hesitancy to perform the line, she later states that once she had done it, it felt right. “It was a key to the woman,” she begrudgingly admits – a woman who, desperate for the evasive Denys to commit to her, is unfortunately driven to say such a ‘preposterous’ thing.
Though Streep may have been hesitant to commit to that particular line, her portrayal of Karen in Out of Africa earned her yet another Academy Award nomination, consolidating the upward trajectory of what has proven to be an incredibly long and successful career.
