Meryl Streep was “afraid” for her safety at her first Cannes Film Festival

Upon receiving her honorary Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Meryl Streep is reflecting on the first and only other time she’d attended the event 35 years prior. She was there to promote the 1988 film A Cry In The Dark (also titled Evil Angels), which was based on the true story of Lindy Chamberlain, who was convicted of murder after claiming her baby had been taken by a dingo on the Australian outback. Streep was nominated for an Oscar and won the Cannes Best Actress award for her performance, but her first experience with Cannes wasn’t a pleasant one.

Streep explained that she was advised she’d need bodyguards at the festival, but she protested that she’d never needed one before and hadn’t ever had one at home. The actor was told, “‘You will need nine bodyguards’—I needed maybe a dozen the first time I came here,” she said. “Because in the olden days, there wasn’t the same security… all the barriers weren’t there… the cameras were shoved up like this,” Streep explained, mimicking cameras pushed directly into her face. (You can see for yourself in the video, below.)

“It was insane. And I almost didn’t recover from that,” she recalled, sharing that she went back to her hotel room shaking. “I couldn’t believe how wild it was. So that was 35 years ago, it’s changed a lot, the world has changed a lot. … That’s what I remember about it, really. The moment of getting the prize, I don’t think I remembered it. I was so afraid.”

Streep has had a better experience this time around, particularly with the emotional Palme d’Or ceremony presided over by Juliette Binoche. “I felt just a wave of feeling coming from the audience, and it’s so much bigger than I thought—so many tiers of people, all the way up to the top,” Streep said (via The Hollywood Reporter). “Yeah, it was a lot. I live a very quiet life, and really I don’t get any respect at home, so it’s sort of amazing to come into this arena and have that big tidal wave.”