Meryl Streep quit method acting after The Devil Wears Prada
Streep played the antagonistic fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly in the 2006 satirical comedy
Film News Meryl Streep
After taking on the role as one of the most intimidating, cutting antagonists in a recent comedy history, Meryl Streep decided that “method acting” crap was not for her. In Entertainment Weekly’s oral history of The Devil Wears Prada, Streep shares how she dug her designer heels into playing Miranda Priestly, the high fashion magazine editor who had a tendency to hit right where it hurts. Turns out, it was no fun at all.
“It was horrible! I was [miserable] in my trailer. I could hear them all rocking and laughing. I was so depressed!” Streep tells EW. “I said, ‘Well, it’s the price you pay for being boss!’ That’s the last time I ever attempted a Method thing!”
Behind the scenes, Streep kept her interactions with co-stars Emily Blunt and Annie Hathaway ice cold to stay true to her character in the film, keeping the humor to a minimum.
“Meryl is so gregarious and fun as hell, in some ways it wasn’t the most fun for her having to remove herself,” Blunt says. “It wasn’t like she was unapproachable; You could go up to her and say, “Oh my God, the funniest thing just happened,” and she’d listen, but I don’t know if it was the most fun for her to be on set being that way.”
Streep helped Hathaway snag her role as fashion newbie and Priestley’s co-assistant Andy, and she struck a balance between support and coldness on set.
“I did feel intimidated, but I always felt cared for,” Hathaway says. “I knew that whatever she was doing to create that fear, I appreciated [because] I also knew she was watching out for me.”
Following the release of The Devil Wears Prada, Streep received the Oscar nomination for Actress in a Leading Role and won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture: Musical/Comedy. Proving you don’t really need to be an asshole to your co-stars and crew for months to reign in success as an actor, she’s raked in 9 more Golden Globe nominations and three wins, as well as 7 more Oscar nominations with one win–and that’s just post-The Devil Wears Prada. Eat your heart out, Joaquin Phoenix.
71 Comments
Is it just me, or has every single case of so-called method acting you’ve ever heard of just sound like it was an excuse to be an asshole? For some reason, no one ever seems to do it when they’re playing a nice character.
Yeah I’m not a fan for this reason. The whole submerging into a part just seems like gaslighting to fellow cast and crew who suddenly find they aren’t dealing with an actor, but their character. Brando, at least in the years leading up to the Godfather, seems to have employed the Method in a fairly grounded way, searching for ways of greater authenticity in his characters, particularly in the use of props (the white glove in On the Waterfront, the cat in The Godfather), but yeah for the most part, when I hear of actors using the Method, it usually winds up being a pretense for them to be utter assholes without any accountability.
daniel day lewis’ lincoln didn’t seem so bad.
But god, I would not have wanted to be near him when they were filming There Will Be Blood, or Gangs of New York.
I think i would LOVED to have been around him when they were filming Gangs of New York.
Yeah, those guys who had to lift/push him around the set of My Left Foot would be the people to ask.
I believe a young actor did quit There Will Be Blood as he was terrified of DDL. That’s why Paul Dano ended up playing twins.
Paul F Thompkins has some great stories about being absolutely terrified being around DDL on There Will Be Blood
Well, except when he went to the theater.
In his free time between takes he kept trying to capture Richmond.
I mean, the example above doesn’t sound like she was being an asshole.
Yes, it sounds like she removed herself and was only present when she was on set as her character. It sounded like she dipped her toe into method acting and realized it wasn’t necessary for her, and came at more a cost for her own self then for others.I can see method acting where people incorporate it in their real personal lives when they aren’t just on location shooting a film being very tiresome.
I can see method acting where people incorporate it in their real personal lives when they aren’t just on location shooting a film being very tiresome.So basically, Jared Leto
Method acting doesn’t mean you stay in character 24/7, in fact most “Method actors” don’t do that at all. It’s a range of techniques actors can use to elicit subtle, realistic performances. You just never hear about an actor using those techniques to play a nice character because that doesn’t make for an interesting story, no matter how effective it is.
I think method acting is often misunderstood. It doesn’t have to involve the extreme techniques that some method actors use.
“Method acting doesn’t mean you stay in character 24/7, in fact most “Method actors” don’t do that at all.”But how will I comment as though I know everything, if I in fact don’t know everything? My input is narrowed to the mail slit of the Internet!!!
Method is ridiculous. I always liked the way Olivier shot down Dustin Hoffman while making The Marathon Man: “Upon being asked by his co-star how a previous scene had gone, one in which Hoffmann’s character had supposedly stayed up for three days, Hoffmann admitted that he too had not slept for 72 hours to achieve emotional verisimilitude. ‘My dear boy,’ replied Olivier smoothly, ‘why don’t you just try acting?’” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/31/method-acting-dustin-hoffman-meryl-streep
Depends on the actor. Any time Dustin Hoffman played a nice guy, for instance.
I think there are many ways people in general try to avoid accountability for being assholes, and method acting is a particularly convenient way to do that for egotistical actors. I’m sure it’s doable without being an asshole. Streep seems fine.
I think it’s more the inverse—assholes can and do hide behind the Method, often mislabeling the shit they do in the process. There’s no inherent assholery in Method acting—it’s supposed to be a very internal process, not the big showy “I’m working at acting!” displays we hear about around awards time. Also, I’ve never even been able to nail down where exactly in the various Method acting traditions the idea of staying in character all the time came from. But I think a lot of actors (including, apparently, Streep) use Method techniques without behaving like sociopaths . We just never hear those stories.
Stephen Lang had a pretty good swipe at people who use what they call “method acting” as an excuse to be an asshole a few years ago too. It was around the same time Jared Leto was infamously being an asshole to his Suicide Squad castmates as a “method actor.”Lang: “In terms of the method, I’ll say to you: ‘Method’ is on everybody’s mind these days. There’s a lot of method stuff going on out there. I guess the cynic in me is saying, ‘Look, I’m as capable of abusing the method as the next guy. But we are imbued as a generation of actors.’ We’re not the first generation—it’s been a number of generations. We are imbued with the method. Whether you consider yourself a method actor or not, the odds are that you are employing processes and techniques that are method-oriented. It’s got to do with naturalism and it’s got to do with your relationship to the role. That’s just the way it is. The method was a response to another type of acting that really just doesn’t exist.I don’t want to get into it too much, but there’re a lot of people who are claiming the method, and it’s complete and utter bullshit (laughs). There’s no understanding of what it really is. Basically, they are substituting some kind of self-indulgent, masturbatory practice for what, in fact, is hard work. It’s gimmicky. There’re people who are using it as gimmicks, and there are also people who are claiming it and using it as career advancement.”
That’s a beautiful encapsulation. Lang is an amazing actor who’s been almost impossible to recognize from role to role. Everybody knows him from Avatar, so he’s come to embody a kind of spare grizzledness in his late career, but earlier in his filmography he’s babyfaced Freddy Lounds with a crazy perm (wig, I hope) in Manhunter. A little bit later he decides to play Ike Clanton as a live-action version of Pigpen in Tombstone. I could not have drawn a line between those three performances without IMDB to help…
Yeah he’s a real chameleon, and I’ve been a fan for a long time. I’d actually had arguments with my dad when I was a teenager about some of Lang’s performances. I was like “No way the same guy who was Ike Clanton in Tombstone was Freddy in Manhunter and Pickett in Gettysburg.” I was wrong. I’ve also belatedly realized I was impressed with him in Death of a Salesman.
It reminds me of when Jim Carey was playing Andy Kaufman. Carey would apparently be a complete ass to Jerry Lawler on set, messing with his trailer and such. It angered Lawler because he an Kaufman were friends who had an ‘act’ in front of the people to make money and entertain. It’s even acknowledged in the film after the Late Show slap scene. Carey refused to believe it and kept harassing Lawler as he thought Kaufman would do based off the footage from their wrestling feud.
You are not dig deep into method acting unless you have done shed of it after the DVD commentator recording. Is it just me, or has every single case of so-called method acting you’ve ever heard of just sound like it was an excuse to be an assholeWell, Tom Hanks from 1992-2000 say hello.
as a non-actor I kinda “get” it, but I can’t also help thinking of Larry Olivier’s alleged quote to method actor Dustin Hoffman about “why don’t you try acting?” Maybe part of being “great” is doing shit that seems odd to others who aren’t “great”. Honestly the whole idea of acting seems like lying with flair to me.
You would think she would have been against it a long time ago considering how Dustin Hoffman treated her on the set of Kramer vs. Kramer.
Streep has never been a Method actor. One of her biographies tells about a Method-trained teacher at Yale who encouraged the students to do a scene in class that they would identify closely with on a personal level. Streep rebelled, saying she didn’t want to use her own emotions but wanted to create from her imagination. Streep is a brilliant technician but rarely seems to be using herself in her performances. As Pauline Kael noted on many occasions.
Frankly she quit acting after Sophie’s Choice when she realized all you had to do to fool Academy voters was employ an outrageous accent.
An outrageous accent? Is Meryl Streep the French taunter??!
I blow nose in your general direction!
My personal favorite was her Julia Child by way of Miss Piggy.
Then why wasn’t she in Mare of Easttown?
Sounds like method or no method, she’s a very successful actress. Perhaps she should teach the non-method method.
What does Method Man have to say about this?
“Cash rules everything around me.”
He says he’s got his and he’s Swayze
My main problem with method acting is that its practitioners need a sub-rule that they need to be in the same movie or play with the other actors. There are movies where it works to have one actor going big and others not (that’s why you hire Walken!), sure, but there are also countless stories about somebody doing Moliere and mumbling all of their lines upstage. Preparation is everything, but when the self-seriousness of somebody’s performance throws off the tone of the entire production, something has to give.
I bet she wishes Dustin Hoffman had given up The Method while they were working on Kramer vs Kramer.
Ugh I know. I’m conflicted because I love that movie and I think it’s Streep’s best performance, but that lunch scene where he flings the glass at the wall and it barely misses her…that wasn’t planned, and Hoffman didn’t tell her he’d do that, and it crosses a line.
It crosses a line to not hit someone with a glass?
Hoffman also openly talked about raping his brothers girlfriend in a interview as some quirky anecdote, he’s an asshole.
Didn’t he make fun of her dead boyfriend to get a reaction out of her in one scene?
Yep. Repeatedly, in order to provoke a reaction he’d invoke John Cazale, who had died a few months before. He would even whisper it in her ear to get an emotional response from her. He was pretty ugly.
It strikes me that that’s not acting – much less “method” acting. It’s having the ego to think that if Meryl Streep had a great performance, it was because he pushed her to it. Fuck that guy.
Yeah, trying to get an involuntary performance out of your scene partner isn’t any part of the Method I’ve ever heard of. Then again, for a long time in Hollywood it was considered fair game for men on set to try to trick a performance out of animals, children, and actresses.
Andy Griffith went method for “A Face In The Crowd,” and hated the experience so much that he swore off playing that kind of character for years, which is, I guess, why he was so happy playing things like Sheriff Andy Taylor and Ben Matlock.
His performance in that movie is genuinely chilling and some of his mannerisms in it remind me of a relative who . . . had issues. It took me a while to watch Andy again in Andy Griffith reruns and not flinch instinctively every time I saw him.
Speaking of scary Southern guy, have you seen Jerry Reed in Gator? Couple of really scary little scenes he does. The speech in the car.
I always feel tricky outright condemning method acting as a ridiculous, unnecessary farce because sure! Great performances have resulted from actors who are method – but I always wonder if method TRULY gets them there or what.
I mean generally if someone wants to be in that headspace on their own it’s fine, but method just seems like it’s 90% “I’m going to be a complete jackass to everyone around me on set and refuse to engage socially and this is alright because it’s my process” and it’s hard to get behind someone creating a tedious working environment (at best – I would imagine it certainly veers into abusive depending upon the actor!).
The only thing that I think method work (at least the way the public conceives of it as staying in character 100% of the time) is really useful for is dialect or idiolect work. Like, if you’re acting in a dialect that isn’t your own, it can be helpful to simply use that dialect 100% of the time when you’re on set. It is really hard, mentally, to switch between the sounds and oral postures of different dialects. But obviously staying in dialect is different than staying totally in character.
That’s a really good point. I’m blown away by how some actors can completely change the way their voice sounds. There’s a cool series of YouTube videos where a dialect coach talks about different vocal performances and points out where actors got it right and where they didn’t, and how incredibly difficult it can be to dial in those precise changes in oral posture.
I live for those Erik Singer dialect videos. I did a little bit of linguistics study when I was getting my graduate degrees, and I always found it fascinating. In another life, I would love to be a dialect coach like Singer.
Any mention of the term “method acting” is not complete without the famous thing Laurence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman: “My dear boy, have you tried acting?”
You know you’re doing well when you get upbraided for being difficult and self-involved by Laurence Olivier.
Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office, probably some other shit) essentially said the same thing on the Off Menu podcast a few weeks ago. He thinks it’s rude and unprofessional and that if your job is to act a certain way you show up and you do it and you fuck off again.Of course, I would very much like to have seen his take on Daniel Plainview 😀 Just a load of double takes and looking innocently surprised.
I love Martin Freeman being irritated by people.
The British seem to understand that acting begins and ends when you enter/leave the stage. I have heard it is because they are paid so little they see a role as a role.
(I’ve also heard the pay is why they do a zillion things, movies and television and theater all. That’s why Michael Cain was making JAWS IV and missed collecting his Oscar.)Patrick Stewart said doing ROMEO AND JULIET on stage makes one choose roles accordingly: Mercucio dies early so you can go home at intermission, but the Priest wears a robe so you can wear your street clothes under the robe, come late (no costume foolishness) and leave at the curtain. THAT is a healthy attitude about craft.
“Following the release of The Devil Wears Prada, Streep received the Oscar nomination for Actress in a Leading Role”I thought this was a mistake, but it’s actually true. They really were just nominating Streep for everything at this point.
Well, I mean. She is the only reason to watch that movie.
I think of it more like, “If any other actress gave the exact same performance in the exact same movie, would they also have gotten an Oscar nomination?”9/10 the answer is “no”
Um, there’s that other thing called an Emily Blunt.
Hard disagree. Devil Wears Prada is a fantastically well-made film, damn near perfect even. It gets knocked because it gets lumped in with rom-coms and doesn’t have the stakes or emotional blowout scenes of some other prestige dramas, but it’s all there.
The cinematography and editing alone put it a cut above 80% of movies of its era. Add in the production design and solid-to-phenomenal acting all around, (you’ve got pitch perfect Streep, and Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci STILL stealing scenes out from under her), and that goes to more like 90%.
About the only knock I ever see land on it is that the guy from Entourage is kind of annoying. And, well, sure, I guess. But he still serves an important function in the story. I admire that film a ton.
I like the movie! (Way better than the book, which is not a thing I say often) But I just don’t think it would have been what it was if it hadn’t been for Meryl Streep’s performance (and I say this as a die hard stan of Annie Hathaway and her very cute bangs in that film).
That’s kind of chicken and egg, though, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t know if that movie even gets made at all without Streep. And she had a lot of hand in the story itself; the scene where Miranda is at the hotel in Paris without makeup, talking to Andy about her (Miranda’s) upcoming divorce was a suggestion of Streep’s. Between that and the “cerulean blue sweater” scene, that’s probably enough to earn the Oscar right there, IMO.
Stanley Tucci would like a word.
I think she should have won for Devil Wears Prada more than Iron Lady. It was a pretty solid movie but she made it great and the fact that it was not meant to be Oscar bait makes it so much rarer. Comedies gets a hard time in the Academy Awards and judging by cultural impact, the scales definitely tip towards Devil Wears Prada as the one that people would still watch and defend.
It’s impossible to take method actors who stay in character off-camera seriously once you learn that as soon as ‘cut’ was called on The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger instantly went back to himself:
The fact that Ledger showed off skateboarding tricks and pictures of his daughter in-between takes just makes me love his performance more, because that means he was such a good actor he could just flip that switch and be in the moment when they yelled “Action!”
I prefer Sir Ian McKellen’s “method”.
I remember either Blunt or Hathaway mentioning a time on set where the two of them were just hugging and crying because they were so, so hungry and always exhausted trying to stay as skinny as you see them in the film. Add to that an icy Meryl Streep and it sounds like that production was buckets of fun!