For some of us The Devil Wears Prada is the movie we watch every damn time it’s on cable. The don’t you dare call it a chick flick has a sharp script, note-perfect performances, and fashion that’s alternately enviable and wacky. (This hat haunts our dreams.) Plus, it’s always fun to watch Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep excoriate Anne Hathaway.
So now it’s been 10 years since Streep schooled the world on cerulean with chilly composure, and Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh is celebrating that anniversary with a detailed history of the project. Setoodeh’s piece is full of excellent nuggets, most of them Streepian. Streep, for instance, revealed to him how she made the very Miranda Priestly move of negotiating for more money on the project. “The offer was to my mind slightly, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project,” she said. “There was my ‘goodbye moment,’ and then they doubled the offer. I was 55, and I had just learned, at a very late date, how to deal on my own behalf.” Setoodeh also describes that magical moment during the table read when everyone realized what Streep had planned.
But it took a full 10 minutes until Miranda made her entrance, and a hush fell over the room the second Streep uttered a word. “I think we all had an idea of what Miranda would sound like,” Hathaway says. “It was a strident, bossy, barking voice. So when Meryl opened her mouth and basically whispered, everybody in the room drew a collective gasp. It was so unexpected and brilliant.”
Streep made one small, but important, tweak at the table read. She changed Miranda’s last line, where she’s sitting in a chauffeured car with Andy, from “Everybody wants to be me” to “Everybody wants to be us.”
Streep explained to Setoodeh that she borrowed elements of Clint Eastwood’s and Mike Nichols’ personalities in order to build Miranda. Read the full piece for more anecdotes that prove Meryl Streep is better than you are.