First, I need to sing the praises of Meryl Streep singing. I don’t know why it’s a thing with me, but I figure that if she is willing to sing for us, we need to listen. She gives it to us by vocalizing badly in Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), and sublimely in Ironweed (1987); she rocks in Ricki And The Flash (2015), and bursts forth with full musical theatre force in Into The Woods (2014), where she raps about beans. She warbles in overalls in Mama Mia! (2008). I am looking forward to Streep in a full-on dramatic musical movie, maybe Mama Rose in Gypsy with Barbra Streisand directing, or maybe Berthe in Pippin opposite Ryan Gosling; hey, she could do it, she’s Meryl Streep.
It’s the diversity in Streep’s film selection that is so astonishing. From her physical transformation in The Iron Lady to her phenomenal polar persona in The Devil Wears Prada, it is a career for the record books: six Grammy Award nominations, five Emmy Award nominations (three wins), a Tony Award nomination, two BAFTA Awards), eight Golden Globe Awards (including Cecil B. DeMille Lookalike Award), and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. She is Queen of the Oscars with a record 21 Academy Award nominations and three wins. Jack Nicholson and Katharine Hepburn only have 12 nominations apiece.
She is the best at complicated accents, she convincingly plays an elderly male rabbi and an American President. It’s ridiculous to choose just ten performances, but here are my choices today:
