Meryl Streep Says Playing Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada Was Actually Kind of Depressing
Meryl Streep might have taken it too far in her method approach to the ice-y girlboss.
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Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt participated in Entertainment Weekly’s oral history about the making of Devil Wears Prada, now 15 years old. It was enlightening, and a little bit sad!
The most surprising admission in this retrospective, which I highly suggest everyone go read, comes courtesy of Streep herself. According to the Tinseltown legend, she’d attempted to Method-act her way through the film, and said that in doing so she often imbued Anna Wintour-lookalike Miranda Priestly’s personality traits into her interactions with her cast members—specifically Blunt and Hathaway. Here’s the exchange:
BLUNT: Meryl is so gregarious and fun as hell, in some ways it wasn’t the most fun for her having to remove herself. 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: It was horrible! I was [miserable] in my trailer. I could hear them all rocking and laughing. I was so depressed! I said, “Well, it’s the price you pay for being boss!” That’s the last time I ever attempted a Method thing!
There’s also a bit where Adrian Grenier admits that Nate, Andy’s bad boyfriend in the movie, was indeed a bad boyfriend.
GRENIER: When that whole thing [about Nate being the “real villain” of the film] first came out, I couldn’t get my head around it. I didn’t understand it. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t mature as a man, just as Nate probably could’ve used a little growing up. I was just as immature as him at the time, so I couldn’t see his shortcomings, but, after taking time to reflect and much deliberation online, I can realize the truth in that perspective. Nate hadn’t grown up, but Andy had…. she needed more out of life, and she was achieving it. He couldn’t support her like she needed because he was a fragile, wounded boy…. on behalf of all the Nates out there: Come on! Step it up!
Congratulations on his emotional growth since that downright absurd interview Grenier gave a few years back… on what was it? Entourage? Feminism? Climate change? I can’t remember anymore.
