Meryl Streep reveals why she was “miserable” making her iconic movie
Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep has revealed the difficult time she had onset of one of her most well-known films.
Streep perfectly incapsulated The Devil Wears Prada character, Miranda Priestly, who was the editor-in-chief of a high fashion magazine and the blueprint for a boss from hell
It has been 15 years since the world first got to see Streep in a new, brilliantly-played light, and now she and her co-stars have revealed what it was like working on the film.
Streep is now 71, and boldly revealed that she employed method acting while filming.
She often chose to retain elements of her icy, mean-spirited character, even off-set.
It became an often occurrence that she would brush off her co-stars Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway.
“Meryl is so gregarious and fun as hell, in some ways it wasn’t the most fun for her having to remove herself,” Blunt told the publication.
“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 said filming the movie “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!’”
She went on to say: “That’s the last time I ever attempted a Method thing!”
Streep’s performance earned her a host of high-profile awards including a Golden Globe and a nomination for an Oscar.
The star has since been nominated for the industry’s highest honour seven more times.
Hathaway agreed with Blunt that Steep put up an unnatural wall during film, but admitted it helped.
“I did feel intimidated, but I always felt cared for,” she explained.
“I knew that whatever she was doing to create that fear, I appreciated [because] I also knew she was watching out for me.”
Streep’s character has drawn comparisons to Vogue editor Anna Wintour who has had to knock down several rumours that she is an unkind boss.
“I wasn’t interested in doing a biopic on Anna; I was interested in her position in her company. I wanted to take on the burdens she had to carry, along with having to look nice every day,” Streep said.
The A-lister also spoke on the movie’s worldwide appeal, despite being marketed toward women as counter-programming for Superman Returns.
“Because they’d given us such straitened circumstances to make the film with a smaller budget, this opened up and said that a ‘chick flick’ can be a huge hit with a broad audience,” she said.
“This is the first movie [where] men have come up to me and said, ‘I know how you felt; I have a company, and nobody understands me. It’s really hard.’
It’s the hardest thing in the world for a man to feel his way through to the protagonist of the film if it’s a woman.”