Meryl!!!

It all started with a friendship from being college roommates. Meryl Streep and Marianne McKenna (architect for the Royal Conservatory of Music, close to the ROM) both went to Yale for their Masters and were roommates. Long time friends, Meryl was planning on coming to support Marianne and see her latest work. One thing led to another and a very special event was planned.

Around 6pm last night, my BFF and I arrived at the ROM and stood in line waiting to be let in to see Meryl Streep interviewed by Johanna Schneller, a columnist from the Globe and Mail. We chatted about various things outside, among them what our favourite Meryl movie was. During that conversation I commented about her outstanding and heart wrenching performance in Sophie's Choice and that I would not care to see that movie again, especially now being a mother.

At 6:30 they finally started to let us in. We found some seats and waited anxiously for Meryl. I noticed one of the special event managers that I knew from planning weddings. I went over and spoke to him briefly to catch up. He told me that Meryl had been very specific about the details of this event. She wanted it to be intimate and very special so she requested it be at the ROM and the room that she wanted could only hold 700 people.

The director of the ROM came out with a few words and also congratulated us all for being able to get tickets to this event. Apparently it sold out very quickly without any actual advertising. Then he introduced some guy from Infiniti, one of the night's sponsors and he spoke for a while. Then the President and CEO of the Bay and Hudson's Bay Company (another sponsor) spoke for a while and then the director for the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the ROM spoke for a while. I sat twiddling my thumbs and tweaking my camera, not paying attention to any of it. Where was Meryl?

Finally, the director of the ROM reappeared and made his introductions to Johanna and Meryl. The crowd rose and clapped and cheered. As Meryl sat down she chuckled and said that she felt like she was on a blind date with 700 people watching her. Love her... sigh... Johanna began.... and wouldn't shut up. I commented that perhaps she'd allow Meryl to get some words in since she was who we paid to see. Johanna was by far one of the worst interviewers I've ever seen. Her voice was grating, there was no flow and instead of drawing out more information and engaging Meryl in conversation she'd say, "Let's look at a clip." She also had an annoying laugh and could not edit herself. She spoke far too much. Ugh.... The way they had set up the stage also made it difficult for Meryl to see the clip, so she had to turn and strain to see what Johanna was showing the rest of us.

Meryl however was great. She doesn't take herself too seriously and she loves what she does. She's got a great sense of humour and is very sarcastic. If you've ever seen her acceptance speeches at awards, that is the same person that we saw last night. She just seems like a real person - not some high and mighty celebrity. She talked about being younger and insecure about how she looks. How she contemplated getting her nose done so it would be slightly smaller and a little bit higher. She said she slept on her face, pushing her nose up for a year, hoping that it would stay that way. She thought she was too fat. She had all the same insecurities that most women have but she also acknowledged that it was because she wasn't labeled as a beauty that she received some of the opportunities that she did. She also said she's attracted to women who are in one way or another "ugly" and wants to portray them.

Johanna asked her about her costars and whether she knew when they were intimidated working with her. Meryl hung her head down, and said "Oh yes... I know." Then she said that at the first rehearsal she will inevitably forget her lines or flub something "Please pass me that grass" instead of glass and the stars that put her up on the pedestal then realize that she too makes mistakes and suddenly everyone is back on the same playing field again.

At this point, Johanna said the reason why other stars put her up on the pedestal is because of performances like this - cue the clip. Sophie's Choice.... the "scene". There I was, absolutely horrified that they were actually showing this clip. I couldn't watch it - I felt ill, nauseous, like I needed to get some air. Thankfully that clip is in German, and as I glanced up from time to time to see where it was and how much longer I'd have to endure, the tears started flowing and I buried my head down. I didn't understand the language, and yet I understood every word that Meryl was saying just by how she said it and my heart ached. I was sobbing and shaking. I was having an ugly cry at Meryl's interview. The sound of her daughter screaming for her as she's taken away by the Nazi was agonizing and unbearable. My BFF reached her arm around me and started rubbing my back trying to make me feel better. I needed the clip to be over. As I had predicted in the line as we were waiting, the scene was much more heart wrenching now that I was mother. I felt devastated for her. I hated Johanna more.

Meryl turns from the screen, obviously moved by the scene herself and she speaks with a quiver in her voice. Johanna asks, "How did you prepare for a scene like this?" Meryl said she read the script once the first time she was given it, and then she didn't read it again until the scene was being shot. This particular one, she read 20 minutes before shooting and it was done in one take. When Meryl was on Oprah, they played this same clip and she seemed noticeably uncomfortable as she did last night. She admitted to Oprah that she had not watched that scene back until that very moment (I read this on IMDB). Way to make your interviewee uncomfortable there Johanna! I had also read somewhere that Meryl was a relatively new mother having had her first born child only a few years earlier so that scene was particularly difficult for her.

She was also asked about the numerous male leads she had the opportunity of playing against. Which one was her best kisser? Sam Neill (her costar from Cry in the Dark) she said quickly..."Because he's here tonight!!" she laughed. I also loved that she said in the Australian accent "It's the dingo ate your baby movie for those of you who haven't seen it." And apparently, there are fans who still say this to her.

Another thing I learned about Meryl is that her ah ha! moment came when she was 15 and in high school. They had done the Music Man and during the curtain call, the audience gave her a standing ovation and she really liked it.

As an aside.... and I find this particularly endearing and funny - in doing some additional research about her filmography and her biography I learned that her husband's name is Don......... GUMMER!!! Ha!!! I feel closer to her already! Thanks Meryl for a wonderful night! And thanks to my mom and my little Gummer who were able to figure bedtime out with me there and allowed me to have a night out!