Meryl Streep, Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts

2023-04-26 13:50:57

It is not the first time that the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts has gone to a film personality. Luis García Berlanga, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Vittorio Gasman, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar, Michael Haneke, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ennio Morricone and John Williams have received an award that this year corresponds to what, for decades, has been considered as the best actress in the world. Meryl Streep (Summit, New Jersey, 1949) is an immensely popular star, who belongs to the restricted group of actors who have won the Oscars three times: for ‘Kramer against Kramer’ in 1979, for ‘Sophie’s Decision’ three years later and for ‘The Iron Lady’ in 2001. Only Katharine Hepburn has added one more statuette.

His 21 nominations are already a reason for a joke at the Oscars, which he stepped on for the first time in 1978 with ‘The Hunter’, where he went with his then partner, actor John Cazale, who died of bone cancer that same year. The last time we’ve seen Meryl Streep nominated for the Academy Awards is in 2017, giving life to Katharine Graham, the mythical editor of the ‘Washington Post’, in ‘The Pentagon Files’, by Steven Spielberg.

Miguel Zugaza, director of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum and president of the Princess of Asturias jury, has read the ruling that rewards the actress. She has deserved it “for dignifying the art of interpretation and getting ethics and coherence to transcend through her work with the virtue of emphasizing that human beings and specifically women must beat and stand out from the singularity her”. The jury has also valued that «throughout five decades, Meryl Streep has developed a brilliant career chaining interpretations in which she gives life to rich and complex female characters that invite reflection and the formation of the viewer’s critical spirit. The honesty and responsibility in the choice of her works, at the service of inspiring and exemplary narratives, cross the screen and the stages with an impeccable interpretive technique armed only with her gestures, voice and gaze ».

Meryl Streep was already baptized ‘the new Garbo’ at the beginning of her career due to her perfectionist zeal and love for trying all kinds of complicated accents. Her demeanor distinguished from her, as if out of a Renaissance cameo, made her the ideal candidate for period films. Born into a wealthy New Jersey bourgeois family, her father was a top executive at a pharmaceutical company and her mother moved in artistic circles. Little Meryl, the youngest of three siblings – one of them a well-known dancer over time – was not exactly a beauty: thick glasses, ‘brackets’ on her teeth and short curly hair.

After excelling in singing and languages, a facility that she would later take advantage of in her career as an actress, she entered the select Vassar College at the age of 15 to study Dramatic Art. She forgets her old dream of being an interpreter at the United Nations and perfects her technique at Yale before making the leap to New York. There she interprets all kinds of characters on stage, from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams, from Strindberg to Arthur Miller. Meryl Streep acquires the facility of the best English actors to transform herself body and soul in each role.

Meryl Streep with her third and last Oscar, received in 2012 for ‘The Iron Lady’.

AFP

She debuted in Hollywood with a very brief role in ‘Julia’ and already in ‘Kramer against Kramer’, which gave her her first Oscar, she writes her own dialogues. Legend has it that producer Dino de Laurentiis didn’t want her for ‘King Kong’ because she wasn’t pretty enough in a role that fell to Jessica Lange. To prepare her character in ‘Sophie’s Choice’ she learned Polish and German. Among the nearly one hundred titles in which he has taken part are ‘Manhattan’, ‘Silkwood’, ‘Out of Africa’, ‘Falling in love’, ‘The cake is over’, ‘A cry in the dark’, ‘Death haunts you’ feels so good’, ‘The bridges of Madison’, ‘The hours’, ‘Mamma Mia!’…

Married since 1978 to the sculptor Don Gummer, mother of four children, Streep is also, as the Princess of Asturias jury well remembers, “a tireless activist in favor of equality.” President of the United States in ‘Don’t Look Up’, Donald Trump lashed out at her because of her progressive ideas and called her a “Hillary lackey” and an “overrated actress”. The winner of the Donostia Award in 2008 is a staunch defender of the #MeToo movement, despite having worked on several occasions in Harvey Weinstein productions, which led her to be accused by actress Rose McGowan: “I am truly sorry that you see me as an adversary, because we stand together with all the women in our business, challenging the same relentless enemy: the status quo that longs to go back to the bad old days, when women were used, abused, and denied entry into business. the high levels and decision-making of the industry, “the actress defended herself.

Meryl Streep is, since 2018, a trademark registered by herself to prevent others from doing business with her name. His work rate has decreased in recent times, reserving himself for supporting roles in films like the new version of ‘Little Women’ or ‘Don’t look up’, and luxury on his return to television, where he has given cachet to series like ‘Big Little Lies’ as Nicole Kidman’s mother-in-law. After her last role on the small screen, ‘A challenging future’, went unnoticed, she has already announced her signing for the new installment of the hit Disney Plus series ‘Only murders in the building’.