Meryl Streep reflects on all things LGBT

I’m very much looking forward to seeing Meryl Streep’s latest film, Florence Foster Jenkins, at a screening tomorrow. Love, love, love Meryl.

And the best part about her having a new movie out is all the interviews she gives.

In a chat with PrideSource posted earlier today, Streep says she didn’t see taking the role of a lesbian in Woody Allen’s Manhattan in 1979 as risky in regards to her future movie career.

‘I didn’t think of it that way,’ she says. ‘I mean, I was coming to movies sort of sideways from the theater. I got an early movie and I thought, “Well, this is a one-off; they’ll never ask me again.” I was fine with that. I was happy in the theater. And in the theater I had lots of gay friends and my longtime collaborator Roy Helland is gay. I’ve grown up with gay people and been in love with gay people.’

It’s a connection she felt early on.

‘I just can’t remember when LGBT people were not in my life,’ Streep says.

‘You know, gosh. My piano teachers when I was 11 and 12 were two gay men in a little town in New Jersey who had a collection of Mexican art and pinatas and silver lantern covers, and their house was wonderful, not like anybody else’s house in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. And yeah, I came of age when everything was kind of opening up and that’s a good time, right like now.’

Streep has become a huge gay icon over the years because of such films as The Devil Wears Prada, Death Becomes Her, Mamma Mia and Postcards From the Edge which are beloved by her gay fans. She hopes to add to that group with this summer’s Florence Foster Jenkins.

She has also starred in such LGBT-related films as Angels In America and The Hours.

‘To me, I mean, Angels is such an important piece of history, and I felt really lucky to be part of that because I don’t think there was anything like it before,’ Streep says.

‘It really felt like being at the Democratic National Convention in the moment that Hillary shattered the glass ceiling – a big deal. The Hours was important too. And of course I got to kiss Allison Janney, which was a perk! (Laughs).’

After decades of being known more as a critically-acclaimed actress with various accents in such films as Sophie’s Choice, Out of Africa and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Streep became a big box office draw in the summer of 2006 with the release of Prada.

That was followed two summers later with an even bigger hit: Mamma Mia. She has also scored since then with It’s Complicated, Julie & Julia and Into the Woods.

But she has also remained her critically acclaimed self along the way winning an Oscar (her third) in 2012 for The Iron Lady.