# Meryl Streep on screen and stage

Meryl Streep is an American actress who has had an extensive career in film, television, and stage. She made her stage debut in 1975 with The Public Theater production of Trelawny of the 'Wells'. She went on to perform several roles on stage in the 1970s, gaining a Tony Award nomination for her role in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1976). In 1977, Streep made her film debut with a brief role alongside Jane Fonda in Julia. A supporting role in the war drama The Deer Hunter (1978) proved to be a breakthrough for Streep; she received her first Academy Award nomination for it. She won the award the following year for playing a troubled wife in the top-grossing drama Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). In 1978, Streep played a German, "Aryan" woman married to a Jewish man in Nazi Germany in the television miniseries Holocaust, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award.
Streep established herself as a leading Hollywood actress in the 1980s. She played dual roles in the period drama The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), and starred as a Polish Holocaust survivor in Sophie's Choice (1982). She was awarded the Best Actress Oscar for the latter. Streep portrayed the real-life character of Karen Silkwood in Mike Nichols' drama Silkwood (1983), before starring in her most financially successful release of the decade, the romantic drama Out of Africa (1985), in which she played the Danish writer Karen Blixen. With intermittent successes, Streep's career went through a period of relative decline post-1985, with several commentators criticizing her inclination towards melodramatic roles, despite her attempt at playing against-type in the comedies She-Devil (1989) and Death Becomes Her (1992).
In 1995, Streep starred opposite Clint Eastwood as an unhappily married woman in The Bridges of Madison County, her biggest critical and commercial success of the decade. Although her dramas of the late 1990s received a mixed reception overall, she was praised for her role as a cancer patient in One True Thing (1998). She had acclaimed roles in the 2002 films Adaptation. and The Hours, and won a second Emmy Award for the television miniseries Angels in America a year later. Greater success returned to Streep in 2006, with an Academy Award-nominated role as a ruthless fashion magazine editor in the comedy-drama The Devil Wears Prada. This led to starring roles in several high-profile films, including the US$609 million-grossing romantic comedy Mamma Mia! (2008), her highest-grossing release, and the comedy-drama Julie & Julia (2009), in which she played Julia Child. These roles re-established Streep's stardom. Her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in the biopic The Iron Lady (2011) earned her another Academy Award for Best Actress. Further Oscar nominations came for her starring roles in August: Osage County (2013), Into the Woods (2014), Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), and The Post (2017), setting a record for more nominations than any actor or actress in history.

## Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1977 | Julia | Anne Marie | |
| 1978 | The Deer Hunter | Linda | |
| 1979 | Manhattan | Jill Davis | |
| 1979 | The Seduction of Joe Tynan | Karen Traynor | |
| 1979 | Kramer vs. Kramer | Joanna Kramer | |
| 1981 | The French Lieutenant's Woman | Sarah / Anna | |
| 1982 | Still of the Night | Brooke Reynolds | |
| 1982 | Sophie's Choice | Sophie Zawistowski | |
| 1983 | Silkwood | Karen Silkwood | |
| 1984 | Falling in Love | Molly Gilmore | |
| 1985 | Plenty | Susan Traherne | |
| 1985 | Out of Africa | Karen Blixen | |
| 1986 | Heartburn | Rachel Samstat | |
| 1987 | Ironweed | Helen Archer | |
| 1988 | Evil Angels | Lindy Chamberlain | aka A Cry in the Dark |
| 1989 | She-Devil | Mary Fisher | |
| 1990 | Postcards from the Edge | Suzanne Vale | |
| 1991 | Defending Your Life | Julia | |
| 1991 | Age 7 in America | Narrator | Documentary |
| 1992 | Death Becomes Her | Madeline Ashton | |
| 1993 | The House of the Spirits | Clara del Valle Trueba | |
| 1994 | The River Wild | Gail Hartman | |
| 1995 | The Living Sea | Narrator | Documentary |
| 1995 | The Bridges of Madison County | Francesca Johnson | |
| 1996 | Before and After | Dr. Carolyn Ryan | |
| 1996 | Marvin's Room | Lee | |
| 1998 | One True Thing | Kate Gulden | |
| 1998 | Dancing at Lughnasa | Kate Mundy | |
| 1999 | Music of the Heart | Roberta Guaspari | |
| 1999 | Ginevra's Story | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2001 | A.I. Artificial Intelligence | Blue Mecha | Voice |
| 2002 | Adaptation. | Susan Orlean | |
| 2002 | The Hours | Clarissa Vaughan | |
| 2003 | Stuck on You | Herself | Uncredited cameo |
| 2004 | The Manchurian Candidate | Sen. Eleanor Prentiss Shaw | |
| 2004 | Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events | Aunt Josephine | |
| 2005 | Prime | Lisa Metzger | |
| 2005 | Stolen Childhoods | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2006 | A Prairie Home Companion | Yolanda Johnson | |
| 2006 | The Music of Regret | The Woman | Short film |
| 2006 | Hurricane on the Bayou | Narrator | Documentary short film |
| 2006 | The Devil Wears Prada | Miranda Priestly | |
| 2006 | The Ant Bully | Queen Ant | Voice; animated film |
| 2007 | Dark Matter | Joanna Silver | |
| 2007 | Evening | Lila Ross | |
| 2007 | Rendition | Corrine Whitman | |
| 2007 | Lions for Lambs | Janine Roth | |
| 2008 | Mamma Mia! | Donna Sheridan | |
| 2008 | Doubt | Sister Aloysius Beauvier | |
| 2009 | Julie & Julia | Julia Child | |
| 2009 | Fantastic Mr. Fox | Felicity Fox | Voice; animated film |
| 2009 | It's Complicated | Jane Adler | |
| 2010 | Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life | Jennie | Voice; short film |
| 2011 | The Iron Lady | Margaret Thatcher | |
| 2012 | To the Arctic 3D | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2012 | Hope Springs | Kay Soames | |
| 2013 | Wings of Life | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2013 | Girl Rising | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2013 | A Fierce Green Fire | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2013 | Out of Print | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2013 | August: Osage County | Violet Weston | |
| 2014 | The Giver | Chief Elder | |
| 2014 | The Homesman | Altha Carter | |
| 2014 | Into the Woods | The Witch | |
| 2015 | Ricki and the Flash | Ricki Rendazzo | |
| 2015 | Suffragette | Emmeline Pankhurst | |
| 2015 | Shout Gladi Gladi | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2016 | Florence Foster Jenkins | Florence Foster Jenkins | |
| 2017 | We Rise | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2017 | Little Door Gods | Narrator | Voice (English dub); animated film; aka The Guardian Brothers |
| 2017 | The Post | Katharine Graham | |
| 2018 | Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again | Donna Sheridan | |
| 2018 | This Changes Everything | Herself | Documentary |
| 2018 | Mary Poppins Returns | Topsy | |
| 2019 | The Laundromat | Ellen Martin / Elena / Herself | |
| 2019 | Little Women | Aunt March | |
| 2020 | Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth | Narrator | Voice; animated short film |
| 2020 | Let Them All Talk | Alice Hughes | |
| 2020 | The Prom | Dee Dee Allen | |
| 2021 | Don't Look Up | President Janie Orlean | |
| 2022 | Sell/Buy/Date | — | Executive producer |

## Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1976 | Everybody Rides the Carousel | Lover | Voice; animated film |
| 1977 | The Deadliest Season | Sharon Miller | Television film |
| 1977–1979 | Great Performances | Edith Varney | Episode: "Secret Service" |
| 1977–1979 | Great Performances | Leilah | Episode: "Uncommon Women and Others" |
| 1978 | Holocaust | Inga Helms Weiss | Miniseries; 4 episodes |
| 1981 | Kiss Me, Petruchio | Katherine | Documentary |
| 1982 | Alice at the Palace | Alice | Television film |
| 1990 | The Earth Day Special | Concerned Citizen | Television special |
| 1994 | The Simpsons | Jessica Lovejoy | Voice; Episode: "Bart's Girlfriend" |
| 1997 | ...First Do No Harm | Lori Reimuller | Television film; also producer |
| 1999 | King of the Hill | Aunt Esme Dauterive | Voice; Episode: "A Beer Can Named Desire" |
| 2003 | Angels in America | Hannah Pitt / Ethel Rosenberg / The Rabbi / The Angel Australia | Miniseries; 6 episodes |
| 2003 | Freedom: A History of US | Abigail Adams / Mary Eastey / Mother Jones / Margaret Chase Smith | Documentary; 4 episodes |
| 2007 | Ocean Voyagers | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2010–2012 | Web Therapy | Camilla Bowner | Guest star; 5 episodes |
| 2013 | Makers: Women Who Make America | Narrator | Documentary; 3 episodes |
| 2014 | The Roosevelts | Eleanor Roosevelt | Voice; documentary; 7 episodes |
| 2017 | Five Came Back | Narrator | Documentary; 3 episodes |
| 2019 | Big Little Lies | Mary Louise Wright | Main role (season 2); 7 episodes |
| 2023 | Extrapolations | Eve Shearer | Episode: "2046: Whale Fall" |
| 2023–present | Only Murders in the Building | Loretta Durkin | Recurring role (seasons 3–4) |
| 2025 | Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special | Herself / Colleen Rafferty Sr. | Television special |
Key :
| † | Denotes series that have not yet been released |

## Stage

| Year | Title | Role | Venue |
| 1975 | Trelawny of the 'Wells' | Miss Imogen Parrott | Vivian Beaumont Theater |
| 1976 | A Memory of Two Mondays 27 Wagons Full of Cotton | Patricia / Flora Meighan | Playhouse Theatre |
| 1976 | Secret Service | Edith Varney | Playhouse Theatre |
| 1976 | Henry V | Catherine | Delacorte Theater |
| 1976 | Measure for Measure | Isabella | Delacorte Theater |
| 1977 | The Cherry Orchard | Dunyasha | Vivian Beaumont Theater |
| 1977 | Happy End | Lt. Lillian Holiday | Martin Beck Theatre |
| 1978 | The Taming of the Shrew | Katharina | Delacorte Theater |
| 1979 | Taken in Marriage | Andrea | Joseph Papp Public Theater & Newman Theater |
| 1980–1981 | Alice in Concert | Alice | Joseph Papp Public Theater & Anspacher Theater |
| 2001 | The Seagull | Arkadina | Delacorte Theater |
| 2004 | Bridge and Tunnel | — | Producer; Theatres at 45 Bleecker & Bleecker Street Theatre |
| 2006 | Mother Courage and Her Children | Mother Courage | Delacorte Theater |