The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.

Introduction[link]

The British Film Academy was founded in 1947 by David Lean, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed, Laurence Olivier, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Roger Manvell and other leading figures in the British film industry.^[1] In 1958, the Academy merged with the Guild of Television Producers and Directors to form the Society of Film and Television Arts, which eventually became the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1976.

BAFTA is an independent charity with a mission to "support, develop and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public". In addition to high-profile awards ceremonies BAFTA runs a year-round programme of educational events including film screenings, tribute evenings, interviews, lectures and debates with leading industry figures. BAFTA is supported by a membership of around 6500 people from the film, television and video game industries. BAFTA's main headquarters is on Piccadilly in London, but it also has branches in Scotland, in Wales, in New York and in Los Angeles.

These four branches of the Academy initially operated under their own brands (BAFTA Scotland, BAFTA Cymru, BAFTA East Coast and BAFTA Los Angeles). In July 2010, all branches of the Academy were brought together as one fully affiliated BAFTA.

The Academy's awards are in the form of a theatrical mask designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, which was commissioned by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors in 1955. It has since become an internationally-recognised symbol of excellence in the art forms of the moving image.

In November 2007 a special tribute programme was shown on ITV in the UK celebrating 60 years of the organisation called 'Happy Birthday BAFTA'.

The Academy has been associated with the British monarchy since The Duke of Edinburgh became the British Film Academy's first president in the 1940s. The Earl Mountbatten of Burma and The Princess Royal have since held this position, and in 2010 Prince William became the newest Academy president.^[2]

Awards presented in London[link]

Film[link]

BAFTA's annual film awards ceremony is known as the British Academy Film Awards. It aims to reward the best work of any nationality seen on British cinema screens during the preceding year. Since 2008 the ceremony has been held at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden having previously taken place at the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square since 2000. The ceremony previously took place in April or May, but from 2002 onwards has taken place in February, in order to precede the Oscars.

In order for a film to be considered for a BAFTA nomination its first public exhibition must be in a cinema and it must have a UK theatrical release for no fewer than seven days in the calendar year that corresponds to the upcoming awards. A film must be feature length and films from all countries are eligible in all categories, with the exception of Outstanding British Film, Outstanding Debut, Short Film and Short Animation which are for British films only.

Rising Star Award[link]

Presented at the Orange British Academy Film Awards, the Orange Rising Star Award recognises exceptional new acting talent in the film industry. A shortlist of six nominees is selected by BAFTA juries regardless of the nominee's gender and nationality. The winner is then voted for by the public. This award is dedicated to the memory of Mary Selway, the highly respected BAFTA-winning British casting director who died in 2004.

Television[link]

The British Academy Television Awards usually take place in April or May, with craft awards having a separate ceremony slightly later in the year.

The awards are also often referred to simply as "the BAFTAs" or, to differentiate them from the film awards, the "BAFTA Television Awards". They have been awarded annually since 1954. The first ever ceremony consisted of six categories. Until 1958, they were awarded by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors.

From 1968 until 1997, the BAFTA Film and Television awards were presented in one joint ceremony known simply as the BAFTA Awards, but in order to streamline the ceremonies from 1998 onwards they were split in two. The Television Craft Awards are presented for more technical areas of the industry, such as visual effects, production, and costume design.

The awards are only open to British programmes — with the exception of the audience-voted YouTube Audience Award — but any cable, satellite, terrestrial or digital television stations broadcasting in the UK are eligible to submit entries, as are independent production companies who have produced programming for the channels. Individual performances can either be entered by the performers themselves or by the broadcasters. The programmes being entered must have been broadcast on or between 1 January and 31 December of the year preceding the awards ceremony.

"Baftagate"[link]

The 1991 awards were controversial when Prime Suspect beat G.B.H. to win the Best Drama Serial award. In what became known as "Baftagate",^[3] four of the jurors publicly declared that they had voted for G.B.H. and demanded to see the votes, but these had been destroyed.

Children's[link]

The British Academy Children's Awards are presented annually in November to reward excellence in the art forms of the moving image aimed at children. They have been awarded annually since 1969.

The Academy has a long history of recognising and rewarding children's programming, presenting two awards at the 1969 ceremony – The Flame of Knowledge Award for Schools Programmes and the Harlequin Award for Children's Programmes.

As of 2010 the Awards ceremony includes 19 categories across film, television, video games and online content. The 2009 Awards ceremony took place on 29 November at the London Hilton Hotel. BAFTA Children's Awards winners in 2009

Since 2007 the Children's Awards have included a Kids Vote Award voted by children under 14 and a CBBC Me and My Movie award, a children's filmmaking initiative to inspire and enable children to make their own films and tell their own stories.

Television Craft[link]

The Television Craft Awards are presented for the behind the camera skills involved television production. They have been awarded annually since 1999. In 2000 the awards were separated from the British Academy Television Awards. The Craft Awards also now include several categories associated with interactive media.

As of 2010, the awards included the following categories:

The 2010 Television Craft Awards took place on 23 May. British Academy Television Craft Awards winners in 2010

Video games[link]

BAFTA first recognised video games and other interactive media at its inaugural BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards ceremony in 1998, ushering in the first change to its rules since the admittance of television thirty years earlier. Among the first winning games were GoldenEye 007, Gran Turismo and interactive comedy MindGym, sharing the spotlight with the BBC News Online website which won the news category four years running. These awards allowed the Academy to recognise new forms of entertainment that were engaging new audiences and challenging traditional expressions of creativity.

In 2003, the sheer ubiquity of interactive forms of entertainment and the breadth of genres and platforms in video games outgrew the combined ceremony, and the event was split into the BAFTA Video Games Awards and the BAFTA Interactive Awards.^[4] By December 2003 however, despite making huge headlines with high profile winners like Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 the interactive division was discontinued and disappeared from BAFTA's publicity material after only two ceremonies.

In 2006, BAFTA announced its decision "to give video games equal status with film and television", and the Academy now positions video games as its third pillar of activity in recognition of its importance as an art form of the moving image. The same year the ceremony was held at The Roundhouse by Chalk Farm Road in North London on 5 October and was televised for the first time on 17 October and was aired on the digital channel E4.

The 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 ceremonies took place at the London Hilton Park Lane and were hosted by Dara Ó Briain. They were fully filmed and streamed live online at the official BAFTA website.

Awards presented in Los Angeles[link]

Britannia Awards[link]

The BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards started in 1989 and are held in October/November each year. The ceremony is described as being "a bridge between the Hollywood and British production and entertainment business communities."^[5] There are no awards given to specific films or TV programmes, only to individuals. During the first ten years, one award was given at each event, called the "Britannia Award for Excellence in Film", but since 1999 the number of awards has grown.

Awards given include 'The Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film' (the original award was renamed in 2000 to honour Stanley Kubrick), 'The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing' (added in 2003 in honour of John Schlesinger), the ‘Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year’, and the ‘Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment’. In select years, the evening has included the ‘BAFTA Los Angeles Humanitarian Award’.

The show has been broadcast on TV around the world, including the TV Guide Network in the United States.

• 1989 – Albert R. Broccoli
• 1990 – Michael Caine
• 1991 – No award held
• 1992 – Peter Ustinov
• 1993 – Martin Scorsese
• 1994 – No award held
• 1995 – Anthony Hopkins
• 1996 – Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein
• 1997 – Dustin Hoffman
• 1998 – John Travolta

The 1999 recipients were:

• Stanley Kubrick – Honoree for Excellence in Film
• Aaron Spelling – Honoree for Excellence in Television
• Tarsem Singh – Honoree for Excellence in Commercials Direction
• BBC – Honoree for Corporate Excellence

The 2000 recipients were:

• Steven Spielberg – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film

The 2001/2002 recipients were:

• George Lucas – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• HBO Original Programming – The Britannia Award for Excellence in Television

The 2003 recipients were:

• Hugh Grant – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Angela Lansbury – Britannia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Television and Film
• Howard Stringer – Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment
• Peter Weir – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing

The 2004 recipients were:

• Tom Hanks – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Helen Mirren – Britannia Award for Excellence in International Entertainment
• Jim Sheridan – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing

The 2005 recipients were:

• Tom Cruise – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Elizabeth Taylor – The Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in International Entertainment
• Mike Newell – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Ronald Neame – The Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film

The 2006 recipients were:

• Sidney Poitier – The Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film
• Rachel Weisz – The Britannia Award for Artist of the Year
• Anthony Minghella – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing

The 2007 recipients were:

• Denzel Washington – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Martin Campbell – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Kate Winslet – The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year
• New Line Cinema's Bob Shaye & Michael Lynne – Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film
• Richard Curtis – The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo

The 2008 recipients were:

• Sean Penn – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Tilda Swinton – The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year
• Stephen Frears – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Don Cheadle – The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo

The 2009 recipients were:

• Robert De Niro – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Danny Boyle – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Emily Blunt – The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year
• Colin Firth – The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo
• Kirk Douglas – Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment

The 2010 recipients were:

• Jeff Bridges – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Betty White – Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy
• Christopher Nolan – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Ridley Scott and Tony Scott – Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment
• Michael Sheen – The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year

The 2011 recipients were:

• Warren Beatty – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• John Lasseter – Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment
• David Yates – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing^[6]
• Helena Bonham Carter – Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year^[7]
• Ben Stiller - Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy

Awards presented in Scotland and in Wales[link]

BAFTA in Scotland[link]

BAFTA in Scotland is the branch of the Academy located in Glasgow, Scotland, mainly funded by the principal Scottish broadcasters. Formed in 1997, the BAFTA in Scotland branch holds an annual awards ceremony to recognise achievement by performers and production staff in Scottish film and television. The BAFTA Scotland Awards are separate from the UK-wide British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Film Awards, although films and programmes recognised by BAFTA in Scotland can also sometimes feature at BAFTA's UK awards. BAFTA Scotland Awards Winners in 2009

BAFTA in Scotland also holds an annual New Talent Awards ceremony focusing on new & emerging Scottish talent in the art forms of the moving image. New Talent Awards Winners in 2010.

BAFTA Cymru[link]

BAFTA in Wales or BAFTA Cymru is the branch of the Academy located in Wales. Formed in 1991, it holds an annual awards ceremony to recognise achievement by performers and production staff in films and television programmes made in Wales. The BAFTA Cymru Awards are separate from the UK-wide British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Film Awards, although films and programmes recognised by BAFTA Cymru may also feature at BAFTA's national awards.

Presidents and Vice Presidents[link]

Presidents

1. HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (1959–1965)
2. The Rt Hon The Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1966–1972)
3. HRH The Princess Royal (1973–2001)
4. The Rt Hon The Lord Attenborough (2001–2010)
5. HRH The Duke of Cambridge (2010–present)

Vice Presidents

1. The Rt Hon The Lord Attenborough (1973–1995)
2. The Rt Hon The Lord Puttnam (1995–2004)
3. Michael Grade (2004–2009)
4. Duncan Kenworthy (2009–present)
5. Sophie Turner Laing (2010–present)

See also[link]

• 2012 BAFTA Ceremony
• 2011 BAFTA Ceremony
• BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Media related to BAFTA Awards at Wikimedia Commons

• BAFTA official site
• BAFTA Los Angeles site
• BAFTA in Wales site
• BAFTA in Scotland site
• BAFTA in New York site
• IMDB: BAFTA
• Official Collaborator

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Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep in Spain, 2008
Born	Mary Louise Streep (1949-06-22) June 22, 1949 (age 63) Summit, New Jersey, U.S.
Alma mater	Vassar College; Yale School of Drama
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1971–present
Spouse	Don Gummer (m. 1978–present; 4 children)
Partner	John Cazale (1975–1978, his death)
Children	4 (including Mamie Gummer and Grace Gummer)

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949^[1]) is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She is widely regarded as one of the most talented actors of all time.^[2][3][4]

Streep made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville (1971), before her screen debut in the television movie Deadliest Season (1977). In that same year, she made her film debut with Julia (1977). Both critical and commercial success came quickly with roles in The Deer Hunter (1978) and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), the former giving Streep her first Academy Award nomination and the latter her first win. She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Sophie's Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011).

Streep has received 17 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and 26 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight, more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award. Her work has also earned her two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, an Australian Film Institute Award, five Grammy Award nominations, and a Tony Award nomination, amongst others. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2009 for her contribution to American culture through performing arts, the youngest actress in each award's history.

Early life and background[link]

Streep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey.^[5] Her mother, Mary Wolf (née Wilkinson; 1915-2001), was a commercial artist and former art editor, and her father, Harry William Streep, Jr. (1910-2003), was a pharmaceutical executive.^[6][7][8] She has two brothers, Dana David and Harry William III.^[9] Her patrilineal ancestry originates in Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, emigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor. Another line of her father's family was from Giswil in the canton of Obwalden, a small town in Switzerland. Her maternal ancestry originates in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and partly traces back to 17th century immigrants from England.^[8] Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle Rhode Island. Streep is also a distant relative of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and records show that her family were among the first purchasers of land in the state.^[10][11][12]

She was raised a Presbyterian,^[13][14] and grew up in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended Bernards High School.^[15] She had many school friends who were Catholic, and regularly attended Mass because she loved its rituals.^[16] She received her B.A., in Drama at Vassar College in 1971 (where she briefly received instruction from actress Jean Arthur), but also enrolled as an exchange student at Dartmouth College for a quarter before it became coeducational. She subsequently earned an M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama. While at Yale, she played a variety of roles onstage,^[17] from the glamorous Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream to an eighty-year-old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato.^[18][19][20]

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Streep performed in several theater productions in New York and New Jersey after graduating from Yale School of Drama,^[21] including the New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew with Raúl Juliá, and Measure for Measure opposite Sam Waterston and John Cazale. She started a relationship with Cazale, and was to live with him until his death three years later. She starred on Broadway in the Brecht/Weill musical Happy End, and won an Obie for her performance in the all-sung off-Broadway production of Alice at the Palace.

Streep by Jack Mitchell

Streep began auditioning for film roles, and later recalled an unsuccessful audition for Dino De Laurentiis for the leading female role in King Kong. De Laurentiis commented to his son in Italian, "She's ugly. Why did you bring me this thing?" and was shocked when Streep replied in fluent Italian.^[22] In New York City, she appeared in the 1976 Broadway double bill of Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays. For the former, she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Her other early Broadway credits include Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical Happy End in which she originally appeared off-Broadway at the Chelsea Theater Center. She received Drama Desk Award nominations for both productions.

Streep's first feature film was Julia (1977), in which she played a small but pivotal role during a flashback scene. Streep was living in New York City with Cazale, who had been diagnosed with bone cancer.^[23] He was cast in The Deer Hunter (1978), and Streep was delighted to secure a small role because it allowed her to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming. She was not specifically interested in the part, commenting, "They needed a girl between the two guys and I was it."^[24]

She played a leading role in the television miniseries Holocaust (1978) as a German woman married to a Jewish artist in Nazi era Germany. She later explained that she had considered the material to be "unrelentingly noble",^[24] and had taken the role only because she had needed money.^[25] Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death on March 12, 1978. She spoke of her grief and her hope that work would provide a diversion; she accepted a role in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) with Alan Alda, later commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot",^[24] and performed the role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park.^[26] With an estimated audience of 109 million, Holocaust brought a degree of public recognition to Streep, who was described in August 1978 as "on the verge of national visibility".^[25] She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie^[27] for her performance.

The Deer Hunter (1978) was released a month later, and Streep was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

Streep played a supporting role in Manhattan (1979) for Woody Allen, later stating that she had not seen a complete script and was given only the six pages of her own scenes,^[28] and that she had not been permitted to improvise a word of her dialogue.^[29] Asked to comment on the script for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), in a meeting with the producer Stan Jaffee, director Robert Benton and star Dustin Hoffman, Streep insisted that the female character was not representative of many real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles, and was written as "too evil".^[24] Jaffee, Benton and Hoffman agreed with Streep, and the script was revised.^[24] In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a mother and housewife with a career,^[30] and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set.^[24] Benton allowed Streep to write her dialogue in two of her key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman.^[31] Jaffee and Hoffman later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting, "She's extraordinarily hardworking, to the extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else but what she's doing."^[32]

Streep drew critical acclaim for her performance in each of her three films released in 1979: the romantic comedy Manhattan, the political drama The Seduction of Joe Tynan and the family drama, Kramer vs. Kramer.^[21] She was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress, National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her collective work in the three films. Among the awards won for Kramer vs. Kramer were the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.^[21]

1980s[link]

Streep at the 61st Academy Awards, 1989

After prominent supporting roles in two of the 1970s' most successful films, the consecutive winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer, and praise for her versatility in several supporting roles, Streep progressed to leading roles. Her first was The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981). A story within a story drama, the film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story as well as the Victorian era drama they were performing. A New York Magazine article commented that, while many female stars of the past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a "chameleon", willing to play any type of role.^[33] Streep was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work.

Her next film, the psychological thriller, Still of the Night (1982) reunited her with Robert Benton, the director of Kramer vs. Kramer, and co-starred Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy. Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, noted that the film was an homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, but that one of its main weaknesses was a lack of chemistry between Streep and Scheider, concluding that Streep "is stunning, but she's not on screen anywhere near long enough".^[34]

As the Polish holocaust survivor in Sophie's Choice (1982), Streep's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise.^[21] William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the part of Sophie, but Streep was very determined to get the role. After she obtained a pirated copy of the script, she went to Alan J. Pakula and threw herself on the ground begging him to give her the part. Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take and refused to do it again, as she found shooting the scene extremely painful and emotionally exhausting.^[35] Among several notable acting awards, Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. Roger Ebert said of her performance, "Streep plays the Brooklyn scenes with an enchanting Polish-American accent (she has the first accent I've ever wanted to hug), and she plays the flashbacks in subtitled German and Polish. There is hardly an emotion that Streep doesn't touch in this movie, and yet we're never aware of her straining. This is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine."

She followed this success with a biographical film, Silkwood (1983), in which she played her first real-life character, the union activist Karen Silkwood. She discussed her preparation for the role in an interview with Roger Ebert and said that she had met with people close to Silkwood to learn more about her, and in doing so realized that each person saw a different aspect of Silkwood.^[36] Streep concentrated on the events of Silkwood's life and concluded, "I didn't try to turn myself into Karen. I just tried to look at what she did. I put together every piece of information I could find about her... What I finally did was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside."^[36]

Her next films were a romantic drama, Falling in Love (1984) opposite Robert De Niro, and a British drama, Plenty (1985). Roger Ebert said of Streep's performance in Plenty that she conveyed "great subtlety; it is hard to play an unbalanced, neurotic, self-destructive woman, and do it with such gentleness and charm... Streep creates a whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms."^[37]

Out of Africa (1985) starred Streep as the Danish writer Karen Blixen and co-starred Robert Redford. A significant critical success, the film received a 63% "fresh" rating from Rotten Tomatoes.^[38] Streep co-starred with Jack Nicholson in her next two films, the dramas Heartburn (1986) and Ironweed (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time since the television movie, Secret Service, in 1977. In A Cry in the Dark (1988), she played the biographical role of Lindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman who had been convicted of the murder of her infant daughter in which Chamberlain claimed her baby had been taken by a dingo. Filmed in Australia, Streep won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and was nominated for several other awards for her portrayal of Chamberlain.

In She-Devil (1989), Streep played her first comedic film role, opposite Roseanne Barr. Richard Corliss, writing for Time, commented that Streep was the "one reason" to see the film and observed that it marked a departure from the type of role for which she had been known, saying, "Surprise! Inside the Greer Garson roles Streep usually plays, a vixenish Carole Lombard is screaming to be cut loose."^[39]

1990s[link]

From 1984 to 1990, Streep won six People's Choice Awards for Favorite Motion Picture Actress and, in 1990, was named World Favorite.

In the 1990s, Streep continued to choose a great variety of roles, including a drug-addicted movie actress in a screen adaptation of Carrie Fisher's novel Postcards from the Edge, with Dennis Quaid and Shirley MacLaine. Streep and Goldie Hawn had established a friendship and were interested in making a film together. After considering various projects, they decided upon Thelma and Louise, until Streep's pregnancy coincided with the filming schedule, and the producers decided to proceed with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis.^[22] They subsequently filmed the farcical black comedy, Death Becomes Her, with Bruce Willis as their co-star. Time's Richard Corliss wrote approvingly of Streep's "wicked-witch routine" but dismissed the film as "She-Devil with a make-over".^[40]

Biographer Karen Hollinger describes this period as a downturn in the popularity of Streep's films, which reached its nadir with the failure of Death Becomes Her, attributing this partly to a critical perception that her comedies had been an attempt to convey a lighter image following several serious but commercially unsuccessful dramas, and more significantly to the lack of options available to an actress in her forties.^{[41][clarification needed]} Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family,^[41] a situation that she had anticipated in a 1981 interview when she commented, "By the time an actress hits her mid-forties, no one's interested in her anymore. And if you want to fit a couple of babies into that schedule as well, you've got to pick your parts with great care."^[33]

In 1995, Streep played opposte Clint Eastwood in the love story The Bridges of Madison County (1995). Based on a best-selling novel by Robert James Waller,^[42] it relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for National Geographic, who has a love affair with a middle-aged Italian farm wife in Iowa named Francesca (Streep). Streep and Eastwood got along famously during production and such was their on-screen chemistry that a number of people believed that the two were having an affair off-camera, although this was denied by both.^[43] The film was a hit at the box office and grossed $70 million in the United States.^[44] The film, unlike the novel, surprised film critics and was warmly received. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that Clint had managed to create "a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill", while Joe Morgenstern of the The Wall Street Journal described The Bridges of Madison County as "one of the most pleasurable films in recent memory".^[44]

In 1999, Streep portrayed Roberta Guaspari, a real-life New Yorker who found passion and enlightenment teaching violin to inner-city kids in East Harlem, in the music drama Music of the Heart. A departure from director Wes Craven’s previous work on films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream series, Streep replaced singer Madonna who left the project before filming began due to creative differences with Craven. Required to perform on the violin, Streep went through two months of intense training, four to six hours a day.^[45]

In addition, Streep appeared with Glenn Close in the movie version of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits; The River Wild; Marvin's Room (with Diane Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio); and One True Thing.

2000s[link]

Streep entered the 2000s with Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a science fiction film about a child-like android, played by Haley Joel Osment, uniquely programmed with the ability to love, voicing the Blue Fairy.^[46] The same year, Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert concert with Liam Neeson which was held in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 2001 in honour of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the United Nations and Kofi Annan.^[47]

In 2002, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in The Public Theater's revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.^[48] The same year, she began work on Spike Jonze's comedy-drama Adaptation (2002), in which she portrayed real-life journalist Susan Orlean. Lauded by critics and viewers alike,^[49] the film won Streep her fourth Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category.^[50] Also in 2002, Streep appeared alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in Stephen Daldry's The Hours, based on the 1999 novel by Michael Cunningham. Focusing on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, the film was generally well received and won all three leading actresses a Silver Bear for Best Actress the following year.^[50]

Streep in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2004.

The following year, Streep had a cameo as herself in the Farrelly brothers comedy Stuck on You (2003) and reunited with Mike Nichols to star with Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's six-hour play Angels in America, the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop of Reagan Era politics. Streep, who was cast in four roles in the mini-series, received her second Emmy Award and fifth Golden Globe for her performance.^[50] In 2004, Streep was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute,^[50]. She appeared in Jonathan Demme's moderately successful remake of The Manchurian Candidate,^[51] co-starring Denzel Washington, playing the role of a woman who is both a U.S. senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of a vice-presidential candidate.^[52] The same year, she played the supporting role of Aunt Josephine in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events alongside Jim Carrey, based on the first three novels in Snicket's book series. The black comedy received generally favorable reviews from critics,^[53] and won the Academy Award for Best Makeup.^[54]

Streep was next cast in the 2005 comedy Prime, directed by Ben Younger. In the film, she played Lisa Metzger, the Jewish psychoanalyst of a divorced and lonesome business-woman, played by Uma Thurman, who enters a relationship with Metzger's 23-year-old son (Bryan Greenberg). A modest mainstream success, it eventually grossed US$67.9 million internationally.^[55] In August and September 2006, she starred onstage at The Public Theater's production of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park.^[56] The Public Theater production was a new translation by playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America), with songs in the Weill/Brecht style written by composer Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, or Change); veteran director George C. Wolfe was at the helm. Streep starred alongside Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton in this three-and-a-half-hour play in which she sang and appeared in almost every scene.

Also in 2006, Streep, along with Lily Tomlin, portrayed the last two members of what was once a popular family country music act in Robert Altman's final film A Prairie Home Companion. A comedic ensemble piece featuring Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline and Woody Harrelson, the film revolves around the behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name. The film grossed over US$26 million, the majority of which came from domestic markets.^[57] Commercially, Streep fared better with a role in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. Streep portrayed the powerful and demanding Miranda Priestly, fashion magazine editor (and boss of a recent college graduate played by Anne Hathaway), and her performance drew rave reviews from critics and earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as another Golden Globe. Upon its commercial release, the film became Streep's biggest commercial success yet, grossing more than US$326.5 million worldwide.^[58]

In 2007, Streep was cast in four films. She portrayed a wealthy university patron in Chen Shi-zheng's much-delayed feature drama Dark Matter (2007), a film about a Chinese science graduate student who becomes violent after dealing with academic politics at a U.S. university. Inspired by the events of the 1991 University of Iowa shooting,^[59] and initially scheduled for a 2007 release, producers and investors decided to shelve Dark Matter out of respect for the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007.^[60] The drama received negative to mixed reviews upon its limited 2008 release.^[61] Streep played a U.S. government official who investigates an Egyptian foreign national suspected of terrorism in the political thriller Rendition (2007), directed by Gavin Hood.^[62] Keen to get involved in a thriller film, Streep welcomed the opportunity to star in a film genre for which she was not usually offered scripts and immediately signed on to the project.^[63] Upon its release, Rendition was less commercially successful,^[64] and received mixed reviews.^[65]

Also in 2007, Streep had a short role alongside Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close and her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer in Lajos Koltai's drama film Evening, based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot. Switching between the present and the past, it tells the story of a bedridden woman, who remembers her tumultuous life in the mid-1950s.^[66] The film was released to lukewarm reactions by critics, who called it "beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull [and] a colossal waste of a talented cast."^[67][68] Streep's last film of 2007 was Robert Redfords Lions for Lambs, a film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor.

Streep with her fellow cast and all four members of ABBA at the Swedish premiere of Mamma Mia! in July 2008.

In 2008, Streep found major commercial success when she starred in Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia!, a film adaptation of the musical of the same name, based on the songs of Swedish pop group ABBA. Co-starring Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth, Streep played a single mother and a former backing singer, whose daughter (Seyfried), a bride-to-be who never met her father, invites three likely paternal candidates to her wedding on an idyllic Greek island.^[69] An instant box office success, Mamma Mia! became Streep's highest-grossing film to date, with box office receipts of US$602.6 million,^[70] also ranking it first among the highest-grossing musical films of all-time.^[71] Nominated for another Golden Globe, Streep's performance was generally well received by critics, with Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe commenting "the greatest actor in American movies has finally become a movie star."^[72] Streep's other film of 2008 was Doubt featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. A drama revolving around the stern principal nun (Streep) of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 who brings charges of pedophilia against a popular priest (Hoffman), the film became a moderate box office success,^[73] but was hailed by many critics as one of the best of 2008.^[74] The film received five Academy Awards nominations, for its four lead actors and for Shanley's script.^[50]

In 2009, Streep played chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia, co-starring Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci. The first major motion picture based on a blog, it contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days, a challenge she described on her popular blog, The Julie/Julia Project, that would make her a published author. The same year, Streep also starred in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy It's Complicated, with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. She also received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for both of these films and won the award for the former.^[75] Streep later received her 16th Oscar nomination for Julie & Julia.^[76] She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in the stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox.

2010s[link]

Streep's first film of the 2010s was Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady (2011), a British biographical film about Margaret Thatcher, which takes a look at the Prime Minister during the Falklands War and her years in retirement.^[77] Streep, who sat through a session at the House of Commons to observe British MPs in action in preparation for her role,^[78] called her cast "a daunting and exciting challenge," and further added: "I am trying to approach the role with as much zeal, fervour and attention to detail as the real Lady Thatcher possesses – I can only hope my stamina will begin to approach her own."^[79] While the film met with mixed critics, Streep's performance got rave reviews, earning her Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs as well as a third statuette at the Academy Awards.^[80][81][82]

In July 2010, it was announced that Streep will star in an upcoming comedy entitled Mommy & Me alongside Tina Fey who will play her daughter. The film is being directed by Stanley Tucci.^[83]

Accents and dialects[link]

Streep is well known for her ability to imitate foreign and domestic accents,^[21] from Danish in Out of Africa (1985); to British RP in Plenty (also 1985), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) and The Iron Lady (2011); and from Italian in The Bridges of Madison County (1995); to a Minnesota accent in A Prairie Home Companion (2006). In A Cry in the Dark (1988), critics were impressed with Streep's ability to master an Australian accent with shades of New Zealand English.^[84] For her role in the film Sophie's Choice (1982), she took language courses to speak both English and German with a Polish accent. In The Iron Lady, she reproduced the vocal style of Margaret Thatcher, from the time before she became Britain's Prime Minister, and after she had taken elocution lessons to change her pitch, pronunciation and delivery. Despite the accolades accorded to her, Streep has emphasised that adopting accents is an element she simply considers an obvious part of creating a character. When asked whether accents helped her get into character, she responded, "I'm always baffled by this question... How could I play that part and talk like me?" When questioned as to how she reproduces different accents, Streep replied, "I listen."^[85]

Music[link]

After Streep appeared in Mamma Mia!, her rendition of the song "Mamma Mia" rose to popularity in the Portuguese music charts, where it peaked at #8 in October 2008.^[86]

At the 35th People's Choice Awards, her version of Mamma Mia won an award for "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack".^[87] In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on the Mamma Mia! soundtrack.

Philanthropy[link]

Streep is the spokesperson for the National Women's History Museum, to which she has donated a significant amount of money (including her fee for The Iron Lady) and hosted numerous events. ^[88]

Personal life[link]

Streep lived with actor John Cazale for three years until his death in March 1978.^[89][90] Streep married sculptor Don Gummer on September 15, 1978.^[91] They have four children: Henry "Hank" Wolfe Gummer (born November 13, 1979), Mary Willa "Mamie" Gummer (born August 3, 1983), Grace Jane Gummer (born May 9, 1986), and Louisa Jacobson Gummer (born June 12, 1991). Both Mamie and Grace are actresses.^[6] Hank is a musician who performs under the name Henry Wolfe.^[92]

When asked if religion plays a part in her life, in an interview in 2009, Streep replied, "I follow no doctrine. I don't belong to a church or a temple or a synagogue or an ashram."^[93] Streep does not rule out the possibility that God exists, “I do have a sense of trying to make things better. Where does that come from?”^[94]

Awards and nominations[link]

Streep receiving her honorary degree from Harvard University on May 27, 2010

In 1999, Streep was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.^[95] Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, having been nominated 17 times since her first nomination in 1979 for her performance in The Deer Hunter (fourteen for Best Actress and three for Best Supporting Actress) – five more than both Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson, who are tied in second place.^[96] With her third Oscar win for her performance as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011) in 2012, Streep became the fifth performer to receive three Academy Awards: Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan all earned three, while Hepburn won four.^[97]

In 2009, Streep became the most-nominated performer in Golden Globe Awards history when her double lead actress nods for Doubt (2008) and Mamma Mia! (2008) gave her 23 in total, breaking the tie with Jack Lemmon, who had received 22 lead nominations before his death in 2001.^[98] The following year, Streep surpassed Jack Nicholson and Angela Lansbury, with six Golden Globe awards wins each, after receiving her seventh Globe for her performance as Julia Child in Julie & Julia (2009).^[98] In 2012, she broke her own record when she garnered her 26th nomination and overall eighth win for The Iron Lady at the 69th Golden Globe Awards.

As with both the Oscars and the Golden Globe Awards, Streep holds the BAFTA record for most nominations at 14 in total.^[99] She received her second Best Actress award for The Iron Lady at the 65th ceremony in February 2012, following her first win in 1981 for her performance in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981).^[99]

In 1983, Yale University, from which Streep graduated in 1975,^[100] was the first university to award her an honorary degree, a Doctorate of Fine Arts.^[101] In 1998, Women in Film awarded Streep with the Crystal Award, an honor for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.^[102] The same year, Streep received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 2003, Streep was awarded an honorary César Award by the French Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma. In 2004, at the Moscow International Film Festival, Streep was honored with the Stanislavsky Award for the outstanding achievement in the career of acting and devotion to the principles of Stanislavsky's school. Also in 2004, Streep received the AFI Life Achievement Award. In 2008, Streep was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.^[103] In 2009, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by Princeton University.^[104] In 2010, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree by Harvard University.^[105][106]

On December 4, 2011 (program aired on CBS-TV on December 27, 2011), Streep received the 2011 Kennedy Center Honor (along with Neil Diamond, Yo-Yo Ma, Sonny Rollins, and Barbara Cook). On February 14, 2012, Streep received the Honorary Golden Bear at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival.^[107] She previously won the Berlinale Camera at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival in 1999.^[108]

Selected filmography[link]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Film portal
	Theatre portal
	Television portal

• List of people from New Jersey
• List of American actresses
• List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories

References[link]