Never mind cerulean. Meryl Streep was just plain blue.
The Oscar winner says that Method acting as joyless magazine editor Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada” made her depressed.
“It was horrible! I was miserable in my trailer,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “I could hear [the cast and crew] all rocking and laughing. I was so depressed! I said, ‘Well, it’s the price you pay for being boss’.”
She added, “That’s the last time I ever attempted a Method thing!”
Method acting is the technique of remaining in character even when the camera stops rolling.
It might not have brought her much joy at the time, but the 2006 flick did earn her an Oscar.
The Fox film just had its 15th anniversary and the cast recently celebrated with a reunion for Entertainment Weekly, where it was revealed that Rachel McAdams was the studio’s first choice for the lead role of Priestly’s assistant which went to Anne Hathaway in the end.
Director David Frankel told EW that Streep had been instrumental in getting Hathaway the gig after seeing her short performance in “Brokeback Mountain.” “Meryl watched that scene from [“Brokeback Mountain”], she met with her and called up [the Fox chairman Tom Rothman] and said, ‘Yeah, this girl’s great, and I think we’ll work well together’.”
But Hathaway was equally persuasive. Former Fox president Elizabeth Gabler told the magazine, “Annie never gave up. She never stopped campaigning, calling, she came into [Fox executive] Carla Hacken’s office and wrote in her zen garden, ‘Hire me.'”