Streep interview on "August" and "Into the Woods"

Meryl is busy filming Into the Woods in London, but thankfully she had a few moments this week to sit down for an interview to talk about the Sondheim adaptation and the soon to be released August: Osage County.  This is basically the first we've heard from Meryl on the story and development of both August and her character, Violet:

“The reason I did was [that] a very dear friend said to me, ‘You had a great mother. She gave you your appetite for experience, curiosity, sense of humor. Your mother sang in the kitchen and mine hit me. Your mother made you feel you could do anything. Mine made me feel like I couldn’t do anything. You have to do this for me and for all the girls like me who had bad mothers, who made it in spite of that, who got out, and for all the ones who didn’t and to let them know it’s OK to leave that behind.’"

“She really made a case. I thought, OK, because when you’re a young actor, you think, oh yeah, it’ll be so cool to imagine having cancer and what’s it like to be close to death and then your family hates you…I really want to take that all on.  When you’re older and things happen to you, you bleed more easily. It costs more to go into that territory. You just don’t want to…but, I thought, I am going to do that for my friend because it made sense to me."

It's a great article with some fantastic insights from Meryl about Violet and her role as The Witch in Into the Woods.    Coincidentally, August: Osage County is currently up to 71% on Rotten Tomatoes.