Results of poll #17

A few weeks ago I posted a poll asking people to vote on what kind of project they think we'll see Meryl do next. I have to admit I was little surprised to see that the #1 choice was a feature film adaptation for original screenplay leading role. I honestly don't remember what I chose, but it was either also this or a lead role in a limited series. Either way, I'd like to see her do a leading role that is not necessarily a biopic. Not that I'd be against the latter, but I'd love something fresh, original, and hopefully complex. 

After the 48.4% first choice, the two distant second place vote-getters were a biopic lead role in a feature film and a stage performance with 13.97%. I've had a lot of people mention that they'd love to see Meryl do a stage run again at some point. While I love that idea for her, I selfishly would prefer that she spend her time making something that I can view remotely (and multiple times). Although it would give me a reason to take a trip to New York to see her on stage (or wherever she'd be).  

Hopefully the actors' strike gets resolved soon. Not that I expect that the day after we'll get news of five new projects for Meryl, but if there's something brewing, it may be on the verge of getting announced once a deal is struck between SAG and the studios. Which after last night's latest offer rejection over the use of AI, it doesn't look like things will be changing anytime soon. 

Poll #17: What kind of project will Meryl do next?

You all know how impatient I get when waiting around to find out what Meryl's going to do next. There's been a dearth of projects that showcase her front and center over the past three years. I'm hoping we receive news soon of something exciting on the horizon. A lead role in a film would be great, but also would a juicy limited series. As much as I'd love to see Meryl in a play, we can only watch that once so I tend toward wanting something on screen. 

What do you think we'll get from her next?

Results of poll #16

The results are in for the latest poll, which asked readers which role they most wish they could've seen Meryl do. The full results can be seen here, but I thought I'd comment a bit on the top vote-getters. The top five selections (among those which I specifically listed as options) were 1) Eva Perón in Evita, 2) Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams, 3) Maria Callas in Master Class, 4) Fern in Nomadland, and 5) Martha Mitchell in Dirty Tricks. I was a little pleasantly surprised how high this last option scored (even though it only garnered three votes ha). 

I chose Master Class (Thelma & Louise I think would've been my second choice), mostly because I'm an opera nerd and it would've been so great to see Meryl team with Mike Nichols one last time. Alas it was not meant to be. 

The actual second-place selection was "other." I thought I had set up the poll to allow folks to write in their selections, but maybe that didn't work (or maybe nobody wanted to). But I'm fascinated to know if people had other specific roles in mind! It was only six votes, but it tied with Eva Perón for the top spot. For anyone who chose "other" I'd love it if you'd be willing to comment on the rationale for your selections (unless you simply didn't like any of my suggestions and didn't have an actual other project in mind, which is of course fine as well). 

Any other suggestions on future polls?

Poll #16: "Which role do you most wish you could have seen Meryl do?"

Next week, I'm going to wrap up my supporting recasting project with my final role selection. With all the thinking I've been doing in the last few years between this project and my (mostly) lead recasting series, I thought it would be interesting to just put out a poll to see people's ideas on which roles they would've most liked to see Meryl do. I did a smaller version of this question six years ago, but that one only consisted of movies for which Meryl was originally attached and didn't end up doing. I have chosen twenty titles that span projects Meryl was attached to but someone else did, projects that she was never in consideration for (that I know of), and those for which she was announced to star, but that never got made at all. I think all the them have been included in my lead recasting project or my "Should Coulda Wouldas" tab. For ease, I have only included lead roles. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Please take the opportunity to check the last option of "other" and include your own write-in, and feel free to then expand on your selection in the comments. I'm excited to see everyone's choices!

Results of poll #15

Folks have made their choices for which film of Meryl's they feel should have been nominated for Best Picture, and was not. The results are as follows:

Doubt 29.55%

Silkwood 20.45%

Sophie's Choice 18.18%

The Devil Wears Prada 13.64%

The Bridges of Madison County 11.36%

Adaptation 6.82%

August: Osage County 0%

Into the Woods 0%

I can't really argue with Doubt. I think it's a great movie and regularly revisit it. I definitely would've ranked it ahead of both The Reader and Frost/Nixon that year. I'm a little surprised by how low Adaptation came in. I voted for it, just because of all the films of Meryl's that were not nominated for Best Picture, this might be the best, in my opinion. But when trying to decide which film I would push out of the top five that year. Maybe The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. As much as I enjoy Chicago, Adaptation is probably the superior film as well. 

Good to see that Silkwood and Sophie's Choice were up there at the top as well. Those also just happen to be two of Streep's likely top five performances in my view, with Sophie's Choice number one. 

Poll #15: Which Meryl film should've been nominated for Best Picture?

This question was suggested in the comments of my last poll, and I thought it would be a great one to consider. It's interesting that Meryl has been in three films in the last five years that were nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards (The Post, Little Women, Don't Look Up). She was of course only nominated for The Post. She hadn't been nominated for a film that also had a Best Picture nom since way back in 1985 (Out of Africa)! 

I think it's means something extra when a lead actor or even supporting actor gets individually recognized for their performance in a film that's nominated for the top prize. So often Meryl is the best thing in her films, and she can make, what would otherwise be a bit of a stinker perhaps (see The Iron Lady, for example), a decent film due simply to the fact that she's so good and on screen all the time. 

So with that in mind, which film(s) do you think were deserving of that top nomination? 

Results of poll #14

A big thank-you to all those who took the survey and/or commented on this latest post. I was pleasantly surprised by the interaction and examples folks communicated on which role they each felt was most underrated for Meryl. The top five scorers were:

The Hours (21.95%)

Doubt (12.2%)

Plenty (9.76%)

Ironweed (9.76%)

Marvin's Room (7.32%)

It's pretty easy to see why The Hours was ranked number one. Meryl's performance was so sensitive and layered, and she got overshadowed by Nicole Kidman's turn as Virginia Woolf. I think Meryl's exceptional reviews for Adaptation that same year sort of contributed to the tendency toward less attention on her performance as Clarissa Vaughan in The Hours. From an awards standpoint, Clarissa was likely more the lead character than was Virginia, but it's tough with basically three roles splitting up the movie. It could've gone either way, and Kidman's was the more transformative role. 

Totally agree with Doubt too! Yes, she was nominated for it, but she gets dragged for it being too hammy. I think it's a stunning performance that few could've come close to giving it the justice Meryl did. I love Plenty and in a year other than the same year as Out of Africa, Streep would've gotten a lot more attention. Ironweed's great, just not a lot of people saw it (although she ended up getting nominated). And yes, her performance/role in Marvin's Room might not be as baity as Diane Keaton's (fun fact--Meryl was originally going to play Bessie with Anjelica Huston playing Lee), but I love that Meryl played Lee, as up to that point she's portrayed the suffering one so often. It was great to see her rather flawed and even somewhat unkind or cold in the mid 90s, and not in a comedic way. Overlooked, no question.  

Poll #14: Which Streep performance is the most underrated?

For whatever reason, I've been wanting to watch Let Them All Talk all the time lately. I don't know if it's the fact that they're on a beautiful boat, or that I enjoy the storyline, or the performances. All of these things are appealing about the film to me, but watching it back again, I realized that it's actually an amazing performance by Meryl. So many subtleties and nuances in both the serious and lighthearted moments. It got me thinking how underrated this role is probably going to end up being when one looks back on her filmography. So I thought it would be a great idea for a poll! 

As always, the films on my list are not an exhaustive list. It's easy to immediately think about her non-nominated performances, as it's hard to consider a role that landed an actor an Academy Award nomination and/or win to be considered underrated or somehow undervalued. But I argue that it could be. I'll be curious to see what people think.  

Results of poll #13

Three weeks ago, I posted a poll question of whom folks would like to see Meryl portray in a biopic. The results are as follows:

Eleanor Roosevelt (29.03%)

Greta Garbo (16.13%)

Jane Goodall (12.9%)

Marie Curie (9.68%)

Helen Keller (9.68%)

Susan B. Anthony (6.45%)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (6.45%)

Hillary Clinton (3.13%)

Helen Suzman (3.23%)

other (3.22%)

I chose Greta Garbo. We all of course know of Garbo in the early days of Hollywood film making. But there's not a lot out there about how exactly she spent her time after retiring from the screen at a rather young age. A couple of years ago, I read the Barry Paris biography Garbo, and couldn't help but picture a feature film that speculated on the later years of Garbo's reclusive life in New York City.  And Meryl would get to do a Swedish accent! 

Eleanor Roosevelt would be a great one too. Of course it would have to be her later years, most likely after FDR passed, when Eleanor would've been 60. I've always thought it would be interesting to cover her relationship with reporter Lorena Hickock, which was rumored to be romantic. A while back I had thought how fun it would be to pair Miriam Margolyes with Meryl as the pair (I save Kathy Bates for the role of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in a biopic of Susan B. Anthony). We already have a taste of what Meryl would sound like as Eleanor, as she voiced her in the Ken Burns documentary The Roosevelts in 2014. It's a very distinct voice. Showtime is premiering a series entitled The First Lady sometime this year, with Gillian Anderson portraying Roosevelt. Maybe since Anderson portrayed the TV version of Margaret Thatcher in The Crown and Meryl the film version in The Iron Lady, they could do something similar with Eleanor. One can dream. 

Time will only tell if we get to see Meryl portray any of the above amazing women...or someone no one has thought of! 

Poll #13: Whom would you like to next see Meryl portray in a biopic?

Whenever we're in a sort of lull in casting news for Meryl, I tend to ruminate on possibilities of what might come. As Meryl approaches her 73rd birthday this summer, the options for roles, much less lead roles, are growing slimmer and slimmer. So often biopics don't portray people primarily in their old(er) age. But I suspect there are a handful of reasonable prospects our there still. I'm going to offer a few suggestions below and hope folks will feel right to add any I haven't listed or thought of. I'm purposely leaving Lilly Ledbetter, Diana Nyad and Golda Meir off the list, since pics of them have already been recently cast with other actors. 

Source material in general for meaty Streep roles is the key to us seeing her in good stuff and working with great directors. I've recently added a few novels to my to-read list with female protagonists over 60, which after reading I plan to comment on the blog about whether I think they'd be good fits for Meryl, were they adapted to the screen. Maybe Meryl will read my posts and snatch up the rights to one of them before Frances McDormand can swoop in and win her fourth (acting) Oscar it. 

Then there's always original screenplays. Like Places, Please. I still think it's weird how completely absent any talk of that project has been since it was first announced almost a year ago now. Hopefully we get some news about what next soon. Of course I'm also curious to learn exactly what Meryl's role will end up being in Extrapolations. Until then, fire away at the biopic role poll.

Results of Poll #12

It's been three weeks since I posted the poll asking which nominations folks thought Don't Look Up might snag at the Oscars. Well, things have changed a bit since that post...namely, the film was seen by a lot of people. Were I to create the same poll now, I expect the results would be much different. At the time, most people (myself included) thought Meryl stood a decent chance at a nomination for Actress in a Supporting Role. That just happened to be the number-one selection in the poll at 14%. After the film's tepid reviews, I think her chances are extremely thin. But after the Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations, it's not wild to think the film itself, Leonardo DiCaprio, and original song might crack their respective categories. Full results are as below:

Poll #12: What Oscar nominations will "Don't Look Up" receive?

We're going to start getting some official reviews of Don't Look Up the first week of December. Early notices look positive, and momentum seems to be building that this could be a serious contender at the Academy Awards. I realize this may be a little early, as most, if not all of us have not yet seen the movie. But part of the fun of awards season is speculation! With that in mind, I'm curious to see where people think this has the best chance for nominations. Early buzz indicates Picture, Director and Actor in a Leading Role (Leonardo DiCaprio) are good bets, with Meryl in Supporting Actress, Mark Rylance or Jonah Hill in Supporting Actor, and Original Song as possibilities as well. 

Would love to see Meryl get nominated in another film that's nominated for Best Picture. Christmas can't come soon enough!

Results of poll #11

The results are in, and Elizabeth Moss topped the (very non-exhaustive) list of whom people would like to see portray Meryl's daughter if when Places, Please films. Moss had double the votes of the next closest vote-getters, Emma Stone and Michelle Williams (both with six). 

I think Moss would be a great choice, and she has a bit of resemblance to Streep as well. She's a big TV star, less so a movie star, but absolutely has the chops to hold her own with Meryl on the big screen. 

I'd be curious to know what others' choices were for anyone who selected "other" on the poll. As mentioned, the list was simply actresses who came to mind for me, and there are likely countless others out there who would be excellent options. 

Fingers still crossed that this gets underway soon so that we have something new to see Meryl in next year!

Poll #11: Who should play Meryl's daughter when (and if?) "Places, Please" is cast?

I had mentioned in my last post that I might do a poll of whom people think should be cast as Meryl's daughter in the (hopefully) upcoming film, Places, Please. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I've commented below the poll on a couple to which I might be partial. I figure it's likely to not be a HUGE name, as the role is probably more a supporting one. But you never know...it is a chance to work with Meryl, after all.  

For whatever reason, Phoebe Waller-Bridge seems like a good choice. I've never actually seen Fleabag, but she seems really cool on awards shows and it well-respected as far as I know. And I had no idea she was in The Iron Lady AND Albert Nobbs in the same year! I've currently been watching the 2013 limited series The White Queen (I have a bit of an obsession with the history of the English monarchy and particularly the Wars of the Roses), and I think Rebecca Ferguson is great. Both she and Waller-Bridge seem good from a resemblance standpoint too. With that in mind, I realize I've chosen all white actresses in this list. I expect that the casting won't be "outside of the box" in that they'd cast a person of color (not that Lillian Hall couldn't have had a child with a non-white gentleman or have adopted a child outside her own race). I tend to think that some might find that a bit contrived, but regardless, I'd be here for it. 

I'm hoping this poll wills this film (or any new project) into existence. For all we know, they're already shooting. 

Results of poll #10

The results are in from last week's poll which asked "which Streep film or performance left you particularly disappointed." Below are the results:  

Not super surprising that The Prom came in #1. I think many of use were excited to see Meryl team up with Ryan Murphy. Her singing and acting were wonderful, and I still really like the soundtrack, but it just didn't pack the kind of punch we were hoping for. 

This might surprise a few readers, but I'm one of those who chose August: Osage County. For no other film role did I get as excited for a Streep performance than I was when I learned she and Julia Roberts were going to star in it. I had seen the play and adored it. And when confirmation of the film's production was delayed by over a year, I remember pining for it's possibility, much like I eventually did for The Good House, Master Class and The Nix. But August actually got made (with Meryl)! It was one of the most buzzed films and performances that I can remember leading up to the film festival and awards seasons. Yes, Streep had just won her third Oscar for The Iron Lady the year prior, but even with that "overdue" status, many thought Meryl's performance in August may end up being of the "undeniable" caliber, based on the written character and pedigree of Tracy Letts's play. 

Alas, while Streep did achieve an Oscar nomination (it's a remarkable performance in its own right), she  probably just sneaked in the top five that year. Moreover, reactions to the film were rather tepid compared to expectations. I agree with CJames in the comments section on last week's post, in that this film had so much potential to be outstanding, but was instead watered down and cut down to a subpar shell of its staged glory. Meryl's role included. In the hands of a different director perhaps, or from a different studio that didn't insist in shaving down the running time, we would've gotten a more thorough and therefore more compelling examination of the mighty Weston family. It's hard to overestimate the importance a film's success (mostly critically) is for its actors' chances at recognition. Had August been a film that captured the irresistible family dynamics and emotional tone of, say, Ordinary People, we might have gotten a true American classic, as well as a performance for the ages. 

Results of poll #9

Last week, I reinstated the poll tag on the blog! Folks made their choice in response to the question, "Besides 'Sophie's Choice,' what was Meryl's best screen performance?"

Below are the top five results:

1. Doubt

2. The Bridges of Madison County

3. The Devil Wears Prada

4. A Cry in the Dark

5. (tie) Adaptation, Silkwood

I have to admit, I'm a little surprised that Doubt came out on top. I'm certainly not complaining. I absolutely LOVE that movie and performance. I think a lot of people find Meryl's portrayal of Sister Aloysius a bit over the top. It might be a tad, but I think it's splendid. Bridges is an excellent choice too. I happened to select A Cry in the Dark. Her performance as a ordinary woman from Australia thrown into extraordinary circumstances was both mesmerizing and heartbreaking. And she did a wonderful job with a very difficult accent (I always love that). 

I'd be curious to know why other people chose what they did. And specifically which role those who selected "other" would've chosen?  Big Little Lies? I'm also surprised more people didn't choose Angels in America. The scenes as Ethel Rosenberg are probably top five for me in Meryl's career.

Any suggestions for the next poll?

A new poll!

I've missed being able to do polls on this site. The interaction and opinions from readers are always a fun aspect. A couple of years ago, Blogger for some lame reason discontinued that widget. I tried one from a different site but didn't like it much, so I kind of just left it alone. It's been on my mind to revisit it, and I think the one I found actually seems pretty good, so I decided to give it a try. Hopefully it works out! I'll wait to divulge my choice until I close the poll in a week. 

Results of poll #8

Two weeks ago I posted a poll asking voters to consider with which leading man Meryl had the best chemistry. Recall that Blogger discontinued the poll feature (stupidly) and I therefore had to find an outside option for running the poll. I don't like that people weren't able to see a running tally of the voting, but I didn't want to pay for that option yet, as I'm not sure I'll use the same website in the future.

Anyway, forgive me for the janky photo below, but I made a screenshot of the results to then post here:

I have to admit, I'm rather surprised that Clint Eastwood came in first. I agree that he and Meryl had good chemistry in Bridges, but for him to finish on top with only Stanley Tucci in Julie & Julia coming close was not what I was expecting. Again, my favorite was Kevin Kline, but as you can see, he didn't fare so well. Glad to see no one got zero votes!

Thoughts for new polls?

Poll #8: With which leading man did Meryl have the best chemistry?

It's been over three months since I've posted a poll so I figured we were due. Blogger has kind of been pissing me off lately, as they had issues with sending email notifications for comments for several weeks, and have also now discontinued they very easy-to-use poll gadget. So, it may look a little different that usual, as I've had to use an outside format.

Meryl has shared the screen with a wide array of leading men over the years, a handful on more than one occasion. I thought it'd be fun to consider who her best leading man has been.

Check out the choices to the right of the page, and of course comment if your favorite does not show up on the list. I'd be interested to read people's other choices, as I couldn't include everyone.

I'd have to say that mine is Kevin Kine in Sophie's Choice. I believe that Meryl had seen him in a play and recommended him to director Alan Pakula. It was Kline's first film role and for me, Meryl and Kevin were just a tragically fantastic pairing as Sophie and Nathan.

Happy voting!

Results of poll #7

The results are in for poll #7, where I asked readers to vote on whether or not they think Meryl will win another Oscar. We have a tie! Only three of 35 voters thought she never would, while with ten votes each, people thought she had an equal likelihood of winning for a leading role in either a novel/play adaptation or an original role. I happened to choose the 'leading role in a biopic,' but that option only garnered four votes.

I'm actually a little surprised that not more people chose the biopic option, as the Academy tends to foam at the mouth for such roles. That said, Meryl's played a lot of real-life characters, her most recent win of course coming for portraying Margaret Thatcher (and her last two noms were for biopics in Florence Foster Jenkins and The Post), so it may be more of a novelty and therefore more likely to reward her for a brilliant, even surprising performance of a role created in someone's mind.

As always, I'm open to any suggestions for polls people want to see!