Meryl Streep: 8 Golden Globe Winning Performances

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Meryl Streep and her 8 Golden Globes

Meryl Streep and her 8 Golden Globes
The Iron Lady – 2011
Julie and Julia – 2009
The Devil Wears Prada – 2006
Meryl-Streep-Angels-in-America
Adaptation – 2002
Sophie’s Choice – 1982
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – 1981
Kramer Vs. Kramer – 1979

For the 2017 Golden Globe Awards ceremony, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association chose Meryl Streep for the coveted Cecil B. DeMille life achievement award. It goes annually to someone who has made “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.” Streep by far holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations (an astonishing 29!), as well as the record for the most competitively-won Golden Globes (eight). One of the other remarkable landmarks that Streep has achieved is the fact that her record eight Globe trophies are from four different categories. Let’s take a look back in this photo gallery at the performances that brought her those eight honors.

Winning Globe Category: Best Film Drama Actress. Director: Phyllida Lloyd. Writer: Abi Morgan. Starring Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent.
Although director Phyllida Lloyd’s take on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s glory days as leader of the UK received mixed reviews (particularly in Britain), Streep’s performance as The Iron Lady received strong notices across the board. Her performance encompasses Thatcher’s early years working in her family’s grocery, trying to break into politics, her quick upward movement in the Tory Party, her world-wide fame for her controversial rule as Prime Minister and finally her descent into dementia. Streep brought all of her vast skill sets to the role, which the HFPA recognized with her eighth Golden Globe Award and, a few weeks later, her third Academy Award.

Winning Globe Category: Best Film Comedy/Musical Actress. Writer/Director: Nora Ephron. Starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina.
Streep continued her successful partnership with Amy Adams in this film by Nora Ephron, which is based on the autobiography of master chef Julia Child (Streep) and a blog written by New York home cook Julie Powell (Adams) who set out to cook every one of the 524 recipes in Child’s landmark cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Ephron structured the film to cross-cut Child’s story of attending Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris in the 1950s with Powell’s quest to conquer Child’s cookbook shortly after 9/11 in New York. In her Golden Globe-winning performance, Streep once again demonstrated her flair for comedy in a film whose tones are closer to the light airiness of one of Child’s souffles than with the dark complexity of her beef bourguignon.

Winning Globe Category: Best Film Comedy/Musical Actress. Director: David Frankel. Writer: Aline Brosh McKenna. Starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci.
Streep’s iconic comedy performance as fashionista terrorista Miranda Priestly was a sensation in 2006 and brought Streep her sixth Golden Globe. In a character thought by many to be loosely based on imperious Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Streep’s Priestly mowed down any fashion poser who got in her way with a deadly combination of condescension and snark. But in addition to the dry comedy, Streep also managed to add a deep layer of insecurity to Miranda’s domineering persona. Though we only see it in moments, that fear is definitely there thanks to Streep’s understanding of the character, giving Miranda Priestly a certain kind of gravitas that you rarely see in comedy performances. That’s all.

Winning Globe Category: Best TV Movie/Miniseries Actress. Director: Mike Nichols. Writer: Tony Kushner. Starring Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Jeffrey Wright.
Tony Kushner’s epic drama about, among other things, AIDS in America, is a landmark in LGBT drama, and Mike Nichols’ sensitive yet fearless handling of Tony Kushner’s award-winning play as a six-hour HBO mini-series still resonates to this date. The miniseries also provided Streep a challenge that she has rarely faced in her career — the opportunity to play four different roles in one film. Her performances as the mother of a closeted Mormon with AIDS, executed spy Ethel Rosenberg, an Australian angel and a male rabbi (!) dazzled the Globe voters and resulted in her first (and only) Golden Globe Award for a performance for television.

Winning Globe Category: Best Film Supporting Actress. Director: Spike Jonze. Writer: Charlie Kaufman. Starring Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper.
In one of the most unusual roles of Streep’s career, she plays Susan Orlean, the real-life author of the novel “The Orchid Thief,” which screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is contracted to adapt into a movie. Rather than playing Orlean as an esteemed best-selling author, Streep goes all in, having sex with the orchid thief (Chris Cooper) of her book’s title, doing drugs and holding Kaufman at gunpoint, hardly the usual role that would appeal to an esteemed actress, which is why it’s so much fun to see her let loose. And the Golden Globe voters obviously agreed.

Winning Globe Category: Best Film Drama Actress. Writer/Director: Alan J. Pakula. Starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol.
Still thought by many to be the performance of her career, Streep triumphed as Sophie Zawistowski, a Polish immigrant now living in post-WWII Brooklyn who is juggling the affections of two men — her abusive lover Nathan (Kevin Kline) and writer Stingo (Peter MacNicol). But of course the heart and soul of Streep’s performance is her devastating remembrance of her time at Auschwitz during the war and the heartbreaking choice that she had to make there. Streep made a run of the 1982 awards, and her victory at the Globes (her third in four years) was a key marker on the way to her eventual Oscar win.

Winning Globe Category: Best Film Drama Actress. Director: Karel Reisz. Writer: Harold Pinter. Starring Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, David Warner.
Streep returned to awards stages with her performances in this adaptation of John Fowles’ best-selling novel that follows two narrative tracks — one, the Victorian-era story of a palaeontologist (Jeremy Irons) who falls in love with a social outcast (Streep) and two, a contemporary love affair between two actors (also Streep and Irons) who are making a film of the Victorian story. It’s a tricky path to walk, but critics made it clear that Streep carried it off, and the result was her second Golden Globe Award.

Winning Globe Category: Best Film Supporting Actress. Writer/Director: Robert Benton. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Justin Henry, Jane Alexander.
Streep won her first Golden Globe Award for Robert Benton’s depiction of a marriage coming apart and the young boy Billy (Justin Henry) who is caught in the middle. Streep plays Joanna, a wife and mother who, sick of the absences of her workaholic husband Ted (Dustin Hoffman), walks out on him, and Ted must now raise Billy by himself. When Joanna returns to sue for custody of Billy, she could have easily been portrayed as an out-and-out villain, but Streep’s nuanced work makes the character, if not sympathetic at least understandable, a pretty impressive feat.

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