Tonight I covered the red carpet arrivals of Meryl Streep's new movie, “Julie & Julia. Streep plays Julia Child in the film which juxtaposes the life of the famous culinary queen and cookbook author with a young modern day woman named, Julie Powell, who sets out to cook 524 of Child’s recipes in a single year.
I’ve interviewed the veteran actress a handful of times. Most recently, I spoke to her at a special screening for the Oscar-nominated film, “Doubt,” but have also covered titles like “The Devil Wears Prada,” and “Prairie Home Companion.” So, while I can’t say I’ve had a vast amount of face time with her, I’d say I’ve had enough interactions to get a general idea of what she’s like – or at least what she’s like for a few minutes here and there, while promoting a film. And based on these experiences I’d say Meryl Streep is an easy person to talk to. By this I mean she’s approachable, pays very close attention to the questions she’s being asked, is extremely thoughtful with her responses, and is quick to insert humor whenever possible – a quality I absolutely adore. Make no mistake, Streep is not an “easy” interview in the sense that one can come unprepared, but she is easy to talk to.
Unfortunately, I can’t say I had a great interview with the two-time Oscar winner tonight. I also can’t say I had a terrible interview with her. The truth is I didn’t have an interview with her at all. That’s because tonight, Streep decided to do what we in the red carpet biz call, “breeze the line.” This is when a star shows up to a press event but doesn’t speak to the press. Streep’s breeze is what I would call a “Classic Breeze.” She arrived to the red carpet, posed for the still photographers, chatted with two or three reporters, and then began her breeze. This contrasts with a “Total Breeze,” in which a star doesn’t stop for a single reporter. I’ll be honest, tonight’s breeze caught me off guard. It’s not rare for a star to blow off some press, but if your face takes up 50% of the movie poster, you can usually be counted on to talk to a dozen outlets or so. Why did Streep breeze tonight? One could speculate about everything from crushing migraines to the unexpected effects of some bad sushi, but the truth is there’s no real way of knowing. This is why you can’t really take these things personally. So, while it’s unfortunate that dozens of reporters, producers, camera men and crew invested their time, energy and resources in the hope of interviewing the star of the film, at the end of the day it’s always a gamble – and you know what they say, “Vegas wasn’t built on winners.”
I should mention that while we did not get to speak to Ms. Streep, we did get to see her… and she looked beautiful. Also looking lovely were her talented co-stars, Amy Adams and Jane Lynch. Each granted numerous interviews, answered countless questions and, ironically, most likely spent much of their night talking about the legendary Meryl Streep.