ATHENS, Greece—In this land of mythology gods, we found that Meryl Streep is a mere mortal, after all. Believe it or not, folks, there is at least one thing that the acting goddess cannot do.
“No one’s asked me to fly an airplane, thank God,” Meryl confessed to a journalist who, like us, wondered if there was something—anything— that she wouldn’t even try, after watching her sing (and how!) in “Mamma Mia! The Movie.”
Facing the pool and the shimmering Aegean Sea in a private villa of the Lagonissi Grand Resort, Meryl was glowing, looking especially lovely and in a good mood — laid-back even. Curly wisps of blonde hair framed her face. Looking back, we credit the Mediterranean sun, the relaxed luxurious resort setting (we usually interview her in New York, where she lives), her obvious fondness for this movie that she’s talking about, and the apparent fun she had filming here and in a soundstage in London.
Let’s get this out of the way: Go see “Mamma Mia!” It will be the most fun you’ll have inside a movie house. Don’t be shy to sing and dance along to this absolutely entertaining adaptation of one of the most joyous stage musicals of all time. And be sure to stay for the “curtain call” number following “The End.”
We’ve said it previously and we’ll say it again: Meryl singing “The Winner Takes it All” and other ABBA songs, plus Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Amanda Seyfried, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski, Stellan Skarsgard and Dominic Cooper also crooning and dancing will make you forget your life’s worries for at least a couple of hours.
Full musical role
“Oh no, nothing in this film that I couldn’t do,” said Meryl, her voice sounding sweet and languorous in the sun-dappled room. Stressing how she loved tackling her first full musical role, Donna — former member of a singing trio who operates a Greek hotel villa and whose daughter wants to find her father on her wedding day — Meryl said, “I wanted more! I am not sure if I ever turned anything down because of incapacity. I haven’t been asked to do things that are beyond my capability. Most films ask this much of you. ‘Mamma Mia!’ asked more. I love to work and I love people asking more from me.”
She added, “Oh, the singing and dancing was just like being invited to play every day. I couldn’t dance as well as I wanted to but I could justify it by saying, well, Donna’s not a dancer. She’s running a hotel. But I felt like it was a great opportunity.”
Asked to reveal which of the song scenes she enjoyed doing most, the multiawarded actress answered, “I can’t pick. I loved doing everything every day. When they said, ‘I’m sorry, Meryl — we have to do another take.’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God, good!’ because it was just so much fun. Nobody’s going to ever ask me to do this again so I was really savoring every moment.”
Um, we beg to disagree — we think this role will lead to more acclaim and musical roles for Meryl. Hollywood Reporter, in its rave review of the movie, declared, “It’s no stretch to think of her performance in Oscar terms, ranking with such previous musical winners as Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand and Catherine Zeta-Jones.”
Meryl is not entirely a neophyte when it comes to crooning — she has sung in three previous movies, “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Postcards from the Edge” and “Silkwood” (listen to her touching version of “Amazing Grace” in the end credits). And much earlier, she disclosed: “When I was in high school, I started doing musicals. I hadn’t gotten back to doing that since my very first play on Broadway, which was a musical. So it was like a dream come true to do it again.”
Outrageous costumes
Laughing, she commented on Donna’s wardrobe: denim overalls and outrageous 1970s band costumes: “Wearing those overalls for four months was a trial. The platform shoes and the spandex jumpsuit, which took seven men — it took a village to get me into that — were painful but really fun, too. It’s fun to dress up in these silly clothes, yeah!”
Meryl fell in love with the musical stage version in the aftermath of 9/11. “I saw it seven years ago,” she recalled. “We had just moved to New York in September of 2001. My children were in school when the World Trade Center event happened. It was a tender time. I had a 10-year-old then and she was having a birthday. These kids were kind of dimmed. I thought, what am I going to do to cheer them up? ‘Mamma Mia!’ just opened in town so I took five of the kids and some of their mothers.
“We all went in our condition and we left floating on air. We were so elated. The musical reminds you of how it is to be happy, the good things about human beings, the joy of living, all those great women and all that stuff (laughter). It couldn’t have been a better tonic for that time and for the city.”
She continued, “I wrote the cast a mash note, saying thank you for the music and for what you gave us because it was really something that meant a lot at that point. I never imagined that seven years later, someone would come and say, ‘We’re making a film of it. We’d like you to play Donna.’ I just about died (laughter). I just kept saying to them, ‘Are you sure you want me?’ Because I’m not the likeliest choice. But I was thrilled. It did mean a lot to me and I love the music. I was very happy to get the chance.”
She joked about the note, “I never imagined that they would make copies of the letter, send it to England and everybody would have it on their refrigerators.”
Of singing the pop classics of ABBA’s Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (who are the film’s co-executive producers), from the title song to “Dancing Queen,” “Super Trouper” and many more, she said, “I thought I knew every single ABBA song that was ever written. I remember lyrics really easily. I thought I had everything right but this music is deceptively precise. It’s very tight. The lyrics are also very specific. If you’ve sung it that way for 25 years, it’s just very hard to change it (laughter). That’s what happened to me. But Benny was very generous with all of us.”
Meryl went all the way to Benny and Bjorn’s native Sweden to record “The Winner...” “When I went to Stockholm to record there, oh gosh!” she exclaimed.
Meaningful lyrics
She talked specifically about recording “The Winner Takes it All,” which she began with a gently plaintive “I don’t want to talk,” built up to a powerful, belting roar and then ended on a tender note: “We were in the recording studio where ABBA recorded that song in the ’70s. I was standing before the same microphone that Agnetha (Faltskog, the ABBA member who originally sang the ballad) had. I swear to God that no one had changed the shag carpeting from the 70s — all the old relics — the same piano and all.
“I was overcome because of the responsibility to the song. I knew that Bjorn had written the lyrics which were meaningful to everyone in the band. There was a feeling, an emotion that was present. It’s a long song and after we went through it, I felt pretty good. I’d taken a journey. Benny told me later about ABBA’s drummer, Ola Brunkert, who was there during the original recording (and who has since died). Benny said he looked at him and [Ola] had tears running down his face. It was an emotional thing.” Meryl modestly failed to mention that she did it all in one take, according to Benny in a separate interview.
Meryl sings the emotional tune to Pierce in a breathtaking mountainside location with a view of the sea. Lighting was crucial, so the cast and crew rehearsed the scene the day before. Everything was perfect — the sea was calm. She narrated, “The next day, I woke up and the shutters on my door were banging. We got up there and the sea was a completely different creature. The waves were crashing and the wind was blowing so you barely hear yourself speak, never mind sing.
“But somehow it really fed into what the song was about. Everyone was moaning about the change in the weather. But, I thought, this is good; the gods are with us. And they were. We were able to set up the scene, do it within the limited time we had.” She added with a laugh, “I forgot how many times they made me run up the mountain in high heels.”
Of Amanda Seyfried, who plays her bride-to-be daughter Sophie, the mother of three girls enthused, “From the moment Amanda opened her mouth in the first reading, I felt like she was one of my daughters. She shares many traits with my daughters. She is strong. She has a quiet voice but she has a stubborn streak. The word that keeps coming up about her is delicious. That’s the way I feel about my girls. It’s very easy to feel that Amanda was too young to get married, just like the way I feel about my girls.”
Big moment
Has Meryl thought about the day when her own children will get married? “I think about that a lot because I have three daughters,” she admitted. “I also think about my son getting married. Every time I [do], it’s very emotional. I just hope that, when the time comes, I’ll be able to stand up and not weep because of sadness. It’s such a big moment. You realize that more when you’re the mother than when you’re the bride.”
Sophie finds out the identities of the three men who could be her dad in a diary that Donna kept. Alas, Meryl herself has not maintained a journal in real life. “I wish I had kept a diary because I’ve had such an interesting life,” she stated. “I can’t really say that I remember complete parts of everything. I just don’t have the discipline to write a diary. At night, when most people write down the events of the day, I am so tired. I just hit the pillow. Nothing until the morning but I really wish I had been the kind of person who kept a diary.”
Meryl will be seen next as Sister Aloysius in “Doubt,” the film version of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play, and “Julie & Julia,” where she plays the late renowned American chef, Julia Child. Asked about portraying the latter, Meryl stood up, patted her behind, and declared, “My culinary abilities are right here. They’re the pounds I gained on that movie. I was cooking and you can’t cook without tasting.”
Reflecting on her life so far, Meryl declared, “As time goes on, I’m just more grateful to be alive. I have so many friends (she knocked on the table) who have been ill. I’m really grateful for everything I’m given and I’m given a great deal. I feel compelled to give back in different ways. My New Year’s resolution was to give more, engage more because I’m a crab. I’m a Cancer. I don’t like to go out and party but I’m trying to be more engaging and deal with the world outside more because life is short. You’ve got to meet everybody you can.”
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