It turns out that president-elect Trump shares more opinions with those out-of-touch “liberal movie people” than he might like to acknowledge. After all, the view that Meryl Streep is an overrated actor was first expressed 12 years ago – by Meryl Streep herself. Picking up her 2004 Emmy for best actress in Angels in America, she admitted to the audience: “You know, there are some days when I myself think I am overrated.” This was met by the same cacophony of laughter that presumably greeted Trump’s tweets this week, in which he lambasted Streep as “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood”.
The question of whether Streep has the whole industry hoodwinked with all that pretend good acting – rewarded with 30 Golden Globe nominations (and eight wins), 19 Oscar nominations (and three wins), five Grammy nominations, 17 Screen Guild nominations (and two wins), 13 Critics’ Choice awards (and three wins), 15 Bafta nominations (and two wins), three Emmy nominations (and two wins), one Tony nomination and a Presidential Medal of Freedom – has clearly been preoccupying George Clooney, too. Speaking at a reception for the Netflix documentary The White Helmets on Monday night, he pondered whether this was the best use of the president-elect’s brain capacity, and how exactly the Golden Globes tied into “running the country”.
Nonetheless, in the spirit of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”, he knowingly waded into the debate, and mockingly called into question Streep’s ability to act, even when playing an uptight animated mammal called Felicity.
“You know I’ve always said about Meryl that she is one of the – maybe the most – overrated actresses of all time,” joked Clooney. “She and I worked together on Fantastic Mr Fox, playing husband and wife, and I will tell you, even as a fox – a FEMALE fox – she was overrated.” Given that this is a film about a poor fox stealing from wealthy landowners in order to share the wealth with his fellow impoverished farm animals – clearly advocating a communist redistribution of resources – perhaps this is also the role that convinced Trump of Streep’s theatrical inadequacies. More likely, though, is Streep’s turn in Mamma Mia!. The songs of Abba advocate love for the obviously foreign Fernando and deign to sing in both French (Voulez-Vous) and Spanglish (Chiquitita), which, to the ears of Trump, surely sound nothing short of unpatriotic.
