'I Thought I'd Be Washed Up By 40' Unscripted

The Oscar Winner Opens Up on Picking Roles and Her Magnificent Career

- Judy Kean

At 69, Meryl Streep is currently considered the best actress of her generation. She’s earned a record 21 Oscar nominations and she has three of the coveted statuettes at home. She can pick and choose the roles she wants, and producers go to great lengths to sign her up for their films.

Yet at one point, the Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again star was worried her acting career was done and dusted. “I thought I was washed up at 40,” Meryl admits. “There were not a lot of interesting scripts, I could generally only find one a year. I thought each movie I made would be my last.

“You could work up to 40, then you’d start playing hags and witches. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t play a witch until Into the Woods [in 2014, when she was 65] – and I had been offered many.”

Looking back, her career after her 40th birthday was initially nothing to write home about. Films like Postcards From the Edge and Death Becomes Her had so-so receptions, while a string of others – such as The House of the Spirits, Defending Your Life and The River Wild – sunk without a trace.

It took an adaptation of a best-selling novel featuring a middle-aged woman as one of its main characters to remind everyone what a stunning actress Meryl is. The Bridges of Madison County was a huge hit and earned the mum-of-four another Oscar nod.