Meryl Streep’s five best performances

At the start of her accep­tance speech at this year’s Gold­en Globes, where she received the Cecil B DeMille Award for her out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to cin­e­ma, Meryl Streep pas­sion­ate­ly sug­gest­ed that, ​“an actor’s only job is to enter the lives of peo­ple who are dif­fer­ent from us, and to let you feel what that feels like.” It may sound like stan­dard actor speak, yet few peo­ple in Hol­ly­wood are bet­ter posi­tioned to tell it like it is than Streep. Dur­ing her 46 years on screen, Streep has por­trayed an incred­i­ble vari­ety of char­ac­ters, and all of us can find some­one to relate to in her remark­able reper­toire. Here are five of our favourite per­for­mances from an actor like no other.

Streep’s break­through per­for­mance in Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter – which she took on to be close to her then-part­ner John Caza­le, who was act­ing in the film and suc­cumb­ing to can­cer – already demon­strates her abil­i­ty to not only imper­son­ate just about any­one, but also give depth to even the small­est part. As small­town Penn­syl­va­nia girl Lin­da, Streep com­bines a strong accent with clum­sy man­ner­isms char­ac­ter­is­tic of a young woman whose life is defined by her local com­mu­ni­ty. Every­one knows each oth­er in Clair­ton, and Lin­da has almost noth­ing to hide: when bowl­ing with the group, Streep’s laugh­ter is gen­er­ous and her utter fail­ure at throw­ing the ball is gen­uine slap­stick gold.

Yet Streep also under­stands the com­plex­i­ty of this woman. Lin­da is at once lib­er­at­ed from her drunk, vio­lent father and con­fused by her feel­ings towards Michael (Robert De Niro), the best friend of her boyfriend, Nick (Christo­pher Walken). When danc­ing with Nick at a friend’s wed­ding, she can­not help but stare at Michael, at first with sur­prise and then con­cern, amuse­ment and excite­ment, before run­ning away to hide her attrac­tion. Lat­er, at Nick’s funer­al, she tries to hide her com­plete joy at being reunit­ed with Michael, offer­ing a sim­ple show of grat­i­tude that he has sur­vived the war. She knows that her true feel­ings are inap­pro­pri­ate, but she des­per­ate­ly needs Michael to per­ceive them. And so, bash­ful­ly, Streep looks up at De Niro, smil­ing through her tears.

Streep’s per­for­mance – or rather per­for­mances – in The French Lieutenant’s Woman is a per­fect demon­stra­tion of an idea she expressed in her Gold­en Globes speech: act­ing as empa­thy. She plays Anna, an actress who inter­prets the char­ac­ter of Sarah in a roman­tic British peri­od film, and who finds her­self trans­formed by the expe­ri­ence: iden­ti­fy­ing with the char­ac­ter she por­trays, Anna reflects on her own love affair and even­tu­al­ly finds the strength to take action. As Sarah, Streep adopts an exag­ger­at­ed, bor­der­line camp British accent. The char­ac­ter is indeed typ­i­cal melo­dra­ma mate­r­i­al: heart­bro­ken and reject­ed by soci­ety, she has been hid­ing her shame for so long that she has come to embrace it completely.

Unlike Lin­da in The Deer Hunter, Sarah is rarely unsure of her feel­ings and her expres­sion remains res­olute. Streep’s eyes become unread­able, stuck in a hard and heart-break­ing cold­ness. When Charles (Jere­my Irons) shows his love for her, he chal­lenges her con­vic­tion that she is unwor­thy of affec­tion. Yet the cracks he cre­ates in her mask of res­ig­na­tion only reveal a deep­er, sharp­er agony. Streep’s ice-cold cer­tain­ty trans­forms into a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of pow­er­less­ness – col­laps­ing into his arms, Sarah appears inca­pable of deal­ing with her love for Charles.

Streep has always pos­sessed the tal­ent to flesh out even the most cliched char­ac­ters. Yet play­ing the dev­il­ish Made­line Ash­ton in Death Becomes Her was a bold deci­sion even by Streep’s stan­dards. A dark com­e­dy that satiris­es the film industry’s end­less search for younger flesh, it sees a then 43-year-old Streep make a mock­ery of Hol­ly­wood – not only does she look fan­tas­tic, but her act­ing tal­ent far exceeds that of her younger peers. Made­line is a deeply unlik­able char­ac­ter and Streep shame­less­ly adopts the most unflat­ter­ing expres­sions, nev­er shy­ing away from ridicule: soaked by rain and tears and scream­ing upon see­ing her face in a mir­ror, she is a far cry from the glam­orous Hol­ly­wood star she sees her­self as.

Yet instead of being sim­ply hys­ter­i­cal, Streep works on sev­er­al reg­is­ters to por­tray the var­i­ous facades Made­line puts on to get her way. With per­fect com­ic tim­ing, she quick­ly switch­es her expres­sions depend­ing on who she wants to take advan­tage of: her pathet­ic hus­band, Ernest (Bruce Willis), or her late fren­e­my, Helen (Goldie Hawn). When she nar­rows her eyes seduc­tive­ly, she becomes a per­fect femme fatale. Adding in a smile, she turns into the over enthu­si­as­tic friend, trans­form­ing her face with ease but not with­out show­ing her character’s hilar­i­ous­ly exhaust­ing thought process. Even the most sav­age cru­el­ty can be enjoy­able when the act­ing is as good as this.

Thanks to a com­bi­na­tion of luck, intel­li­gent choic­es and tal­ent, Streep moved into the mid­dle-age phase of her career more seam­less­ly than most. The parts she land­ed from her for­ties onwards nev­er required of her to look as young as she used to, but instead relied on her matu­ri­ty. Streep mix­es Ital­ian and Mid­west­ern accents in Clint Eastwood’s tear-jerk­ing mas­ter­piece, The Bridges of Madi­son Coun­ty, to por­tray Francesca, who emi­grat­ed to Indi­ana to be with an Amer­i­can sol­dier. The home­sick­ness and unhap­pi­ness she bare­ly acknowl­edges trans­lates into the awk­ward rhythm of Streep’s move­ments as Francesca keeps falling in and out of her daydreams.

When kind-natured, well-trav­elled Nation­al Geo­graph­ic pho­tog­ra­ph­er Robert Kin­caid (East­wood) arrives on her doorstep, Francesca’s atti­tude changes. His gen­eros­i­ty at first con­fus­es her, and she realis­es that she is more spon­ta­neous around him. Streep behaves like a lit­tle girl, but a self-aware one: she can’t help but steal a peek at Robert, but almost imme­di­ate­ly forces her­self to look away. As the pair give in to their desire, how­ev­er, Streep final­ly lets her hair down, smil­ing coy­ly and dis­play­ing a ten­der sen­su­al­i­ty. Streep shows us that after years of bury­ing her dis­sat­is­fac­tion, Francesca bad­ly needs to just be her­self, and when Robert tells a sil­ly joke, she howls with a phys­i­cal laugh­ter that com­mu­ni­cates more than any dia­logue could.

This dis­ap­point­ing­ly apo­lit­i­cal biopic of one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing and divi­sive politi­cians of the 20^th cen­tu­ry was cas­ti­gat­ed upon release. The film­mak­ers’ deci­sion to focus on Mar­garet Thatcher’s per­son­al­i­ty and her male col­leagues’ misog­y­ny cer­tain­ly feels like a copout. Nev­er­the­less, Streep’s per­for­mance man­ages to evoke the immutable, ide­al­is­tic and out-of-touch beliefs that made Thatch­er such an impor­tant (and unpop­u­lar) fig­ure in British pol­i­tics. Streep’s late trans­for­ma­tion into a 78-year-old Thatch­er is tru­ly remark­able – and not just because of the uncan­ny phys­i­cal resem­blance. She adopts the unerr­ing stiff upper lip for which Thatch­er was renowned while effec­tive­ly con­vey­ing the con­fused men­tal state of the declin­ing yet still strong-willed ex-Prime Minister.

As Thatch­er becomes lost in visions of her recent­ly deceased hus­band, Denis (Jim Broad­bent), Streep strikes an impec­ca­ble bal­ance between the uncon­trolled mum­blings of an elder­ly woman and the poised dig­ni­ty of a younger, tena­cious one. She runs between the rooms in her house, as best she can, to lis­ten in on the var­i­ous peo­ple who are try­ing to man­age her life for her. Yet even in these light, sym­pa­thet­ic scenes – designed to set up her bat­tle with demen­tia – Streep presents Thatch­er as not entire­ly like­able. Bare­ly pay­ing atten­tion to those tak­ing care of her, even in her health­i­er men­tal state, she main­tains an awk­ward dis­tance between her­self and her sur­round­ings; Streep strip­ping away Thatcher’s weak­ness to reveal the per­sis­tent hard­ness of her iron heart.