Lifestyle
Celebrating movie icons: Meryl Streep
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Today, we continue our series Classic Films and Movie Icons and hear interviews from our archive with Meryl Streep and Sidney Poitier. I spoke with Streep in 2012 when she was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the film “The Iron Lady.” She won. She’d previously won for her performances in “Kramer Vs. Kramer” and “Sophie’s Choice.” She holds the record for the most Oscar nominations – a total of 21. One of the things she’s known for is her uncanny ability to do accents. Let’s start by hearing how she sounds as Margaret Thatcher. The film begins after Thatcher has lost her husband and is suffering from dementia. She’s imagining that her husband is still with her and talking to her. In this scene, Streep portrays Thatcher after she’s become the first woman to lead the Conservative Party. She’s speaking before the House of Commons.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE IRON LADY”)
MERYL STREEP: (As Margaret Thatcher) The right honorable gentleman knows very well that we had no choice but to close the school…
(JEERING)
STREEP: (As Margaret Thatcher) …Because his union paymasters have called a strike deliberately to cripple our economy.
(JEERING)
STREEP: (As Margaret Thatcher) Teachers cannot teach when there is no heating, no lighting in their classrooms. And I ask the right honorable gentleman, whose fault is this?
(JEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Methinks the right honorable lady doth screech too much.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) And if she wants us to take her seriously, she must learn to calm down.
(JEERING)
STREEP: (As Margaret Thatcher) If the right honorable gentleman could perhaps attend more closely to what I am saying, rather than how I am saying it…
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Here, here.
STREEP: (As Margaret Thatcher) …He may receive a valuable education in spite of himself.
GROSS: Margaret Thatcher later took voice lessons from a drama coach to help her sound more authoritative. Here’s Streep as Thatcher after those lessons, addressing Parliament about the war in the Falklands.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE IRON LADY”)
STREEP: (As Margaret Thatcher) We were faced with an act of unprovoked aggression, and we responded…
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) Hear, hear.
STREEP: (As Margaret Thatcher) …As we have responded in times past, with unity, strength and courage…
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) Hear, hear.
STREEP: (As Margaret Thatcher) …Sure in the knowledge that though much is sacrificed, in the end, right will prevail over wrong.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: Meryl Streep, welcome to FRESH AIR. Thank you so much for being here. And congratulations…
STREEP: Thank you.
GROSS: …On your Golden Globe and your Oscar nomination.
STREEP: Thank you very much for having me, Terry. I’m a huge fan.
GROSS: Oh, wow. Thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: So we just heard you before and after Margaret Thatcher has voice lessons – voice lessons to teach her authority and power – so that you can speak more powerfully to the Parliament. Did she really have that kind of vocal training?
STREEP: She did. My memory is a little cloudy, but I remember reading that Laurence Olivier had something to do with arranging for her to have – he demurred. He said he wouldn’t care to do it himself, but he steered her in the direction of a good vocal coach. And she did go. And it did help her. And it was part of the “Pygmalion” process that Gordon Reece put her through.
GROSS: So can you talk a little bit about what you think she learned with those vocal lessons and how you transformed your voice as her after she really learned her way around as a public figure and had the advantage of those voice lessons?
STREEP: Well, I think that voice lessons really just bring out a voice that you already possess. So she already had – whatever the sort of stentorian tones that she acquired over time. They were all lying in wait there and within her arsenal. And she’d also had elocution in her high school, the equivalent of high school, in Grantham. She had changed her way of speaking. Her accent from Grantham had disappeared by the time she went to Oxford to study chemistry, and she had decided on a sort of a plummy kind of aspirant, upper-middle-class, what we would call upper-middle-class, voice. And so what the voice coach did was enabled her to expand her breath, deepen her voice, bring it to a place where men could listen to it in its most emphatic tones.
GROSS: So how did you change your voice for the before and after, for the more confident and experienced Margaret Thatcher versus the early Margaret Thatcher?
STREEP: Well, I had evidence of both voices, you know, from the public record, so I could listen to them. And it’s sort of my fun to sing along with records and imitate people that are on the telephone that have different ways of speaking. I mean, I pick things up like that, so it’s not a thing that’s a struggle. It’s work, but it’s not a struggle. It’s fun. And she had a very particular way of emphasizing points and making her point. And that had to do with bringing out a word that you didn’t normally think was the most important word in the sentence. Do you know what I mean?
GROSS: Yes.
STREEP: And she also had a sort of a way, like a railroad train of going – (inhaling) – (impersonating Margaret Thatcher) taking a breath and starting quite quietly and making a point in a way that you don’t really know that this point is going to be made through several examples, and there will not be a break in the speaking voice at any point. And you – if you think you’re going to interrupt, you’re really not going to have the opportunity because she’s just got capacity. It’s just really stunning as I looked at interviews.
GROSS: So you need a lot of breath to keep talking like that. Did you have it?
STREEP: I’ve just been talking like that.
(LAUGHTER)
STREEP: Yeah. I did need a lot of breath. I had – I needed much more breath than I have. After all my expensive drama school training, I couldn’t keep up with her.
GROSS: I think it’s interesting when you’re doing the voice of a real person, or I suppose if you’re learning an accent, too, you think of it as singing along with a record. So is that what you do, like, you play Margaret Thatcher giving a speech, and you do the equivalent of singing along with it, you give the speech as you’re listening to it?
STREEP: I say that because that’s my way in in the very beginning…
GROSS: Yeah.
STREEP: …How to enter it. Very quickly in the process, I don’t think about voice being separate from the way you hold your head or the way you sit or the way you dress or your way you put on lipstick. It’s all a piece of a person, and it’s all driven by conviction. In other characters, it’s driven by insecurity, or it’s driven by fear, or – there’s always a driver, and the – all the physical manifestations – you need your way in. So, yeah.
When I was a kid, when I was 16, 17, I’d come home from high school, and my dad collected all of Barbra Streisand’s records. And she was very young then. I think she was – she probably had three records out, and she was 21. And we had them all. And I knew every single song, every breath, every elision, every swell. And I sang along to it, but it – for me, it was a way to get out the feeling of the song and also to get out the feelings that, you know, roil in high school, to express something that I had no other way of expressing. And, of course, now I’m rich and famous, and I met Barbra Streisand, and I told her that, and she was nonplussed.
(LAUGHTER)
STREEP: She was just – oh, we can’t know what we mean to each other. You know, artists – you can’t know – you can’t know that, but she was really important.
GROSS: We’re listening to my 2012 interview with Meryl Streep. We’ll hear more of it after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALEXANDRE DESPLAT’S “JULIA’S THEME”)
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my 2012 interview with Meryl Streep as we continue our series Classic Films and Movie Icons.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: I have another Margaret Thatcher question for you because you age several decades through the course of the film.
STREEP: Four.
GROSS: Yeah. So you had to wear, you know, like, a prosthetic older person’s neck, and your face has a lot of makeup or something because, you know, you age four decades. So is it harder to be expressive when you’re underneath something, you know, either a lot of makeup or a prosthetic or whatever?
STREEP: Well…
GROSS: I mean, you manage to be very expressive, but I’m wondering if it’s, you know, more difficult.
STREEP: It can be, but I didn’t want it to be. So I’ve worked for 35 years with a master artist – makeup artist and hairdresser. That’s Roy Helland, and he’s done everything – bleached my eyebrows for – and hair – for “Sophie’s Choice.” And he gave me a brown mullet in “Silkwood.” And…
GROSS: (Laughter).
STREEP: …You know, he got me ready for the Golden Globes. And he understands the job and changing the outside to get at something inside. So in conjunction with this British prosthetics designer, Mark Coulier, he and Roy and I, we did tests. And it was all about taking away, taking away, taking away. You know, we start with what Mark would carve the – a sculpture of me. They took a life mask. And then he’d add on, with clay or whatever the material is, age. And then they’d cast it in sort of this silicon thing. And then I would wear it, and we’d test it. And then I would say, inevitably, less, less, less, less. So it’s kind of remarkable how little I really am wearing. And…
GROSS: And when you’re saying, less, less – I want less – is that partly so that you can move your face and…
STREEP: So I can be free.
GROSS: …And be expressive? Yeah.
STREEP: It’s all about being free and having – so I can look in the mirror and see me, not stuff. And it all has to do with – you know, it’s not about the audience. It’s all about fooling the other actors into believing that you are who you say you are because that’s hard when you walk on set, and it’s a big makeup job. And it’s – it makes it hard for them. And I take my entire performance from them. So if they don’t look at me and hate me appropriately…
GROSS: (Laughter).
STREEP: …Or love me the way they’re supposed to or find, you know, an old face but see the young one underneath, which is Jim Broadbent’s task as Denis Thatcher, then I’m lost. I don’t have anything to go on ’cause I can read that immediately in their eyes, you know?
GROSS: Gee, I never thought of it that way – that you have to convince the other actors that you’re Margaret Thatcher.
STREEP: That’s the whole deal – the whole deal.
GROSS: You know, I hear a certain similarity between your voice in “The Iron Lady” as Margaret Thatcher and your voice in “Julie & Julia” as Julia Child. It almost strikes me as if – and I never thought about this till hearing you in both those films – that if Margaret Thatcher kind of drank too much…
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: …And started being, like, surprised and delighted about how her, like, food concoction was behaving, that she might sound like Julia Child. What do you think?
STREEP: Well, they had a similar flutiness in – especially in the younger – Julia Child had (impersonating Julia Child) a flutiness…
GROSS: Yeah (laughter).
STREEP: …You know? which, is – and it’s also part of her class, her – the way that there are women of that time and of that class. We don’t like to talk about that in America, but there are classes in America. And she was of a class of women who were wealthy, privately educated, went to Smith, moved in that sort of circle. She was conscripted into the OSS, which is the early CIA, which was all filled with Yalies and Princeton and Harvard people and a few women, who were typing mostly, but also had something to do. And they had a way of speaking. I mean, the last person you would know – we would also recognize as having that way of speaking is Katharine Hepburn, probably.
When I was in – at Vassar – and I came from a public high school in New Jersey – there was a way of talking that the private school girls had that was different than the way I talked from (laughter) New Jersey.
GROSS: Let me play a little bit of you as Julia Child in “Julie & Julia.” And this is a scene when you’re on TV early in your TV career, and you’re making some kind of, like, mashed-potato pancake concoction that you’re about to flip, and it’s not – it kind of…
STREEP: …Doesn’t go well.
GROSS: Doesn’t go well. It kind of splatters in the air, and half of it lands on the stove instead of in the pan. So…
STREEP: Yeah.
GROSS: …Let’s hear a little bit of that. And this scene alternates with you on TV and with Julie watching you on TV.
STREEP: Amy Adams, yeah.
GROSS: Yeah. Amy Adams is Julie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “JULIE & JULIA”)
STREEP: (As Julia Child) I’m going to try to flip this thing over now, which is a rather daring thing to do.
AMY ADAMS: (As Julie Powell) She changed everything. Before her, it was frozen food and can openers and marshmallows.
CHRIS MESSINA: (As Eric Powell) Don’t knock marshmallows.
STREEP: (As Julia Child) Give it a try. When you flip anything, you’ve just got to have the courage of your convictions, especially if it’s a loose sort of mass like – oh, that didn’t go very well. But you see, when I flipped it, I didn’t have the courage…
ADAMS: (As Julie Powell) She’s so adorable.
STREEP: (As Julia Child) …I needed to – the way I should have. Oh, but you can always put it together. And you’re alone in the kitchen. Who’s to see?
ADAMS: (As Julie Powell) Pearls. The woman is wearing pearls in the kitchen.
STREEP: (As Julia Child) I’ve just got to practice the piano. I’m Julia Child. Bon appetit.
GROSS: You know, I love that, ’cause you talk about studying someone’s voice as if it’s music, and she has such a musical voice.
STREEP: She does.
GROSS: And, you know…
STREEP: And she has no breath.
GROSS: Yeah, I was going to say that.
STREEP: Absolutely none (laughter).
GROSS: Exactly. It sounds like she’s been running up a hill.
STREEP: She always sounds like that. I feel like that when I’m in the kitchen. Don’t you? Well, I’m not a very good cook, but…
GROSS: Me neither, honestly.
STREEP: (Laughter) I just…
GROSS: I believe that’s why…
STREEP: I find myself…
GROSS: …Delis exist, so that I don’t have to cook (laughter), but…
STREEP: Well, I got better after this, and my entire family really did appreciate it.
GROSS: (Laughter).
STREEP: Usually, they’re resentful of movies that I go off and make (laughter), but this one had a bonus attached. But, yeah…
GROSS: You know, I compared…
STREEP: …She had no breath.
GROSS: …I compared her voice and Thatcher’s voice before, but breath-wise, they’re the opposite, ’cause she’s almost, like, gasping for air.
STREEP: Yeah.
GROSS: And Thatcher has this, like, endlessly long breath.
STREEP: Well, she’s so alive, Julia Child, and Margaret is so designed. She’s so intent upon making her point. That’s the most important thing, is that she win the argument, and there is nothing that stands in the way of that train, you know? But Julia’s just alive in front of you. That’s part of why people loved her. They lived it with her. They breathed it with her. And the mistakes were all part of it. But she was adept, too, at what she was doing – incredibly adept.
GROSS: OK, so here’s a story I read, which I assume is true, but you can tell me if it actually happened (laughter), that in – for the 1976 Dino De Laurentiis remake of “King Kong,” you auditioned for Dino De Laurentiis and his son…
STREEP: Yes.
GROSS: …Who were Italian.
STREEP: Yes.
GROSS: And Dino De Laurentiis said in Italian – what did he say?
STREEP: (Speaking Italian). I don’t know. I can’t speak Italian anymore, ’cause I’m so old and forgetful, but he said something like, but this is so ugly. Why do you bring me this?
GROSS: This being you (laughter).
STREEP: Yes.
GROSS: Yes.
STREEP: I’m sitting in front of him, opposite the desk. He’s smiling. He looks impeccable. He has everything beautiful. And his son is very kind. His son said – ’cause his son had seen me in something, and he said, no, you know, Dad, she’s a wonderful actress. And because I had just – I’d studied a year of Italian at Vassar, I could understand what they were saying, and I said, you know, (speaking Italian), I’m very sorry that I’m not as beautiful as I should be, but, you know (laughter), this is it. This is what you get, sort of. And I left. I mean, I was very upset, but I didn’t show it. Yes, it’s a true story.
GROSS: So a very interesting story (laughter), ’cause you were being told early in your career, basically, that you’re not beautiful.
STREEP: Yeah.
GROSS: You’re not qualified – your face is not qualified for this role. And you’re also…
STREEP: Face and body, I believe.
GROSS: And body.
STREEP: Yes.
GROSS: But then you’re also making the decision to let them know that you understand what they said. They were intentionally speaking in Italian so that you wouldn’t understand them.
STREEP: Right. Right, right.
GROSS: But you did understand them. You let them know you understood them, and…
STREEP: Because they did – they think actresses are stupid. That was the other thing that – I mean, not they, ’cause I don’t think his son was that way. His son was my champion. I mean, he was the reason I was in the office. But the dad – he wasn’t being mean to me. He was just speaking to his son in Italian, but he had no idea that I would understand, because they think Americans are stupid, too, so…
GROSS: Did you worry that you were basically – I mean, you hadn’t been in any movies yet (laughter), so did you worry that word would spread about you that you were…
STREEP: A pain in the a**?
GROSS: …That you spoke back to directors? Yeah, that you were a real pain…
STREEP: (Laughter).
GROSS: …And that you were – yeah, that you were a problem, so, like, avoid her.
STREEP: I am a pain in the a**.
(LAUGHTER)
STREEP: How can I hide it?
(LAUGHTER)
STREEP: I mean (laughter), yeah, that is the package, you know, and…
GROSS: (Laughter).
STREEP: But I was not probably suited to that role either. I mean, that was the truth.
GROSS: How much did you want it?
STREEP: Not much. I mean, I did want a break, but I didn’t think I would be good in it. Honestly, I didn’t. It represented something that, I don’t know, I wasn’t drawn to. So I suppose it was easier to be obstreperous in the meeting because of that. If it was an audition for “Sophie’s Choice,” and Alan Pakula had said something like that, I maybe would have swallowed it because I wanted it so badly.
GROSS: We’re listening to the interview I recorded with Meryl Streep in 2012. We’ll hear more of that interview, and hear my 2000 interview with Sidney Poitier, after a break, as we continue our series, Classic Films and Movie Icons. I’m Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOSTON CELLO QUARTET’S “RAPSODIA CUBANA”)
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Let’s get back to my 2012 interview with Meryl Streep, one of the movie icons we’re featuring this week on our end-of-summer series.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: You were engaged to the actor John Cazale, whom most people know as Fredo in “Godfather” one and two, and in…
STREEP: “Dog Day Afternoon.”
GROSS: In “Dog Day Afternoon.” Why am I blanking on the title? And he had a small part in “The Deer Hunter.” You were nominated for an Oscar for your part in your – in “The Deer Hunter.” It was, like, one of your first films. And so you were engaged, and he died of bone cancer shortly after, in 1978.
STREEP: Yes. We were not engaged, but we were a couple. We lived together and – yes, for, like, three years.
GROSS: So he probably died not knowing how famous his roles were going to be, how famous those movies were going to be.
STREEP: I know. I know. He had – well, he had a – the “Godfather” movies were unbelievably popular. And, you know, they were just – popular isn’t the word. They were…
GROSS: Well, they’ve entered into iconic. Yeah.
STREEP: Yeah, absolutely. And they did early. I mean, early, early on, they had that importance, certainly in New York, where we lived. And, you know, we would walk along the street, and people would roll down the window, and they’d go, hey, Fredo, you know? And we could never pay for a dinner if we went to Little Italy – never, which was great. We went all the time. But he – yeah, he made five movies, and all five of them were nominated for best picture.
GROSS: You gave a terrific commencement address at Barnard in 2010, and one of the things you talked about was how you think of your first character as being you in high school (laughter), when you wanted to be the pretty, popular girl. So what you did was you studied Vogue and Mademoiselle. And what were some of the things you taught yourself to do?
STREEP: Bleach my hair, A, and curl it. And there was an elaborate thing, ’cause there weren’t hot curlers in those days, so you had to go to bed on – sleeping on rollers, which is just a torture, like maybe sleeping on one of those Maasai…
GROSS: (Laughter).
STREEP: …Wooden plugs that they put under your neck in the boma, you know, to go to sleep, which I also don’t understand.
GROSS: Did you ever use the tin-can thing, putting a tin can on top of your head?
STREEP: That was for the people with curly hair.
GROSS: All right. I get it.
STREEP: I was interested in curling…
GROSS: I get it.
STREEP: …My bone-straight hair…
GROSS: Right.
STREEP: …Which won’t bend, you know, under any circumstance. Yeah. But the girls with curly hair put it on cans so that it would straighten it out…
GROSS: Right.
STREEP: …During the night. Everybody was miserable.
GROSS: So you said that you adjusted your temperament to – in trying to be popular and appealing to boys.
STREEP: Yeah. Oh, sure.
GROSS: What did you change?
STREEP: I remember that, well, opinions took a back seat. Opinions were not, you know, attractive. I mean, this is stuff I remember thinking when I was quite young. You know, at my house, in order to be heard, you had to get your – no, you had to get your opinion out. No, no, no, don’t interrupt me. You know, Dad, he did that again. And you just…
GROSS: (Laughter).
STREEP: …You got it out. You learned to rise above the contending voices, but I recognized early on that that wasn’t attractive on a date. Like, if he said something stupid, you go, no I don’t agree with that at all. That’s – how can you say that? It’s idiotic. And that would not get a second date, so I would learn to go, (laughter) wow. Yeah, cool.
GROSS: (Laughter).
STREEP: You know, and that that would be OK. So it’s a form of acting for a purpose which girls learn to do, and girls are good at it, if they care to be. Now I don’t think they – what do I know? I have three daughters, and they’re all – they’re all doing it on their own, in their own way – I mean, getting along in life on their own terms. And I don’t feel they make those accommodations quite in the way we did, but this was something people did. Yeah.
GROSS: One other thing actresses, I think, worry about – you can be the leading lady in your 20s and 30s. Once you’re in your 40s, it’s really harder to get roles. There’s character roles and, you know, the parent roles. I think things are starting to change, but have you been satisfied with the roles for women of your age as you’ve changed ages over the years, or have you been frustrated with what’s out there?
STREEP: Both. I remember when I turned 40, I was offered within one year three different witch roles to be in.
GROSS: Literally witch?
STREEP: Witches, to play three different witches in three different contexts. But it was almost like the world was saying – or the (laughter) studios were saying – we don’t know what to do with you. And I remember – I mean, I’ve repeated this before many times, but I remember being shocked to find out that Bette Davis was 40 or 41 when she did “All About Eve” and was playing an over-the-hill, done, out-of-it, you’re-finished actress and that she was only 50 when she did “Baby Jane” and “Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” and those grotesques of witches. You could call them witches. So, yeah, I think there was for a long time in the movie business, a period of when a woman was attractive and marriageable or something – not marriageable. [Expletive], I guess, is the word (laughter), which…
GROSS: You can’t really say that on the radio.
STREEP: …I probably can’t say that. OK. Well, you know what I’m saying, so you substitute something better, but…
GROSS: We could bleep it.
STREEP: OK.
GROSS: It will have been bleeped by the time listeners hear that.
STREEP: OK. So that’s – that was it. And then after that, they really didn’t know what to do with you until you were the lioness in winter – right? – until you were 70. And then it was OK to, you know – “Driving Miss Daisy” or “Trip To Bountiful,” or things like that. But that middle period, what we call the middle, the most vibrant years of a woman’s life, arguably, from 40 to 60, were completely – nobody knew what to do with them. And that really has changed – completely changed – not for everybody. But for me, it has changed, and part of it, I think, has to do with the fact that I wasn’t that word that I just said that you bleeped before. When I was a younger actress, that wasn’t the first thing about me.
GROSS: Sexuality was not the first thing, is what you’re saying.
STREEP: It was not the first thing.
GROSS: Sexiness.
STREEP: Yeah, because when that goes away – cute. I was never cute. So when cute goes away, ’cause that goes away with age…
GROSS: Well, Meryl Streep, I really regret that we’re out of time. It’s been great to talk with you.
STREEP: Me too. Great to talk…
GROSS: Thank you so much for being on our show.
STREEP: Thanks, Terry. I enjoyed it.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAURENCE ROSENTHAL’S “MAIN TITLE/THE CHAUFFEUR”)
Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Melania Trump.
Muse Films/Amazon MGM Studios
hide caption
toggle caption
Muse Films/Amazon MGM Studios
If you’ve seen the trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 — prominently featuring shots of stiletto heels walking down corridors — you’ve got the general drift of what director Brett Ratner is up to in Melania. Melania is a high heels-forward documentary.
It covers the 20 days prior to her husband’s second inauguration, when much planning is required of a First Lady: Ball and banquet invitations, place-settings for a candle-lit dinner in Washington D.C.’s National Building Museum. Her staff previews for her the golden egg that will be that meal’s first course, and wonders whether the rectangular tablecloths should have broad gold stripes, and the round ones narrow stripes, or vice versa. So many decisions, and she’s on top of all of them.
The once-and-future President makes an occasional appearance, including in what appears to be a staged flashback to an election-night phone call. At another point, she drops by with her camera crew as he’s rehearsing his inaugural speech, and she suggests that he identify himself as a peacemaker “and a unifier.“ He incorporates it on the big day — in the film to a big burst of applause, which inspires a quick nod to his wife in gratitude. That’s not quite how it played out in real life; the applause and the nod are editing tricks. But never mind, the film Melania is her story, and — as not just its leading lady, but also an executive producer — she’s entitled to tell it any way she wants, peppered with needle drops from her favorite songs, including Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”
It’s a story that’s not without hiccups — the blouse collar that’s loose in the back, and not high enough; Former President Carter’s inconvenient death just before the inauguration, with his funeral falling on the first anniversary of her mother’s death. The First Lady talks in scripted voiceover through this section about missing her mom, and in decidedly unspontaneous voiceovers elsewhere about the Capitol building’s history, and her respect for the military, and at one point about the “elegance and sophistication of our donors,” as the camera drifts past Jeff Bezos, whose company Amazon did indeed donate $1 million for the inaugural.
It also paid $40 million to buy this film. That price makes Melania arguably the most expensive infomercial in history. It also makes it inconceivable that the film will return a profit — it’s only expected to take in a paltry $5 million dollars worldwide this weekend. That’s prompted speculation in Hollywood circles about what else Amazon thinks it bought when it purchased the film.
But that will be fodder someday for a far better documentary than the curated, airbrushed, glamorously dressed portrait that is Melania.
Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR’s recent financial supporters and pays to distribute some NPR content.
On Christmas morning, the man I thought I needed left me in another man’s cabin.
Hours earlier, Thom and I had been sprawled on the floor of a Santa Rosa utility closet where we’d been living, passing a meth pipe between us. I was 34 at the time. The mattress barely fit and it folded like a taco beside lube and dead torch lighters. Thom, in his 50s, had become my partner in chaos.
“Christmas. Anything you wanna do?” he asked with a tenderness I didn’t trust.
I scrolled Grindr. I’d traded seeing my family for crystal meth and the relief of nobody expecting anything of me.
After crashing my mom’s car and a stint in jail, I couldn’t face her disappointment. A decade in New York had promised stardom; by Christmas 2016, the promise had curdled. All I had left were men who only wanted my body. That was all I had left to give.
I showed Thom a torso-only photo on Grindr. “This guy’s having people over.”
He squinted. “That’s Ed.”
Thom’s Prius wound into Guerneville, a gay mountain retreat with meth undercurrents. That’s where Ed, a onetime costume designer, held his gatherings. Porn playing, GHB Gatorade, torch lighters that actually worked — everything we’d failed at. Billy, who was in his mid-20s, answered the door naked.
The cabin smelled of rot and wood smoke. We stripped down. It was part ritual, part performance. It’s how I’d stayed high and housed for the last few months. So I knew what came next. I knew my role. I pulled on a jockstrap two sizes too small.
Ed, who was in his 60s, grinned. “You’ve got that ‘West Side Story’ face, like you’re about to break into dance at the gym,” he said.
“Well, I played Tony,” I shot back. “No dancing for me.”
He laughed, and we were off, trading theater jokes, wardrobe malfunction stories and references Thom couldn’t follow. Thom’s jaw tightened as our connection excluded him.
He watched, his contempt spilling over, calculating whether I was worth competing for.
His face said exactly what I was: too much, replaceable. We were all using each other: Ed and Thom locked in an old rivalry, me the bait that kept older men supplied with boys. Billy was about to be replaced by me — I didn’t care. That was the cycle.
Thom yanked on his jeans, gave me one last sharp look and slammed the door. I waited for his car to circle back, even just to tell me off, but it never did. So I stayed with Ed.
Months blurred together without Thom. His absence weighed more than his presence ever had. With Ed, there was more than meth and sex. He spoke to the part of me that still loved literature, pop culture, acting — the part I assumed died. It wasn’t love the way people imagine it, but it was the closest thing I’d felt in years.
We settled into a routine of smoking, not sleeping, drawn curtains and dirty dishes until one morning I made peace with dying in a chemical haze.
“You really loved Thom,” Ed whispered over eggs neither of us wanted and then added, “I’m just glad I won.”
The words were petty, but I knew what he meant. I wasn’t just another Billy. In his own broken way, Ed cared, enough to know I didn’t belong there, not forever.
I stared at him, trying to read his next move. Was he kicking me out?
“If I let you stay here, I’d never forgive myself.” His voice was low, steadier than usual.
Ed was a dark character, fueled by his own hurt — he didn’t need to consider my future, he could’ve kept using me like everyone else had.
“Would you take me to L.A.?” I asked.
Ed nodded. “I’ve got an uncle in Venice.”
So we packed up his orange Honda Element. We tried leaving a few times, car loaded, engine running, but we were too high or too terrified of life on life’s terms. Then we finally made it. Even collapse felt easier in motion than rotting in that cabin.
The Central Valley stretched endlessly with dead grass and lawyer billboards. As palm trees started appearing, the air felt different — warmer, full of promises I hadn’t earned. But I told myself I would — if I could just get clean.
Ed’s uncle’s garage apartment reeked of must and jug wine. It was blocks from Venice Beach, yet still a prison. I didn’t know how to break free from the drug or the cycle that had trapped me. “Isn’t there a Ferris wheel on the beach?”
This was me trying to sound like I’d be willing to brave the world outside. But Ed knew better.
“That’s Santa Monica, the pier.”
The next day I reached out to Diana, an old college friend in North Hollywood. I’d told myself just get to L.A. — old connections would save me. But the look on her face when she saw me, my emaciated frame, the chemical burn under my clavicle, sour smell I couldn’t mask, told me otherwise. She hugged me stiffly, then pulled back.
“Jesus, Nick,” she said.
Ed said he was leaving and going back to Guerneville, but I begged for one more night. At a cheap motel, I accused him of hiding drugs.
“They’re my drugs,” Ed snapped. He grabbed his keys and was gone.
Abandonment had a sound — engine noise fading into Ventura Boulevard traffic. By morning, I still hadn’t slept. Outside, the sky burned neon pink and orange, the kind of L.A. sunrise that’s beautiful even if it’s born from smog. I just lay there, listening. Every car that slowed could be Diana or nobody.
At 10 a.m., she knocked, flinched when she saw me and helped me into her car. On the drive, she filled the silence with inconsequential chatter, as if nothing had changed. I pressed my forehead to the glass and counted palm trees to slow my heart.
Three months later, I landed at Van Ness Recovery House, an old Victorian in Beachwood Canyon under the Hollywood sign — 20 beds, three group sessions a day and nowhere left to lie.
The program director, Kathy, slid me a scrap of paper. It had a phone number with an area code I recognized.
“Ed?” I asked, though it wasn’t really a question. I knew what was next. I’d told the whole story in group. She knew everything.
“No contact. Ever,” Kathy said. I nodded.
“Tell him it’s over, and then hang up.”
Kathy handed me the phone. My hands shook as I dialed.
“Nick! How are you, sweetheart?” Ed answered, his voice warm and familiar.
Tears came before words. “Ed, I can’t … They say I can’t talk to you anymore.”
Silence stretched as Kathy watched and waited.
“But you helped me. You got me here. You …”
“Hang up, Nick,” she said firmly. “He’s a backdoor to your recovery.”
“I have to go,” I whispered.
“Wait, Nick, …” he started, but I hung up, Kathy’s eyes still on me. I handed the receiver back to her.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” she said. “This is your last chance. You can’t afford an escape route.”
Outside, the Hollywood sign caught the afternoon light. For the first time in months, no meth psychosis obstructed my view. It looked different, not a destination, but a witness.
Ten years later, I’m married to someone I met at an AA meeting; a quiet, steady love, the opposite of the chaos I once mistook for devotion. We bought a house in the Valley, have two rescue bulldogs. Today, when I drive past Van Ness — that old Victorian recovery house where I learned to tell the truth — I remember the Nick who thought survival was the same as love.
It wasn’t. But it got me to Los Angeles, where I finally learned the difference.
The author is a Los Angeles–based writer with recent bylines in the Cut, HuffPost and the Washington Post.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
Miles Gutierrez-Riley, John Slattery, Ben Wang, Ken Marino, and Zoey Deutch in Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, from director David Wain.
Sundance Institute
hide caption
toggle caption
Sundance Institute
2026 was an especially notable year for the Sundance Film Festival: it was the first without its legendary founder Robert Redford, who died last year, and it was the last to be held in Park City, Utah. Beginning next year, the fest will relocate to Boulder, Colo. for the foreseeable future.
As Sundance said goodbye to its home of over 40 years and honored Redford’s legacy, protests continued in Minnesota and across the country due to the escalated presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents on day three of Sundance, and at least one protest against ICE took place in Park City afterward. A man was arrested for assaulting Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost at a Sundance party; on social media, Frost said the man yelled racist slurs and said President Trump was going to deport Frost.
And in the middle of it all: movies. Sundance awards were announced on Friday; Josephine, director Beth de Araújo’s intense family drama, won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize (more on that below), and Nuisance Bear, Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman’s film set in Churchill, Manitoba, the “Polar Bear Capital of the World,” won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize. (You can see the full list of winners here.)
I was on the ground for the first few days of the fest and then caught up with more films at home during the virtual portion. Here are a few of my favorites.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Aaron Douglas, Jean Blackwell Hutson, Nathan Huggins, Richard Bruce Nugent, Eubie Blake and Irvin C. Miller in Once Upon A Time In Harlem.
William Greaves Productions/Sundance Institute
hide caption
toggle caption
William Greaves Productions/Sundance Institute
Hands down, the best film I saw is simultaneously old and new: In 1972, groundbreaking filmmaker William Greaves convened an intellectual gathering of the living dignitaries of the Harlem Renaissance at the palatial home of Duke Ellington. The project remained unfinished until now; it’s finally been restored and completed by Greaves’ son David, who served as a cameraman all those years ago. (William died in 2014.) What was captured is a priceless, crucial, and riveting piece of history — notable figures like actor Leigh Whipper, journalist Gerri Major, visual artist Aaron Douglas, and activist Richard B. Moore engaging in vivid anecdotes and passionate debates about that cultural movement and how it should be remembered. The excavation of such history feels nothing short of monumental.
Josephine
Gemma Chan, Mason Reeves and Channing Tatum in Josephine from director Beth de Araújo.
Greta Zozula/Sundance Institute
hide caption
toggle caption
Greta Zozula/Sundance Institute
The buzziest film out of Sundance is probably Beth de Araújo’s sophomore feature starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan as the parents of Josephine (Mason Reeves), an 8-year-old girl who witnesses a horrific crime in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. And for good reason; while I have critiques of some of de Araújo’s filmmaking choices, she’s crafted a tense and mostly affecting drama with a very strong performance from Reeves, who carries much of the film’s emotional weight.
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
Some movies at the fest were exceptionally horny this year; two projects involving Olivia Wilde, The Invite and I Want Your Sex, were all about the pleasures and frictions of sexual expression. But the raunchy offering that worked best for me was David Wain’s silly and delightful tale of small-town hairdresser Gail Daughtry (Zoey Deutch), who sets out to even the scoreboard after her fiancé unexpectedly winds up using his celebrity “hall pass.” In her quest to track down and sleep with her celebrity crush, she picks up some new friends along the way, Wizard of Oz-style, including a paparazzi photographer (co-writer Ken Marino) and an overconfident, low-level employee at Creative Artists Agency (Ben Wang, the movie’s secret weapon). Jokes about Los Angeles and the cult of celebrity fly fast and free and fun cameos abound; look out for many of Wain’s frequent collaborators.
Filipiñana
Rafael Manuel’s feature debut is an incisive, slow-burning satire of capitalism and powerful men with far too much hubris — basically, a story for our times. It’s set almost entirely on a country club in the Philippines, where the shy and observant Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto) works as a tee girl and crosses paths with the club’s president Dr. Palanca (Teroy Guzman). Manuel’s visual eye is quirky and astute, with gorgeous shots of the pristine golf grounds and other amenities serving as the backdrop for far more sinister happenings.
Frank & Louis
Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan in Frank & Louis, directed by Petra Biondina Volpe.
Rob Baker Ashton/Sundance Institute
hide caption
toggle caption
Rob Baker Ashton/Sundance Institute
Prison dramas are tough to pull off without veering too heavily into stereotypes and trauma porn, but director Petra Biondina Volpe and co-writer Esther Bernstorff find a unique and profound way in here. Kingsley Ben-Adir plays Frank, who’s serving a life sentence but is coming up for parole. He takes a job caring for other inmates who are experiencing cognitive decline, and is assigned to the prickly and unpredictable Louis (Rob Morgan). The premise is familiar, but the execution is refreshing; the script frankly interrogates the thorny concept of punishment and redemption, and the excellent Ben-Adir and Morgan find humanity within their morally fraught characters.
Carousel
Rachel Lambert’s latest plays like a loving throwback to the intimate, adult romantic melodramas that were in abundant supply before the 2000s. Chris Pine (giving serious Robert Redford in The Way We Were energy) and Jenny Slate play former childhood friends and one-time romantic partners who reconnect after many years and attempt to make it work again. The chemistry between these two is off the charts, whether they’re tentatively yet tenderly falling into an embrace or arguing about each other’s flaws.
The Gallerist
Your mileage may vary with Cathy Yan’s artworld farce, but I had a great time with this, in which Natalie Portman plays a struggling gallery owner who attempts to sell a dead body “disguised” as part of a sculpture, during Art Basel Miami. The ensemble is stacked — Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Sterling K. Brown, just for starters — and they all seem to be having a blast. Layer in some commentary about art, commerce, and influencer culture (the increasingly ever-present Charli XCX also has a small role here), and there’s plenty here to take in.
Watch the video: European space industry – boom or bust?
Judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge as a lawsuit proceeds
Minnesota fraud whistleblower says ‘lack of guardrails was pretty shocking’
Second teen dies after Texas sledding accident that killed best friend: ‘They were holding on to each other’
Father claims daughter accused of sex crimes with Florida middle schoolers is the ‘real victim’
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Watch the video: European space industry – boom or bust?
Judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge as a lawsuit proceeds
New Jersey governor to launch portal for uploading videos of ICE tactics: ‘They have not been forthcoming’
Israeli forces kill 12 Palestinians across Gaza, attacks reported in Rafah
Anti-ICE protests take place across US for ‘National Shutdown’
-
Illinois1 week agoIllinois school closings tomorrow: How to check if your school is closed due to extreme cold
-
Pennsylvania5 days agoRare ‘avalanche’ blocks Pennsylvania road during major snowstorm
-
Technology1 week agoRing claims it’s not giving ICE access to its cameras
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago
Movie Review: In ‘Mercy,’ Chris Pratt is on trial with an artificial intelligence judge
-
News1 week agoVideo: Jack Smith Defends His Trump Indictments During House Hearing
-
Movie Reviews4 days agoVikram Prabhu’s Sirai Telugu Dubbed OTT Movie Review and Rating
-
Politics6 days agoTrump’s playbook falters in crisis response to Minneapolis shooting
-
Politics1 week agoWhite House explains bruise on Trump’s hand
