Source: Chicago Tribune

By Dean Richards

She is the most nominated actor of all time. Meryl Streep has been up for Academy Awards 17 times; 14 times as best actress, three times as supporting actress. She's won twice ("Sophie's Choice" and "Kramer vs. Kramer").

Her most recent nomination came for her portrayal of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady."This month, she won a Golden Globe for the role.

Q: Do you put a lot of stock in all of the awards?

A: I just feel it's so dopey that there's a competition between all of these very diverse, interesting roles.

I was thrilled by what was out there this year because I'm a member of the academy and I get to see everything, but people around the country don't have access to a lot of these films yet because they're in limited exhibitions. The award shows really make a big difference by bringing attention to films that maybe otherwise wouldn't be shown.

Q: There was some confusion on the stage when you won your Golden Globe. You seemed flustered because you weren't able to read your speech. You even got bleeped.

A: Ah, the bleeping, my goodness. Well, I had my speech with me, and I carefully picked a dress that had pockets so I could make sure I had it with me, but I thought my glasses were in the pocket, and they weren't! They were at the table so I was doomed to not remember certain performances, people and films that I really, really wanted to mention in that moment because it's been a great year for women and for women's leading roles in these weird little movies.

I just wanted to thank certain people, especially my makeup people on "The Iron Lady."

Q: What do you think we learn about Margaret Thatcher in this that we didn't know from the well documented public life that she had?

A: Yeah, she had a life and career that was voluminously chronicled, but we don't know so much about the personal story. Of necessity, public people are always more interesting, more nuanced and different, three dimensional than we think of them. With Margaret Thatcher, there were so many surprises about how she was a chemist and took her degree at Oxford in chemistry and was an early proponent of global warming. She was vehemently pro-choice.

She was remarkably unprejudiced; she had … a very anti-Semitic time in the Tory party, but she appointed Jews and homosexuals in her Cabinet and stood up for them in scandals. I must say, I didn't expect to find the woman that I did in this research.

It's all in our film as a look back at that big life but seen from the waning end of it, and that's a very particular point of view and one that normally wouldn't be taken in looking at this kind of political life. But it was important to us as women, the director, writer, editor and me to present it from a different way of looking.

Q: After this, do you do something else serious, or will you do something fun and more lighthearted?

A: There are so many stories to tell. There are so many different kinds of women and so many souls that deserve to be delivered on screen. That's sort of what I love to do, and they keep letting me do it, so I keep doing it.

That said, I did just make my very first sex comedy with Tommy Lee Jones. That'll come out next year, so that's exciting, I hope, or terrifying, depending on how you look at it.

Watch my interviews 4 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on WGN-Ch. 9 Morning News. My radio show airs 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sundays on WGN-AM 720 and wgnradio.com. You can also go to wgntv.com/deanslist

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