It’s a large machine that markets these films, that makes theatre owners commit their theatres half a year in advance - that’s how it works. “Parts are rare,” Streep says, “the amount of product is rare. It’s harder for a man to jump inside a woman character’s mind and imagine, ‘This could happen to me’ than it is for a woman to imagine herself as a male character.” But surely the profits count? “They see it and they understand that there is a market and it will make them an enormous amount of money, but we all respond to instinct and it’s their inner boy that jumps up and goes: ‘Yeah, I wanna see another GI Joe’.”Ī recent article speculated that Streep may be up for another Oscar nomination this year a source said that the organisation had noted a dearth of strong female roles. Hasn’t Hollywood woken up? “It’s always a shock to the studio,” Streep says with real firmness, “because men run the studios and live their own fantasies through them. I think it’s a series of happy coincidences and also that there are more women in the hierarchy of movie-making and movie-financing and they are more interested and less afraid of making movies that appeal to other women.”īut this is a well-worn trend now. “I wish I could figure out a way to capitalise on that.

“It’s hilarious,” she says, stroking her chin. Streep was recently described as an economist’s dream: every project she has recently been associated with has generated big box office.

Nora ephron meryl streep