Meryl Streep is widely regarded as the greatest film actress of all time, best known to millions as the ice-cold Miranda Priestly in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and now back in the role in ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’. With three Oscars and a career spanning five decades, she has always spoken about life and work with a rare and refreshing honesty. Here are some lessons from the woman herself.
Meryl Streep’s conviction: Always take your heart to work
In a 2008 interview with ‘Good Housekeeping’, Meryl was asked about the secret to a meaningful career. Her answer was disarmingly simple. “Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too,” she said. For someone who has played queens, presidents, editors, and everything in between, the lesson was clear no role, no job, and no day is worth showing up halfway. Full presence is the only way she has ever known how to do it.
Meryl Streep on finding your own way: Ignore everyone else
Speaking at Vassar College in 1983, Meryl gave a piece of advice that has aged remarkably well. “The choice between the devil and the dream comes up every day in different little disguises,” she told the graduating class, adding that her advice was always to look the dilemma in the face and decide what you can live with. It is the kind of lesson that applies to every career, every crossroads, and every moment where the easier path is tempting but the right one is not.
Meryl Streep says the minute you care what others think, you lose yourself
This was one of her most direct and enduring observations, shared across multiple interviews throughout her career. “The minute you start caring about what other people think is the minute you stop being yourself,” she said. For someone who has been in the public eye for over five decades, it was a conviction she kept coming back to again and again.
Meryl Streep on embracing change: There is no such thing as normal
At her Barnard College commencement speech in 2010, Meryl delivered a line that has stayed with people ever since. “This is your time, and it feels normal to you, but really, there is no normal. There’s only change, and resistance to it, and then more change,” she told the graduating class. It was a reminder that certainty is an illusion and that the only real skill worth building is the ability to keep moving forward through the uncertainty. Coming from someone who had already reinvented herself multiple times by that point, it landed with real weight.