Here’s a trivia question for you: Who has been nominated for more Oscars, man or woman, than anyone else in the history of the Academy Awards? Movie buffs likely know the answer off the top of their heads, right?
Meryl Streep. And the number of times she’s been nominated is astounding.In total, Streep has gotten 21 nods, winning three times.
In this episode, Reba and Tandy review two of Ms. Streep’s films for which she was nominated— one a comedy, one a drama.
In the 1985 period drama Out of Africa, Streep plays Karen Blixen, a Danish woman who moves to Kenya in 1914. Upon arriving, she marries her cousin, an aristocrat-turned-big game hunter, played by the Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer.
They live on a large coffee plantation, and in due course, the task of running it falls squarely on Blixen’s shoulders. Enter the rakish Denys Finch Hattan, played by Robert Redford. As her relationship with her husband becomes strained, a romance with Denys flourishes.
The movie is adapted from Karen Blixen’s book of the same name published in 1937 under the pen name Isak Dinesen. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Original Score, and Best Director for Sydney Pollock.
In the 2006 dramedy The Devil Wears Prada, Streep stars as New York style maven Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of the glossy high-fashion magazine Runway. Miranda is in need of a second assistant in addition to her primary assistant, played by Emily Blunt.
Enter Andrea “Andy” Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway. Andy is the proverbial fish out of water, a smart college grad with no fashion sense. She’s never read Runway and has no idea who Miranda Priestly is.
The film is adapted from the 2003 roman a clef by Lauren Weisberger. Weisberger was an assistant to Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, and conjecture of course is that Weisberger’s novel was inspired by her experiences at Vogue.
Correction: Tandy twice incorrectly refers to Streep’s character as “Amanda,” while in fact the correct name is “Miranda.” We regret the error.