Acting is an intimate thing. When you entrust someone with something very private, a tremendous bond of intimacy develops, and that intimacy is like love. I can feel everything with Meryl, because she offers everything to respond to.
Kevin Kline

With Meryl you really feel very close to someone like her, because she just projects that "thing." And you know that she too is looking out for you, even though she's doing her role.
Al Pacino

She's a tremendously important artist in our time. She's historically important.
William Hurt

In the category of best actress, ever. The nominees are: Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep. and Meryl Streep. And the winner is, guess who. . . .at first I was a little nervous, you know, I didn't know what she'd be like. But lucky for me, she was open. . . and willing to learn. . . .there is no bad film on this woman. There are no flaws. That's what I want to know. Where are the flaws? What are you man? What are you? Shape Shifter!!!! Body Snatcher!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! . . . Seriously though, whether you're a friend, a colleague, or just a person in a dark movie theatre being moved by your many, many beautiful performances, I think we can all agree that no one has ever deserved this honor more. And I know how easily embarrassed you are about compliments and things like that, and it's going to be a very confronting night for you and I don't want to lay it on too thick or anything like that so I'll just say this: You're simply the best! You're better than all the rest! One more thing. I know you're already embarrassed, you wanted this not to happen I'm sure. God bless you, as you have blessed us, and as He has blessed us through you.
Jim Carrey, from the AFI Tribute to Meryl Streep

To be in Meryl's presence is to be on the receiving end of how far she goes in her exploration of the human experience. By putting life before art, Meryl Streep has made the choice of a trailblazing pioneer. . .and in the process became my generation's genius. It's true, isn't it? I mean let's face it, okay. It's just mindblowing to look at all these clips and just see these, I don't know. It's a little too much for me, frankly. It's overwhelming. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to recognize the inevitable: that giving love is the true measure of a great artist. Thanks.
Diane Keaton, from the AFI Tribute to Meryl Streep

Your films have that universal appeal which is the hallmark of great artists. Throughout your career to date, encompassing some 30 films, you have shown a remarkable willingness to portray all kinds of women characters, most of them inspired by real life heroines. You have embodied extraordinary women in their ordinary, everyday lives and ordinary women caught in extraordinary situations. Everybody remembers Inga in the TV mini series Holocaust, Joanna in Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie in Sophie's Choice, Karen Silkwood in Silkwood, Karen Blixen in Out of Africa, Francesca in The Bridges of Madison County and more recently Kate in One True Thing, to cite only a few. To all of them, you have brought empathy and talent, depth and humanity. You are, dear Meryl Streep, every woman! Beyond nationalities and culture, beyond age and race, every woman of the world can recognize herself, or see a role model in these strong and passionate women you have incarnated on the screen.
François Bujon de l'Estang
Ambassador of France in the United States
Excerpted from his speech presenting Meryl with the honor of the French Insignia of the Order of Arts and Letters

Meryl is an extraordinary woman as well as an extraordinary actress--we met just after she did Kramer vs. Kramer. What's fascinating about this 1988 picture is that it's not the way she wants to look--she is the least vain actress I know. She never gets into the pleasure of looking beautiful. Even with actresses who are reluctant to be photographed, there is a moment when they surrender to that feeling. With Meryl, it's a complete struggle to get her to stay in front of the camera. This picture captures something that will probably never happen again!
Brigitte Lacombe, more: november 2001

I suppose it's what puzzles everyone about acting who don't act themselves -- that ability she has to get inside the role, and make it completely real, and it's completely not her. This is the point where talking about acting is beyond words. She locks into this other reality, without apparent pain but with complete concentration, a febrile imagination, and a joy in playing.
Jeremy Irons

Meryl has always been somebody that I've always just warmed to as a person, as an actor, as the most extraordinary actress of her time. And so the chance to just share, even though we don't share any scenes, to share the film with her is very important for me, and I have it now forever. And that's very, very special.
Nicole Kidman

It was exciting to work with Meryl, it's always exciting to work with Meryl. I mean, she's just such an extraordinary actress and a wonderful person and a fun person to be with. And you know what I love about Meryl is that she's not easy. And you know she wasn't easy in this scene. I mean she's formidable. And she's playing the different point of view. And that's always present in her performance, and that was always clear to me. You know, it was like I had to kind of actively work as a character and as an actor to engage her, to tell my story, and it was exciting. It was a lot of fun to do it. . . It was something that I will forever be glad that I had the opportunity to do, to do this scene with her, to be with her in something, something that was as difficult as this.
Julianne Moore

When I first had a conversation with Scott Rudin, he said "What do you think about Meryl Streep?" -- I said, "I would DIE to work with Meryl Streep. . . that would just be a fantastic treat.
Stephen Daldry

She's past the analyzing of the character. Her training and her experience have taken her to a point where she can be effortless with a lot of things other people have to work really hard at.
Robert Redford

Some actors feel humiliated by costumes. Meryl feels liberated by them.
Karel Reisz

My first day with her, I both dreaded it and was thrilled by it. It must be strange to be her. She is Mecca for actors. For her to come to work, and know that across from you is someone who is hanging on your every syllable, and that you can either ruin that someone's day or make it -- that must be a strange place to live in. You get over it, of course. I was always looking for a flaw, something to make her more human. She's Meryl Streep, but she can also be funny and catty and like. . . sort of a normal actress.
Justin Kirk

She can actually vanish into another person, in every role she becomes a totally new human being.
Sydney Pollack

Weeks before we begin shooting, the company starts to get together.
And whoever is playing her lover is in love with her.
Whoever is playing the villain is a little scared of her.
Whoever is playing her best friend is her best friend.
She shifts her soul slightly and changes the chemistry of all the relationships.
Mike Nichols

. . . and I was amazed that she wanted to do it.
That she would play someone that was even remotely based on someone
that was even remotely me was amazing --
and she was amazing at it --
it was extraordinary to watch her and watch Shirley and watch Mike. . .
Carrie Fisher

Working with Meryl was one of the highlights of my career.
Kurt Russell

I told her that I thought her speech on the stand, as written, was what a man would say, not a woman," says Benton. "I asked her to try and rewrite it, and then promptly forgot that I asked her. A few weeks go by and we're ready for the scene, and Meryl comes with pages on a legal pad -- the speech where she utters, "I'm his Mommy." She had fully understood it in a way none of us had. There's a genius in that."
Robert Benton on Joanna's courtroom speech

If there's a heaven for directors, it would be to direct Meryl Streep your whole life,
and my wish for the world is that Meryl will [someday] be 90 years old,
acting in a great role written about a 90-year-old woman.
Alan J. Pakula

There's only so much you can explain about what she does.
There's something else at work there that may be more in the category of 'gift.'
It defies explanation.
Carl Franklin

Directing Meryl Streep is much like falling in love;
it has the characteristics of a time that you remember as magical and creative,
but which is shrouded in mystery.
Mike Nichols

Her performance (as Sophie) is simply the most amazing that I’ve ever seen.
William Styron

Meryl embodies everything a great, worthwhile artist is about.
James Woods

I only made one phone call.
Clint Eastwood on casting Meryl for Francesca

She's too good an actress, and I don't think she can compromise even if she wanted to. That's the greatest saving grace she has.
Joseph Papp

There's nobody better.
Renee Zellweger

Meryl's got to be one of those phenomena, like Garbo, that happen once in a generation.
Mike Nichols

During her interview on 'Inside the Actor's Studio,' Meryl said that she can glide into characters. That comes from ease after preparing for a role, which she does with such quiet intensity but away from everyone else. That's something I learned from her. She saw that my acting problem is that I take things too seriously. During the middle of some takes, I got really frustrated, and she passed by and gently whispered, "Stop whining." It was like a great director's single note -- that's all I needed, and I'm eternally grateful.
Chris Cooper

It was a night to remember. Meryl Streep was portraying Roberta Guaspari, and some of the world's greatest living violinists, including Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman, gave virtuoso performances. Some 2,000 extras filled every seat in the 108-year-old concert hall, and more than half of the 150 actors were Guaspari's former students. It was a 20-hour day. We shot until 3 a.m., and at one point, I saw Isaac nudge Itzhak and point to Meryl while she was playing the violin. They were astonished. She learned to play the violin for this film.
Wes Craven

Meryl gave me this gift that made me sob in my Sunset Boulevard dressing room. Thank God I had already fixed my base, it would have set me back 30 minutes. She had this beautiful pair of pearl earrings that I first noticed when we all read the script. I thought they were so beautiful. A week later, a package arrived at the stage door and in it were these beautiful antique pearls with a note saying, "They're battered but beautiful, just like the best of us." It was the greatest thing anyone has ever given me.
Glenn Close

Meryl has become known as a chameleon, a shape-shifter. . .
an appropriate icon for a postmodern, fractured, increasingly global age.
Her gift for characterization, perhaps unrivaled in the American cinema,
has been linked to her uncanny knack for accents,
but Streep's talent for inhabiting characters resides in a more primal place.
Joseph Papp once called Streep one of the few true actors he had met;
her capacity to grasp and communicate complex psychological truths is remarkable.
Excerpt from the Telluride Film Festival's 25th Anniversary Celebration Tribute to Meryl,
at which she was awarded their prestigious Silver Medallion