In a recent New York Times interview, Meryl Streep sat down with co-star Tom Hanks to discuss their latest film The Post. Streep plays Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, the woman at the helm of the decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
Throughout the interview, Streep and Hanks relate the movie's themes back to present day ("We made this movie about 1971, but it really is about 2017," Hanks says). So, unsurprisingly, the conversation turns to recent allegations of harassment against Harvey Weinstein, and the actress doesn't hold back. "I found out about this on a Friday and went home deep into my own life," says Streep of hearing the news. "I really had to think. Because it really underlined my own sense of cluelessness, and also how evil, deeply evil, and duplicitous, a person he was, yet such a champion of really great work."
As well as acknowledging she wanted to grapple with the revelations, Streep mentions she was criticized for not speaking out sooner: "[S]omebody told me that on Morning Joe they were screaming that I haven't responded yet. I don't have a Twitter thing or—handle, whatever. And I don't have Facebook." But the actress suggests there are other people that we should be hearing from as well. "I want to hear about the silence of Melania Trump," says the actress. "She has so much that's valuable to say. And so does Ivanka. I want her to speak now."
Although she declines to give details—in order not to "ruin somebody's mature life"—Streep also addresses her own encounters as an actress in Hollywood, saying, "I have experienced things, mostly when I was young and pretty.... [B]ack in the day, when everybody was doing cocaine, there was a lot of [expletive] behavior that was inexcusable."
In November, a 1979 interview resurfaced in which Streep said Dustin Hoffman (who has been accused of sexual misconduct) touched her breast during their first meeting. Since then, Streep's representative has said the meeting was mischaracterized and that Streep has accepted an apology from Hoffman. The two also starred together in Kramer vs. Kramer, and in one scene, Hoffman slaps Streep. "But this was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me," Streep tells the Times. "And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping. But I think those things are being corrected in this moment."
Read the full Times interview here.
