Comedy star Amy Poehler admits that it was a little intimidating to share a dressing room with three-time Oscar-winner Meryl Streep during SNL’s 50th Anniversary show.
“She was getting ready for her sketch and really rehearsing it,” Amy recalled on the podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.” “I remember thinking, ‘I have never rehearsed as hard as Meryl Streep is in this one moment.’”
Despite her years in show business and many accolades, Meryl, 75, had never hosted or appeared on the sketch comedy show before. Though she did break character and laugh while appearing with Kate McKinnon in a skit about alien abductions, it was among the most talked about sketches of the night.
“Meryl Streep and Kate McKinnon need to make a buddy comedy together,” joked a critic on NBC Insider.
After years of largely concentrating on serious dramatic roles and becoming the queen of foreign accents, Meryl is letting her hair down and accepting jobs that are just plain fun. In 2022, she contacted Steve Martin, whom she worked with on 2009’s It’s Complicated, asking if a role on Only Murders in the Building could be created for her in its third season.
“I was a huge fan of the show,” Meryl said at a press event on the Paramount lot. “I also just wanted to have some fun because the world is pretty [lousy] right now.”
Her role as aspiring actress (and sometimes murder suspect) Loretta, has since carried over into the show’s fourth and upcoming fifth season. Costar Martin Short, who plays Loretta’s love interest, called working with the 21-time Oscar nominee a thrill.
“The first day of shooting, which was rare because I’m not brand new, I was driving to work and I thought, ‘I’m nervous today,’” he confessed at the press event. “I’m working with Meryl Streep.’”
Meryl Streep’s New Chapter
Since that first day, Meryl and Martin’s years-long friendship has turned to romance. The timing had a lot to do with it. Meryl has been separated from her longtime spouse and father of her four children, sculptor Don Gummer, since 2017. Marty, meanwhile, lost his wife Nancy to ovarian cancer in 2010 after 30 years of marriage.
“Meryl and Martin have known each other about a decade but they became very close when they started filming the show together,” a friend exclusively confides to Closer. “It slowly built into more than a friendship about a year ago.”
The pair relish their time together, but neither feels inclined to upend their lives or put a label on what they are to each other.
“She thinks it’s silly to call Martin her boyfriend, and besides, she doesn’t think it’s anyone’s business,” explains the friend. Plus, Meryl doesn’t want to jinx it. “What they have is special. When they’re together there’s always interesting conversation and best of all, laughter. He cracks her up. They may not live together, but yes, it’s serious. It works for them.”
These days, the actress splits her time between the east and west coasts, but her home base is Pasadena, California, where she is closer to family. (It’s also just an hour away from Marty’s longtime estate in Pacific Palisades.)
“I specialize in unsolicited advice,” Meryl joked to Interview about the joys of being a grandma of five.
“She’s a great grandmother,” says the insider, who adds that her children get a kick out of watching Meryl read books to the little ones — complete with funny voices. “She also loves to give the grandkids gentle life lessons.”
Meryl tries not to meddle in her kids’ careers. Her son Henry, 45, is focused on music, while daughters Mamie, 41, Grace, 38, and Louisa, 33, all act.
“I am proud that my daughters want to do this. But I am also frightened for them, too,” admitted Meryl to The Talks. “But I would never say don’t do it, because I think it is a glorious profession and I am so thankful for everything it has let me express.”
Meryl Streep’s Big Horizons
Meryl admits that despite her many awards, she didn’t expect her career to remain so vibrant.
“I remember as I was hovering around 40, I thought each movie would be my last, really,” she told WSJ magazine in 2016. “And all the evidence of other 40-year-old women at that time … would lead you to believe it was over.”
In recent years, Meryl has accepted many smaller, character driven roles, such as President Orlean in the 2021 ensemble satire, Don’t Look Up.
“[President Orlean] had no real agenda except to have and retain power, and when she got there, she just realized that the job was pretty easy,” Meryl told The New York Times.
She’s also dipped her toes into limited TV series including Only Murders in the Building and Big Little Lies.
“She loves working on TV because it’s less of a grind than long film shoots on faraway locations,” explains the friend. “She doesn’t hate that life, she just hasn’t found a great script to make it worth it.”
However, if the perfect star vehicle did present itself, Meryl’s available. “She wouldn’t mind winning another Oscar,” notes the insider. However, at this point, Meryl has nothing to prove — in either her professional or personal lives.
“I know life is short and I’m a lucky woman,” she said in an interview. “I think that you find your own way. You have your own rules. You have your own understanding of yourself, and that’s what you’re going to count on. In the end, it’s what feels right to you.”