Meryl Streep · 1977 · Signature Roles
Meryl Streep’s film debut is a small role in a film about big things: Julia, based on Lillian Hellman’s memoir, tells of two friends — Hellman and the title character, an anti-fascist activist — separated by war and politics.
Meryl Streep’s film debut is a small role in a film about big things: Julia, based on Lillian Hellman’s memoir, tells of two friends — Hellman and the title character, an anti-fascist activist — separated by war and politics. Streep plays Anne-Marie, a friend of Julia’s, and she is on screen only briefly.
But brief was enough. Even in a few scenes, Streep’s precision is visible: the way she listens, the accent, the sense of a complete person behind a handful of lines. Directors noticed. Within a year she was carrying major films, and Julia is now watched as a prologue — the first glimpse of an actor who would soon make small roles unnecessary, because she would be given the whole film.
