‘The Devil Wears Prada’ Star Meryl Streep Admits She Still Wishes She Never Took One Specific Role

Meryl Streep may be considered one of the greatest actresses of all time, but even she has a movie performance she still looks back on with frustration.

Despite receiving awards praise and an Oscar nomination for the role, the Hollywood icon admitted she was never fully happy with her work in the 1981 drama “The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”

The film, directed by Karel Reisz and based on John Fowles’ novel, starred Streep alongside Jeremy Irons. The story followed a complicated romance between Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, but the movie also added a second layer by showing modern actors playing those same characters during a film production.

Even though critics loved the performance, Streep later revealed that she personally struggled with the role. Speaking about the movie over the years, including during an appearance on “The Graham Norton Show,” the actress explained that she never felt fully connected to the character.

“I didn’t feel I was living it,” Streep admitted. “You always want to do something better after the fact.”

She also revealed that part of her insecurity came from how she looked in the movie. According to Streep, she felt her appearance did not fully match the image she had in mind for the character, especially in a story heavily inspired by Victorian literature and romance.

“I couldn’t help wishing that I was more beautiful,” she said.

Streep explained that appearance can sometimes play a huge role in helping actors disappear into a character. For her, that became a challenge during the production of “The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”

“There comes a point when you have to look the part, especially in movies,” she explained. “In Victorian literature, passion, an illicit feeling, was always represented by darkness.”

The actress also spoke about how difficult it was balancing the movie’s layered structure. In the film, she was not only playing Sarah Woodruff, but also portraying an American actress playing a British woman inside the story itself. That extra level of performance made the role feel less natural to her.

“Part of it was, the structure of it was sort of artificial because I was the actress playing the French Lieutenant’s Woman,” Streep said. “At the same time I was an American actress playing a British woman.”

Despite her personal disappointment, audiences and critics reacted very differently. The performance earned Streep a BAFTA win, a Golden Globe award, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Over the years, the film has continued to be praised as one of the standout performances from her long career.

Still, Streep has always been unusually honest about her own doubts and insecurities as an actress. While many performers avoid criticizing their older work, she has openly discussed the moments where she feels she could have done more.

For most actors, a role celebrated by critics and award shows would be remembered as a major success. For Meryl Streep, it became one of the rare performances she still wishes she could revisit and improve.

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