HER AGAIN: Becoming Meryl Streep By Michael Schulman

Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep

by Michael Schulman (Author)

Print Length: 304 pages

Publisher: Harper Collins (April 26 2016)

“Her again “is exactly what I have said when watching the Academy Awards and Meryl Streep is nominated.  Michael Schulman crafts a fast paced look at Meryl Streep –from her childhood to the role that launched her in KRAMER VS KRAMER (1979).

What I found the most entertaining were the people that Streep came in contact with; particularly from her days in theatre.  John Lithgow, Dustin Hoffman (she auditioned for a play he was directing), Al Pacino, and Sigourney Weaver from her Yale acting days.  Schulman weaves a real world of personalities filled with little bits of up and down, with backstage stories to round things out. Streep reads a great deal of books on various subjects, and memorizes whole Shakespearian plays.

Meryl Streep moved in the world with fairy tale quality based on her looks and her ability to present character on stage and later in film.  The story seems to have that Hollywood quality to it. For example, Meryl could arrive an hour late for an important Broadway audition and get the role instantly. Schulman is a Meryl Streep booster and fan which is evident in the tone and depth of the story.

The best parts delved into Steep’s  relationship with unconventional actor John Cazale, who many will know played the machine  gun carrying fellow trying to get the  sex change operation financed by Al Pacino’s character in DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975).   Those moments become an unconventional love story as the quirky looking Cazale (who apparently did everything at his own pace no matter what) and the blonde, Nordic looking blue eyed, high cheek boned Streep.  The book follows Cazale’s cancer diagnoses and Streep spending months nursing him till he passed away.   Al Pacino said years later as reported by the author that, “No matter what she wins… This will always be his memory of her and how she stood up for John.”

The book ends with a detailed narrative the making of KRAMER VS KRAMER (1979) and a look at the talent of Dustin Hoffman – whom were learn has a very abrasive style of directing and set manner – he locks   horns with Meryl Streep, who plays the wife in the landmark tale of a divorce and child custody battle. This picture is a child of the late eighties with the rise of feminism, with which Meryl seems to have taken on in her life.

It may not be a complete look into the life of Meryl Streep but it doesn’t claim to be as its subtitle of “Becoming Meryl Streep,” suggests.  Still an entertaining look at what some thing is one of greatest female actors of this generation and how she became the Meryl Streep we see on the screen.