Streep, Branagh tackle new challenges
If you were Meryl Streep, after practically a lifetime of thespic triumphs, you would be forgiven for wanting to rest on your laurels, right? All those awards and other honors she’s accumulated over the years would make a thick and comfy bed, you bet.
But, being the true-blue artist she is, Streep has no plans to go on leave from film acting just yet, thanks very much. After all, so many great characters and acting challenges are waiting in line for her masterful services.
For instance, Streep is currently filming a movie on the life and times of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s only female prime minister to date. A formidable woman, Thatcher needs a great screen artist like Streep to do her justice—and the actress isn’t shirking from the challenge, but is embracing it with all the passion, creativity and painstaking research it requires.
Versatility
Streep is famous for her chameleon-like versatility, which enables her to totally change the way she looks, sounds, moves, thinks and feels to “become” an entirely different person.
Most recently, her inspired personification of celebrity chef, Julia Child, won plaudits—and an acting award. Since Thatcher is even more formidable and “important,” it’s expected that Streep’s characterization of her will be even more memorable and celebrated once the biopic is shown later this year.
For his part, Kenneth Branagh has presented himself with a similarly daunting thespic challenge by agreeing to play no less than the world’s best actor, Laurence Olivier, in a new film about Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, when they were shooting a film together (“The Prince and the Showgirl”). Monroe is being played by Michelle Williams.
What about our own acting icons, what challenges should they tackle to further “stretch” their thespic muscles and limits?
Major event
Should the Nora Aunor return to the country this year, as promised, she should make a movie with (again, the) Vilma Santos. They appeared onscreen together decades ago, to great effect and acclaim, so it would be a major film event if they worked together again, this time as mature actresses.
Among our male thespians, we want to see Ronaldo Valdez, Mark Gil, Mario O’Hara, Robert Arevalo, Willie Nepomuceno, Behn Cervantes, Leo Rialp and Tommy Abuel act together on the big screen.
Why that particular combination of outstanding actors? Because we think they’d all turn in memorable albeit wildly divergent portrayals in a film about, say, all sorts of men in the approaching and/or urgently imminent twilight of their years—!
