Meryl Streep finally reveals inspiration for The Devil Wears Prada character
Meryl Streep has revealed she based her icy character Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada on two Hollywood directors - Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood.
Meryl Streep based her character in The Devil Wears Prada on two Hollywood directors.
The 76-year-old actress played icy magazine editor Miranda Priestly in the first film in 2006 and she has reprised the role for the sequel - The Devil Wears Prada 2 which hits cinemas in May - and now Streep has dispelled long-running rumours suggesting her inspiration came from famed Vogue boss Anna Wintour and revealed she actually based her portrayal on her experience of working with moviemakers Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood.
During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the actress explained: "I was basically imitating Mike Nichols that whole time. If Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood had a baby … it would be Miranda Priestly ...
"The command on the set. And Mike would do it sort of with a sly humour. And Miranda, she knows that what she’s saying is sort of snide, but she knows it’s kind of funny too. And that little way of doing things, people take as mean, but it’s funny. I think it’s funny."
She added of Eastwood: "Clint would never raise his voice. He would direct and people had to lean forward to hear what he was saying … He’d often shoot the rehearsal and then move on. So his crew was like on the balls of their feet. No one was sitting down except me."
Meryl went on to reveal she never told Eastwood he inspired her performance in The Devil Wears Prada - based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same name - but she did tell Nichols.
She added: "I told Mike, and he was thrilled."
Longtime Vogue boss Wintour was long rumoured to have inspired the character of Miranda Priestly and she previously admitted she wore a Prada outfit to the movie's premiere in 2006 because she had no idea what it was going to be about.
During an appearance on The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast, Wintour said: "I went to the premiere wearing Prada, completely having no idea what the film was going to be about. And I think that the fashion industry were very sweetly concerned for me about the film, that it was going to paint me in some kind of difficult light ...
"First of all it was Meryl Streep, which, fantastic. And then I went to see the film, and I found it highly enjoyable. It was very funny. Miuccia [Prada] and I talk about it a lot, and I say to her: 'Well it was really good for you' ... [It] had a lot of humor to it. It had a lot of wit. It had Meryl Streep. I mean, it was Emily Blunt, [and] they were all amazing. In the end, I thought it was a fair shot."
