Actress Meryl Streep has become more politically outspoken following President Donald Trump’s election, and at least one major figure in Hollywood is ready to support her should she decide to throw her own hat in the ring for elected office.
In a brief interview with Streep inside her office this week, Vogue editor-in-chief and Condé Nast creative director Anna Wintour told the actress she should run for public office. Streep appears on the cover of the magazine’s December issue.
“Are you going to run for office? You should! You should,” Wintour told Streep with a smile.
The three-time Oscar-winner promptly laughed off the suggestion: “No! Are you mad? You should. You’re a good boss. I’m a boss that’s beat up, at my house. The one who gets the last say in anything.”
The meeting between the two powerful women comes amid a sprawling and ongoing sexual misconduct scandal in Hollywood, in which dozens of prominent figures in the entertainment and media industries have been accuse of sexual harassment, assault, abuse, and even rape, a topic on which Wintour pressed Streep for her thoughts. The actress came under fire in October after a video of her 2012 Golden Globes acceptance speech resurfaced, in which she called now-accused rapist and alleged serial sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein a “god.”
“This moment is absolutely thrilling,” Streep said. “This is a door that will not be closed. We’ve got a foot in there now. And it’ll be very difficult for people to conduct their lives the way they have in the past. ‘Oh, that’s just locker room talk. Oh, that’s just the way men are.’ No, it’s not. We’re civilized people, and we learn from our mistakes.”
Wintour also asked Streep what she predicts Hollywood’s awards season will look like this year in the wake of all the allegations, to which the actress replied she believes the industry will be more “aware.”
“I think it might lead to the moment where, at least in my business, where people walk into a room and they look around and they see three women and nine men, and they think there’s something wrong, that it’s off,” Streep said.
Of course, the actress made headlines herself at this year’s Golden Globes in January, delivering a strongly-worded criticism of then-President-elect Trump while accepting a lifetime achievement award for her acting. Streep blasted Trump for what she called his “instinct to humiliate,” and called on a “principled press” to stand up to the president.
Streep is set to play the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming historical drama The Post, about the newspaper’s publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum