At the Palm Springs Film Awards on Thursday night, Meryl Streep made a rare public appearance and heaped some big praise on Barbie in the process.
Streep, who was on hand at the event to present Carey Mulligan with the International Star Award, took the stage following the presentation of an earlier award to Billie Eilish and Finneas for their hit song “What Was I Made For?” Before presenting to Mulligan, Streep told the duo, “I just want to say to Billie and Finneas that you have delivered the Barbie love bomb. You’ve saved the movies last summer and all of our jobs. You’ve delivered joy to countless generations and genders of people, and you should surf that wave kids, until you’re old and deserve to be jaded like me.”
Turning her attention to Mulligan and her buzzy performance in Maestro, Streep said “if you were trying to identify one essential quality that Carey brings to the wide and wildly varied characters she’s played, it really is located in what she withholds from us… It’s like the smaller tremors that we get here in California. Not really measurable, nothing shifts, but you’re aware that the earth is roiling below and what when that cracks open, she can bring your house down.”
Accepting her award, Mulligan gushed over Streep’s appearance, acknowledging that she asked the superstar to present for her with “very little expectation, obviously.”
“I was in the car alone on my way home from the Maestro premiere and I got her reply. I opened it expecting, you know, ‘I can’t sorry, Christmas, etc.’ And she said, ‘Of course darling, I’ll throw on a frock and I’ll drive down.’ And I went, ‘Fuck off!’ And my driver looked at me like I was personally offending him and he was horribly offended. And I had to apologize and say, ‘I’m so sorry, but Meryl Steep!’” she joked. “I’ve been telling people all Christmas, ‘Meryl Streep is giving me a prize.’ Everyone says, ‘Fuck off!’ It’s a big deal but anyway,” turning to Streep to tearfully say, “You’re just my hero, you know you’re my hero, you’ve always been my hero.”
Mulligan also spoke about Bradley Cooper asking her to go “all in” for the role of Felicia Montealegre in Maestro, admitting that she said she would “but I sort of internally winced when he asked me to because ‘all in,’ truthfully, made me feel preemptively rather embarrassed because I’m English. I also failed to get into drama school and I’ve sort of always staunchly resisted the notion of being an artist. I think because it’s really scary to be an artist… it’s vulnerable and you give a lot of yourself and I think that terrified me.”
But in playing the part, she said she did indeed go all in — “I did the embarrassing actor things and I’m so grateful to her for that, to Felicia and to her incredible children, Jamie, Alexander and Nina Bernstein. And because of this experience, I can call myself an artist.”
Killers of the Flower Moon, Emma Stone, Cillian Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Greta Gerwig, Jeffrey Wright, Colman Domingo, Danielle Brooks, Billie Eilish, Finneas O’Connell and Paul Giamatti were also honored at the Palm Springs event.
