Meryl Streep meets the audience in Cannes and urges them: "Don't give up!"

The last time she had been to Cannes was 1989, she was 40 years old, had three children and was convinced that her career as an actress would soon be over.

"They told me I would need nine bodyguards to come to Cannes. I thought they were crazy. But the Croisette was very different from now where there are barriers and security. The microphones and cameras were coming at you - Streep stands up and mimes waving a microphone over her head -. When I retreated to the hotel room I was shaking".

She came for Evil Angels by Fred Schepisi and won the Palme d'Or for Best Actress. "I was so scared to pick up that award. I don't feel like anything. I'm not a rock star. I have a boring life," and when the crowd noisily protested she corrected herself. "Boring no, but I mean I don't do hyperbolic things."

Kramer vs. Kramer and The Hunter

The review of her many unmissable roles begins and when the interviewer pronounces the title Kramer vs Kramer many in the room scream. Legend has it that Streep intervened on the script to correct her character. "It's true. I tried to give more depth to the mother figure. In the novel there was a lot of interest in the father and how he would raise the child while keeping his job. So it would also end up in the film because Robert Benton was a scriptwriter and also a director. The mother returns after 18 months and Dustin Hoffman says: "I know why she left". And I retort: 'You know and not me?' So I claimed my right to write my speech in court. We drafted three versions: one me, one Robert and one Dustin. And I won."

It was 1979 and the film had an impact on society. "I didn't really realise that. Every film speaks to its time. Even stupid people have their time. And films are made to make money. Kramer vs Kramer was, however, difficult to finance. My work was about the human aspect of a small provincial girl. And Iam a small provincial girl. Normally directors never ask me what I think, but in this early part of my career I did with Cimino. He knew that my boyfriend had come back from Vietnam completely addicted to heroin. In The Hunter in 1978 he allowed me to make a variation on the script'.

For Kramer vs Kramer Streep took her first Oscar for supporting actress and left the statuette in the restaurant. "I had a very heavy dress, I had to hold it up and I put the statuette down. Someone took it....," she chuckles.

My Africa

A scream from the audience comes when My Africa is mentioned. Of that film that became a box-office smash Streep has two memories, one related to an insect, the size of a hand, that she feels descending on her back as she is acting. At the end of the scene Meryl screams and someone slaps her back and the huge insect is executed. And then the scene where Robert Redford has to wash her hair in the river and he does it with a sloppy massage. Then Roy Helland, makeup artist and hair stylist to Meryl Streep, intervenes and shows Redford how to do a real head rub: "One of the most sensual scenes I've ever shot. It was an intimate scene. A loving touch, full of care. I never wanted it to end, despite the terror of the hippos."

The great directors

Then we expand on his entire endless filmography, from musicals to comedies, to all the directors he has worked with; Cimino, Pakula, Allen, Schepisi, Spielberg, Nichols, Pollack, Zemeckis, Demme, Soderbergh.

"Mike Nichols was incredible. He could give me such a great sense of confidence that I thought I had given the part that colour and instead he did it, obliquely. He was always joking, he kept the whole crew entertained, but he had a very specific goal. He was so clever that he gave the actors the confidence to do everything. If the actor had to laugh, he would simulate laughter behind the camera. Spielberg is a genius, he has a total understanding of the scene. Nichols worked in interaction with the actors'.

At one point Meryl softly retorts 'I have a hangover after last night's binge on Dupieux's film. We are all exhausted'.

Standing up, she greets and thanks the adoring audience at her feet. She blows kisses and cheers him: 'Don't give up, don't give up, don't give up'.