April 13, 1997

Way to go, Meryl
Meryl Streep in yet another different role.

ASK Meryl Streep to play any character, any class, any country, any historical era, and before you know it, she'll be speaking the language like a native. Unless it's 1990's American Young Person. In her new film Marvin's Room, she plays the mother of Leonardo Dicaprio, Hollywood's Romeo du Jour and card carrying Young Person. But though they represent different generations of movie stardom, the two got on famoulsy.

The movie marks one more milestone in the career of one of Hollywood's most honoured actresses-winner to two Oscars, for best supporting actress in Kramer vs Kramer (1979) and for best actress in Sophie's Choice (1982) - along with seven other nominations.

But despite the acclaim, 47-year-old Streep has resolutely resisted the Hollywood lifestyle. She lives with her husband, sculptor Donald Gummer, their 17-year-old son and three daughter , ages 13, 10 and 5, in Connecticut, far from the glitz of Los Angles. The actress is so insistent on being there for her kids that during the filming of Mervin's Room a helicopter constantly stood by to whisk her home from New Yourk as soon as her work day was over.

And no, she doesn't necessarily understand her kids any better than she understood DiCaprio. "My son plays this God-awful acoustic-guitar music night and day," she griped good-naturally. "Is this stuff art?"

Marvins's Room, based on Scott McPherson's 1991 off-Broadway play, casts Streep in a role with many resonances for her, both personal and parental. She plays Lee, a blonde, tough-as-nails hairdresser who returns home with her sons (DiCaprio and Hal Scardino) when her spinster sister Bessie (Diane Keaton) is diagnosed with leukemia. Bessie has spent her entire life caring for their stroke-victim father (Hume Cronyn) and senile aunt (Gwen Verdon), while Lee has always run from any sense of familial responsibility.

"I had played enough good people," she said. "I wanted to be the nasty one." Nevertheless, Streep identified with Lee in certain ways. "I know a bit about her feeling of dissatisfaction. I know about thinking, "Oh, my life is over there somewhere and I'm stuck her. " 'There is also a personal connection with the role of caregiver, through her ill-starred romance with actor John Cazale, who won praise in The Godfather (1972) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

"Yes, in 1977 I had a boyfriend who got sick,"l she said. 'He was sick for two years with cancer and he died. Maybe in a way that's what made me not want to play Bessie," she said. "I guess I wanted for once to be the person who ran away from something bad, because in my real life I was the person who didn't walk. I cared. I filled the spaces."

Born as Mary Louise Streep, the actress grew up in New Jersey as the older sister to two brothers. Her father was a pharmaceutical executive while her mother was a commercial artist. Despite having lived an apparently charmed life - homecoming queen, cheerleader, star to high- -school plays -Streep said that she was actually painfully insecure. It was her role in a school production at age 15 that changed all that.

Still, she didn't envision herself as a movie star. "I didn't think I was pretty enough, " she said. She arrived in New York in 1975, and worked at the New York Shakespeare Festival between waitressing gigs. Her big break was a small role in the 1977 film Julia. A year later, she had an Academy Award nomination for The Deer Junter and an Emmy for her harrowing performance in the NBC mini-series Holocaust.

Since then, Streep' s career choices have been wildly eclectic, ranging from the grim Ironweed (1987) to the slapstick comedy Death Becomes Her (1992), from the action movie the River Wild (1994) to the lushly romantic The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

"I never set out to do anything,' Streep said. "All I ever set out to do was get another job. After this one is over, get another one. I guess now, with the work, it's about trying to keep you values and your integrity."

And, of course, it's about trying to keep a family going while sustaining a movie career. "I get very busy at the end of the day if people are not hustling their butts to finish the day's work so I can get on that helicopter and fly home," she said.

This can lead to conflicts with actors such as Robert De Niro, a noted method actor and perfectionist who appears in Marvin's Room and who also shared the screen with Streep in The Deer Hunter (1978) and Falling in Love (1984).

Further complicating the situation is that one of her daughters -she won't say which- show signs of wanting to follow in her footsteps. "On daughter is very interested in art. The other just wants to be famous, " she said. "She hates that I'm famous because it intrudes on her life. So I say to her, "If you become an actress this will happen to your kids. They'll be interrupted and shoved to get to you. How will that make yours kids feel?"

But even the great Streep can't put that one over on a 1990s American Young Person. "She yells, I don't care, Mother!" " Streep said, laughing. "' I want to be famous. I just don't like it that you are!" '

CINDY PEARLMAN

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