Meryl Streep is not exactly thrilled with the state of modern movies.
The Oscar winner, now back on the press trail for ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2,’ said Hollywood has leaned too hard into superhero-style storytelling, where everyone gets sorted into obvious heroes and villains.
Speaking alongside Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt on the ‘Hits Radio Breakfast Show,’ Streep said the industry has started flattening characters in a way that makes movies less interesting.
“I think we tend to Marvel-ize the movies now,” Streep said. “We got the villains and we got the good guys, and it’s so boring.”
For Streep, the problem is not superhero movies alone. It is the way that kind of structure has spread into other films.
Streep Wants Messier Characters
Streep said real drama comes from characters who are harder to categorize.
“What’s really interesting about life is that some of the heroes are flawed and some of the villains are human and interesting and have their own strengths,” she said.
That, she added, is part of what draws her back to ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’
“So that’s what I like about this [film],” Streep said. “It’s messier.”
Streep reprises her role as Miranda Priestly in the sequel, returning to the high-fashion world nearly 20 years after the 2006 original. The first film became a modern classic partly because Miranda was never just a simple villain. She was intimidating, brilliant, cruel, funny and extremely watchable.
That kind of ambiguity seems to be exactly what Streep thinks Hollywood needs more of.
She Previously Doubled Her ‘Devil Wears Prada’ Salary
Streep has also been unusually candid during this press cycle about how she first joined the original movie.
In a separate interview on ‘Today,’ she revealed that she initially rejected ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ offer because she believed the studio needed her and should pay accordingly.
“I said, ‘No, not going to do it,’” she recalled.
Then she doubled her ask. The studio agreed.
“They went right away and said, ‘Sure,’” Streep said. “It took me this long to understand that I could do that!”
She said she was 56 at the time and felt ready to retire if the deal did not work out.
“They needed me, I felt,” she said. “I was ready to retire. That was a lesson.”
Hathaway Also Raised An AI Red Flag
The interview also touched on AI, another theme reportedly explored in ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2.’
When asked whether Miranda would use AI, Streep suggested her character would not need it because she already has assistants to handle such tasks.
That prompted Hathaway to share a recent experience while interviewing candidates for a role. She said each person followed up with almost identical thank-you notes, which she suspected were written using ChatGPT.
The moment fit the larger conversation around the sequel: fashion, work, status, automation and whether Hollywood still values sharp human judgment.
For Streep, the complaint is clear. Movies need fewer flat heroes, fewer obvious villains and more people who feel as complicated as real life.
