The award-winning actress, who has long been an LGBTQ+ ally, returns to her iconic role of Miranda Priestly in the upcoming 'The Devil Wears Prada 2'.
Acting royalty Meryl Streep is returning as sharp-tongued fashion editor Miranda Priestly in the upcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2, which hits cinemas worldwide next week.
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During the press tour for the sequel to the 2006 film, Streep commented on the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada with the LGBTQ+ community.
“It makes me so happy! Would we have fashion without gay people?” she told Out magazine. “Forgive me, would we have anything? I wouldn’t know how to put together anything. It’s a joy to have made it with [the LGBTQ+] community in mind. Top of mind.”
She added that the new film has been well received by people from a wide variety of backgrounds, saying: “It’s cross culture. We’ve just been around the world with this. The reaction is the same in Mexico City as Tokyo, as Seoul, as Shanghai... I honestly was surprised. I really was surprised by the universality of the response and from so many different kinds of people.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 sees Streep joined by returning cast members, including Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci.
Streep said of her cast members: “I feel so lucky to be able to come back to something we did 20 years ago. Who gets to do that? We've had a whole lifetime. Look at Stanley Tucci! He's blossomed! [Emily Blunt] blossomed at birth.”
Streep has long been an LGBTQ+ ally, expressing support for the queer community on numerous occasions.
In 2004, during her Golden Globes acceptance speech for Angels in America, she spoke out in support of marriage equality, condemning then-president George W. Bush for his anti-gay marriage stance.
In 2017, the Human Rights Campaign honoured her with its Ally for Equality Award, saying she had used her voice throughout her career to support LGBTQ+ people. In her speech, she took aim at anyone threatening to disrupt the progress women, people of colour and the accomplishments of the LGBTQ+ community.
“We should not be surprised that fundamentalists, of every stripe, are exercised and fuming,” she said. “We should not be surprised that these profound changes come at a steeper cost than we originally thought. We should not be surprised that not everyone is actually cool with it.”
Streep also memorably ended her speech by saying: “There is a prohibition against the establishment of a state religion in our Constitution, and we have the right to choose with whom we live, whom we love and who and what gets to interfere with our bodies. As Americans, men, women, people, gay, straight, L, G, B, T, Q, all of us have the human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And if you think people got mad when they thought the government was coming after their guns, wait till they come and try to take away our happiness!"
The Devil Wears Prada 2 premiered on 20 April in New York and hits the majority of European theatres on 29 April. It lands in cinemas in UK and US on 1 May.
