“Mamma Mia,” “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “The Iron Lady”…is there really a part this lady can’t play?

Meryl Streep is up there amongst my favourite actresses.

I don’t need to introduce her. She is an icon, a living legend. She has been described as “the best actress of her generation.” She has been nominated for an Oscar more times than any other actor in history, not to mention all the other big awards in the film industry. She knows how to act, she knows how to sing, and she has an excellent ability to imitate foreign accents in her movie roles.

But when I truly admire a celebrity, I look beyond what they do on camera. Beyond all the flashing lights and the behind-the-screens, she is a mother of four, a wife, and an environmental health activist. She is passionate about women’s rights. Meryl is always using her spotlight on stage to speak out for women’s opportunities, the #metoo movement, and complimenting her fellow female actresses for their work.

Now, at the age of 72, she is still doing what she does best.

She has often commented on the problem of ageism in Hollywood (particularly because she is a woman). “I remember as I was hovering around 40, I thought each movie would be my last, really,” she declared to a magazine. But now, she says she has stopped caring, and that life is to be lived to the fullest no matter what.

“At 48 you were getting out the shovel ready to go in…I’m out there on behalf of all the old broads and I’m proud to be there.”

I have picked out 11 of Meryl Streep’s best quotes on living life freely and as worry-free as possible. I hope they inspire you as much as they inspire me.

1. “I think that you find your own way…In the end, it’s what feels right to you. Not what your mother told you. Not what some actress told you. Not what anybody else told you but the still, small voice.”

2. “Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head.”

3. “The formula of happiness and success is just, being actually yourself, in the most vivid possible way you can.”

4. “What makes you different or weird—that’s your strength.”

5. “All that attention to the perfect lighting, the perfect this, the perfect that, I find terribly annoying.”

6. “It’s amazing what you can get if you quietly, clearly and authoritatively demand it.”

7. “My daughters had helped me to stop worrying about my appearance over the years. I wasted so many years thinking I wasn’t pretty enough and why didn’t I have Jessica Lange’s body or someone else’s legs? What a waste of time.”

8. “The minute you start caring about what other people think, is the minute you stop being yourself.”

9. “You have to embrace getting older. Life is precious, and when you’ve lost a lot of people, you realize each day is a gift.”

10. “Everything that truly makes us happy is quite simple: love, sex, and food! Everything else – power, influence, strength – all those things can overpower what’s important in life. But as long as you have food and shelter over your head, if the necessities are taken care of, what makes us happy on top of that is very simple.”

11. “There are some days when I, myself, think I’m overrated…but not today. ”

Long may she reign!
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