Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep has often named Jessica Lange's performance in Sweet Dreams as one she admired, in a role that Streep herself had wanted:

Wolf Schneider: What's the role you wanted most that got away?  

Meryl Streep:  I really loved that movie that Jessica Lange made, Sweet Dreams, about Patsy Cline. But I wasn't offered it, so it's not like it really got away. It was Jessica's from the beginning, even though (director Karel Reisz) was a good friend of mine. But I got his house in London in recompense when I was shooting Plenty. I said, "Well, if you weren't going to pick me for that, the least you can do is give me your house in Hampstead." And he did!

WS:  Was this before you'd proven you could sing in 1990's "Postcards From the Edge"?

MS:  Oh, I don't know. When I saw [Sweet Dreams] – this is the most important part of that story – I couldn't imagine doing it as well or even coming close to what Jessica did because she was so amazing in it.

--Meryl Streep, interviewed by Wolf Schneider, San Diego Union-Tribune, July 30, 2004

RC:  It's hard to imagine anyone else playing this character [in Doubt]. Has there ever been a role that got away from you -- for scheduling or whatever reason -- that you look back and wish you could have done?

MS:  Yeah, but I probably wouldn't have been as good as the person that did it.

RC:  Are you going to elaborate?

MS:  I've always loved Patsy Kline and I always wanted to do that story of her life. Jessica Lange did it and she was fantastic.

RC:  You got your chance at singing, though, in Mamma Mia?

MS:  Yeah, I got my chance 20 years later.

[Forgetting Postcards, not to mention Lange lipsynchs]  

--Meryl Streep, interviewed by Reelz

"...There have been movies that I have really, really, really, really, really wanted to do but they didn't want me and I went to see the movie and I thought, "They were right." Because... I mean, I think of Sweet Dreams that Jessica Lange did with Karel Reisz - and he was a friend of mine -- and he was the director and, yeah, he cast Jessica and I went to see that movie and I thought, "Nobody can do that better than that. I mean, it was divine. That's a great movie to check out."

 --Meryl Streep, interviewed by Andy Cohen, Watch What Happens Live, August 9, 2009

Q:  Have you ever envied anybody in your life?

MS:  Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah! I envied Jessica Lange when she got Sweet Dreams. That was such a great movie; she was beyond wonderful in it. I wished for things that I haven’t had, but I have to say my blessings are pretty great, so I have no complaints.

--Meryl Streep, The Talks, July 13, 2011