"I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I'm honored to be that way for young actors"
About this Quote
The word “idolatry” does a lot of work here: it’s deliberately excessive, almost embarrassing in its honesty. Streep isn’t dressing up influence as some tasteful, abstract “admiration.” She’s naming the teenage, poster-on-the-wall kind of devotion that fuels ambition before you have the language to justify it. That candor is the hook, because it frames acting not as a solitary calling but as a relay race powered by obsession.
The subtext is a quiet refusal of the myth that great performers are self-made. By admitting she once put predecessors on a pedestal, she normalizes a hierarchy in the arts: you learn by fixating, copying, studying. At the same time, she’s careful to keep “idolatry” in the past tense. She’s not endorsing hero worship as a permanent state; she’s describing it as a developmental phase that, ideally, matures into craft.
Context matters because Streep occupies a rare cultural position: she’s both an institution and still working, still visible. When someone like her says she’s “honored to be that way,” it’s gracious, but it’s also an acknowledgment of power. Being idolized means shaping taste, standards, even what young actors think is “serious” work. The line reads like humility, yet it subtly claims responsibility: if you’re a model, you’re part of the machinery that makes the next generation dream in the first place. In an era skeptical of icons, she’s arguing that icons are inevitable; the ethical question is what you do with the pedestal.
The subtext is a quiet refusal of the myth that great performers are self-made. By admitting she once put predecessors on a pedestal, she normalizes a hierarchy in the arts: you learn by fixating, copying, studying. At the same time, she’s careful to keep “idolatry” in the past tense. She’s not endorsing hero worship as a permanent state; she’s describing it as a developmental phase that, ideally, matures into craft.
Context matters because Streep occupies a rare cultural position: she’s both an institution and still working, still visible. When someone like her says she’s “honored to be that way,” it’s gracious, but it’s also an acknowledgment of power. Being idolized means shaping taste, standards, even what young actors think is “serious” work. The line reads like humility, yet it subtly claims responsibility: if you’re a model, you’re part of the machinery that makes the next generation dream in the first place. In an era skeptical of icons, she’s arguing that icons are inevitable; the ethical question is what you do with the pedestal.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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