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In the wake of sexual harassment allegations facing Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep has opened up about an incident while they were shooting the Academy Award-winning 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer when Hoffman actually slapped Streep during a scene.
In an interview with the New York Times, Streep said that when you are an actor, it’s tricky when it comes to shooting scenes because “you have to feel free.” She adds, “I’m sure that I have inadvertently hurt people in physical scenes. But there’s a certain amount of forgiveness in that.”
On her first day on the set of Kramer vs.Kramer, Streep shot a physical scene with Hoffman. And on the first take, he slapped her. “And you see it in the movie,” she said. “It was overstepping.”
She continues, “But I think those things are being corrected in this moment. And they’re not politically corrected; they’re fixed. They will be fixed, because people won’t accept it anymore. So that’s a good thing.”
The interview included Streep’s thoughts on the current sexual harassment allegations that have been plaguing Hollywood as of late. Considering she worked with Harvey Weinstein on numerous projects, scrutinizing eyes were on The Post actress when the NYT story broke about Weinstein’s accusations. She recalls that when she found out she said she “went home deep into my own life.” She then saw that people were demanding she respond on Morning Joe.
She said, “I really had to think. Because it really underlined my own sense of cluelessness, and also how evil, deeply evil, and duplicitous, a person he was, yet such a champion of really great work.
“You make movies. You think you know everything about everybody. So much gossip. You don’t know anything. People are so inscrutable on a certain level. And it’s a shock. Some of my favorite people have been brought down by this, and he’s not one of them.”
Many people say that she was being complicit and Streep insisted that she really didn’t know about Weinstein. She’s heard the rumors, but “thought that that was a way of denigrating the actress and her ability to get the job” — which she said “really raised my hackles.”
“I didn’t know that he was in any way abusing people,” she added. “He never asked me to a hotel room. I don’t know how his life was conducted without people intimately knowing about it.”
But when it comes down to it, Streep doesn’t want to hear about her silence. “I want to hear about the silence of Melania Trump. I want to hear from her. She has so much that’s valuable to say,” she said. “And so does Ivanka. I want her to speak now.”
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